The severe and cautious style of Donatello, after gaining freedom and fervour from Leopardi, was adapted to the ideal presentation of dramatic passion by Lionardo.

Thus Gattamelata, Colleoni, and Francesco Sforza would, through their statues, have marked three distinct phases in the growth of art.

The final effort of Italian sculpture to express human activity in the person of a mounted warrior has perished.

In this sphere we possess nothing which, like the tombs of S.Lorenzo in relation to sepulchral statuary, completes a series of development.
If Donatello founded no school, this was far more the case with Ghiberti.
His supposed pupil, Antonio del Pollajuolo, showed no sign of Ghiberti's influence, but struck out for himself a style distinguished by almost brutal energy and bizarre realism--characteristics the very opposite to those of his master.

If the bronze relief of the "Crucifixion" in the Bargello be really Pollajuolo's, we may even trace a leaning to Verocchio in his manner.