If you can get in to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence to see this sculpture in the flesh, and if no one’s looking or the guard doesn’t mind, lie down on the floor and look up. The reason is that it was made to be seen from below – its original location was in a niche half way up the bell tower which stands next to the cathedral or Duomo high up above the city’s central piazza. Seen from this perspective certain aspects of the figure make more sense: the tapered form of his body is less elongated; his left hand, strangely, is more visible from below than at eye level. But be warned: you’ll also find yourself staring directly into his face.
The figure is thought to represent the Old Testament prophet Habbakuk, though no one is entirely certain as much of the documentation in the cathedral archives is missing. Vasari, the first biographer of so many Italian Renaissance artists, described this as Donatello’s greatest work. He also describes how Donatello himself, whilst carving the figure, was heard to cry out to his unfinished creation, ‘Damn you, speak!’ This of course is a reference to the legend of Pygmalion and may well not be literally true – but the link to a classical tale would have been intended as the greatest accolade possible at the time. Ironically, and one I like to think that Donatello would have rather enjoyed, it was Habbakuk who said ‘Woe betide him who says to the wood, wake up, to the dead stone, bestir yourself.’
There is a crackling tension in the drapery, in particular the tunic we see on his left side: a visual metaphor for the electrifying energy prophecy brings in its wake. What I admire most about the piece is Habbakuk’s face and head. Donatello had a penchant for the strange, the grotesque and the bizarre, all of which can be felt here in the shape of Habbakuk’s head, the slightly protruding lower jaw, the sense too that he has a squint or lazy eye. I can imagine this figure spitting or drooling involuntarily as he speaks. The sculpture’s nickname, ‘zuccone’ means idiot. Divine revelation does not always come through official channels. In Christian theology the point is quite the opposite: God’s message comes through the poor, the lowly, the side-lined, the overlooked, the ridiculed. It seems to me that this is one of the things Donatello’s sensitive to here. Looking up into the zuccone’s face may well be disturbing, and the hard floor may be uncomfortable, but that’s the price we have to pay for the sense of awe.
