Giovanni Battista Caccini

Giovanni Battista Caccini (1556 — c. 1612-1614) was an Italian sculptor from Florence, who worked in a classicising style in the later phase of Mannerism. He was born at Montopoli in Val d'Arno between Florence and Pisa; his training was with the sculptor-architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio, known for his accurate drawings of Roman antiquities, and Caccini's numerous interpretive restorations of Roman sculptural fragments gave him the reputation of being a knowledgable antiquarian, while the inescapable influence of Giambologna and his circle can be seen in Caccini's bronze statuettes. [Martin Weinberger, "Bronze Statuettes by Giovanni Caccini" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 58 No. 338 (May 1931), pp. 230-233+235. (A "Bacchus" and "Ceres" in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris; an ex-Medici "Bacchus" in the Bargello)] Caccini was in close cooperation with Pietro Tacca and the rest of Giambologna's pupils in the prolonged cooperation over the bronze doors for the Pisa cathedral.

Fragmentary antiquities were not to the sixteenth-century collectors' taste. Caccini produced a head for an antique torso, and a further, crouching figure to produce the "Bacchus and Ampelos" in the Uffizi, which was once attributed to Michelangelo. [The group was recognized as Caccini's by Alois Grünwald, "Uber einige unechte Werke Michelangelo's," "Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst" (1910) p. 11ff.] He restored a fragmentary "Apollo Sauroctonos" as an "Apollo with the Lyre" (Uffizi). He could also improvise on antique themes: The biographer of artists Rafaello Borghini reported in 1730 that "In truth he was highly skilled in diligently putting together pieces, and counterfeiting, the Antique." [Borghini, "Il Riposo" (Florence 1730), "E di vero molto vale nel commeter con diligenza pezzi insieme, e contrafar, l'antico"." Martin Weiberger illuminated this aspect of Caccini's working career in "A sixteenth-century restorer" "The Art Bulletin" 27 (1945), pp 266-69. ] His garden sculptures produced the required bold silhouttes and copious attributes that the genre requires.

As an architect, his notable work is the portico of the Santissima Annunziata, Florence (1601).

elected works

* Figure of S.Giovanni Gualberto, Badia di Passignano, Val di Pesa, 1580
*"Bust of Christ", c. 1595 (Rijksmuseum)
*"Temperance" (Metropolitan Museum of Art
*"Charles V crowned by Clement VII", Salone del Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
*"Ciborium" in Santo Spirito, Florence.
*Among numerous allegorical statues in the Boboli Gardens, Florence:
**"Seasons", four figures in the Boboli Gardens, Florence
**"Youthful Jupiter" (attributed), Boboli Gardens. [C. Caneva, "The Boboli Gardens" 1982, p. 42, no. 38.; attributed in Louis Alexander Waldman, "A Case of Mistaken Identity: The Martellini Jupiter by Giovanni di Scherano Fancelli" "The Burlington Magazine" 140 No. 1149 (December 1998, pp. 788-798) p. 789.]
*"Seasons", two figures for the Ponte Santa Trinita, Florence

Notes