Donatello’s ‘New’ Madonna and Child

Visitors to the Bargello National Museum in Florence, Italy can now delight in seeing Donatello’s “Madonna of Via Pietrapiana” up close.

“Madonna of Via Pietrapiana,” circa 1450–1455, by Donatello. Terracotta; 33 7/8 inches by 25 1/4 inches by 4 7/8 inches. Bargello National Museum, in Florence, Italy. Courtesy of Bargello National Museum

For centuries, Donatello’s “Madonna of Via Pietrapiana” has been hidden in plain sight in the center of Florence. Experts had long believed a follower of the Italian master had created the terracotta bas-relief that was hung high in a tabernacle frame under a street sign on a villa at the address Via Pietrapiana 38. But in 1985, after the work had been restored, writer and art historian Charles Avery attributed the obscure relief to Donatello, as an autographed work. It was the master’s last privately owned work.

For centuries, one of Donatello’s terracotta madonnas was hung high on an unassuming villa in Florence, Italy. In this image taken in 2013, we can see the early Renaissance master’s “Madonna of Via Pietrapiana” under the street sign it's named after. Sailko/CC SA-BY 3.0 DEED