Gold Beneath the Skin

For centuries Donatella's San Ludovico statue was regarded as one of his poorer works. According to the gossipy Renaissance critic, Vasari, somebody once asked the 15th Century sculptor why he had made the saint look so stupid and clumsy, to which Donatello replied that it was all on purpose--he thought Ludovico must have been a sorry fellow to pass up the kingdom of Naples to become a monk.*

Slowly a green crust spread over the maligned statue, darkening and coarsening it until people could hardly believe it was Donatello's at all. At last, in 1908, it was taken down from its place in Florence's church of Santa Croce. When the retreating Nazis demolished the city's ancient bridges and damaged its Uffizi Gallery and Santa Croce, San Ludovico stood serene in an abandoned railroad tunnel, waiting for peace, and justice.

Justice came in the form of a caustic-soda bath. After some thought, restorers, under the direction of Florence's Professor Bruno Bearzi, dissolved the statue's lumpy green shell, showed the gilded bronze beneath. Last week San Ludovico stood on his pedestal again in a Manhattan gallery where visitors paid 60-c- a head to see the ten-foot figure blaze under spotlights in a black-velvet niche.

Perhaps San Ludovico did not represent Donatello's art at its best, but the soft-flowing vestments, meditative young head, and miter adorned with crystals and blue enameling looked good to U.S. gallerygoers. Their money looked mighty good to the Italians who would use it to restore war-damaged landmarks back in Florence. "The art of Florence belongs to the whole world," said one of them last week and, so the world should contribute . .

* At 22, Ludovico renounced his claim to the Naples throne in order to honor a sickbed vow that, if he recovered, he would become a Franciscan. He was made Bishop of Toulouse the same year, died the next, at 23.

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