"Donato was a very simple and modest man of manners, with that modesty that was common to the majority of artists of those times and under which were hidden a powerful intellect, an admirable intelligence, a soul full of enthusiasm for art. Good, courteous, affectionate with everyone, it can be said that he had no enemies and, remaining completely alien to the terrible struggles that in those times held our city upside down, he managed to have sincere and affectionate friends in every class of citizen, in every political faction, so much so that his death was a mourning in which all of Florence participated, finding in the admiration and mourning of its supreme fellow citizen a harmony of feeling that perhaps had never been demonstrated on other occasions. (p. 12)"