MUSEUM TRIP TO SEE SCULPTURE IN THE AGE OF DONATELLO

On Thursday, April 23, 2015, forty-nine of us visited the Museum of Biblical Art on Broadway and 61^st to see twenty-three masterpieces of early Florentine Renaissance sculpture—most never seen outside Italy. MOBIA is the sole world-wide venue for this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition. These works—by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Nanni di Banco, Luca della Robbia and others—were made in the first decades of the fifteenth century for the Florence Cathedral (“Il Duomo”), which was then in the last phase of its construction. They are figural complements to Brunelleschi’s soaring dome, conveying an analogous sense of courage and human potential. Like the dome, these statues of prophets and saints express the spiritual tension of a faith-driven humanism destined to transform Western culture.

To round off a perfect Italian odyssey, we dined at Justin’s Ristorante in Wood-Ridge.