DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO Italian sculptor, was born at Settignano, near Florence, and was for a short time a pupil of Donatello, whom, according to Vasari, he assisted in the work on the pedestal of David, and he seems to have worked also with Mino da Fiesole, with the delicate and refined style of whose works those of Desiderio seem to have a closer affinity than with the perhaps more masculine tone of Dona tello. It does not appear that Desiderio ever worked elsewhere than at Florence ; for there are to be found there his few surviv ing decorative and monumental works, though a number of his delicately carved marble busts of women and children are to be found in the museums and private collections of Germany and France. The most prominent of his works are the tomb of the secretary of state, Marsuppini, in Santa Croce, and the great marble tabernacle of the Annunciation in San Lorenzo, both of which belong to his later period, and the cherubs' heads which form the exterior frieze of the Pazzi chapel. Vasari mentions a marble bust, by Desiderio, of Marietta degli Strozzi, which has been identified as a marble portrait bust acquired by the Berlin museum in 1842. The Berlin museum also owns a coloured plaster bust of an Urbino lady, by Desiderio. Other important busts by the master are in the Bargello, Florence, the Louvre in Paris and in private collections.