Francesco Caglioti has written a masterful pair of volumes that transform our knowledge about Donatello’s bronze sculptures, the David and the Judith and Holofernes, and consequently our understanding of quattrocento (and cinquecento) Florentine sculpture. The author supports his arguments with an impressive array of documentary discoveries, evidence culled from unpublished contemporary sources, and careful rereading of well-known writers like Giorgio Vasari. Caglioti is equally skilled in stylistic analysis and shows a prodigious command of Renaissance works of art. Despite the focus indicated by the book’s title, its range is in fact much broader, including a detailed history of both sculptures and their bases after their removal from the Medici Palace in 1495, and their consequent interaction with and influence on sculptures by Andrea del Verrocchio, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giovanni Francesco Rustici, and Baccio Bandinelli. Caglioti also uncovers much new evidence about the sculptures’ physical context in the courtyard and garden of the Medici Palace, where they were installed from ca. 1464–95, demonstrating that they were displayed along with a fountain sculpted by Antonio Rossellino and Benedetto da Maiano and a significant collection of antique sculptures, including two statues of Marsyas and one of Priapus. The last three statues were restored by...