Basilica del Santo Crucifix

The Basilica del Santo Crucifix is a 1444–1447 bronze sculpture by

Probably the artist's first important commission in Padua, it may have even have been the offer of producing this work in bronze (a difficult and costly material) which tempted him to leave Florence for Padua in 1443. He acquired the wax for its modello in 1444 and the work was first displayed in the basilica in 1447, with Donatello paid the last installment of his fee in 1449. He was working on the fencing for the choir at the same time and so the crucifix was probably originally intended for the centre of that space rather than the high altar. It does not form part of the artist's 1446–1450 scheme of reliefs for that altar, though it was so highly prized by the monks that it probably gained him that later commission.^[2]

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