This marble statue depicting the evangelist Matthew was created by Bernardo Ciuffagni between 1410 and 1415, as part of the series of the Evangelists arranged in the niches on the sides of the central portal of the first facade of the Cathedral. The artists in charge of creating this series were initially Niccolò Lamberti, Donatello and Nanni di Banco with the reservation of assigning the fourth figure to the author who created the best sculpture. However, in 1410 the task was assigned to Bernardo Ciuffagni, as the delivery times for the other works were becoming longer. Ciuffagni sculpted, like the others, a figure that pretends to be worked in the round and has an illusory depth and which in reality is carved only in the parts visible from the outside. His Evangelist, elderly, with a face and neck marked by wrinkles, baldness and a downy beard covering his chin, is dressed in a large old-fashioned cloak and, sitting with his torso erect, looks ahead of him with a severe expression, keeping one hand at rest and the other on his Gospel, which he is marking on a page with one finger. Ciuffagni has evidently taken from Donatello's Saint John, without however equaling its expressive strength and naturalness of forms, and his Evangelist remain somehow linked to the linearism and elegance of the young Ghiberti's manner. When the facade was dismantled in 1587, the four Evangelists were relocated to the minor chapels of the central tribune of the Cathedral until, in 1936, they were transferred to the Museum.