Luca della Robbia's marble Cantoria (choir gallery or singing loft), carved between 1431 and 1438 for the sacristy of Florence Cathedral and now displayed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, is one of the most joyful works of sacred art in the Renaissance - a direct translation of the theology of Psalm 150 into carved stone that captures, with extraordinary vitality, the physical exuberance of biblical praise.
Psalm 150 is the final psalm of the Psalter and its most extravagant call to worship. 'Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord' (Psalm 150:3-6). The psalm names seven different instruments and invites every living creature into the act of praise - it is the Psalter's final and most comprehensive answer to the question of what human beings are for.
Della Robbia organized his Cantoria into ten rectangular relief panels arranged in two rows, each depicting groups of young musicians, singers, and dancers performing the specific acts of praise named in the psalm. Trumpeters blow their instruments in one panel; young men dance in another; singers open their mouths in full-throated praise; harpists and lyre players bend over their strings. The figures are rendered with classical idealization - smooth skin, graceful drapery, balanced compositions - but their faces and bodies are full of genuine physical life. They are not symbolic representations of praise; they are its embodiment.
The commission was part of a competition between della Robbia and Donatello, who received a simultaneous commission for a companion Cantoria for the opposite sacristy. The contrast between the two finished works is instructive: della Robbia's panels are serene, ordered, classically composed; Donatello's are more frenetic and ecstatic, his putti almost out of control with the energy of praise. Together they represent the full range of the Psalter's worship - from ordered liturgy to ecstatic celebration.
Della Robbia's Cantoria established his reputation and launched his career as one of the leading sculptors of early Renaissance Florence. He subsequently became celebrated for his glazed terracotta reliefs, the distinctive blue-and-white roundels that still adorn buildings across Tuscany. But the Cantoria remains his most ambitious marble work and his most sustained engagement with biblical content.
The Cantoria is displayed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, which also houses Donatello's companion piece and Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. Together these works constitute the most important concentration of early Renaissance sacred sculpture outside the great Florentine churches, and the museum's display allows visitors to compare della Robbia's and Donatello's approaches side by side.