- Baccio da Montelupo
Baccio da Montelupo (1469 - 1523(?)), born Bartolomeo di Giovanni d'Astore dei Sinibaldi, was a sculptor of the
Italian Renaissance . He is the father of another Italian sculptor,Raffaello da Montelupo . Both father and son are profiled inVasari 's "Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori " (or, in English, "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects").Life
Born into a family of modest social conditions in
Montelupo Fiorentino , he moved at eighteen toFlorence and pursued the study of sculpture, attending the "scuola" ofBertoldo di Giovanni , founded in the gardens ofLorenzo de' Medici and attended by other young sculptors includingMichelangelo ,Giovanni Francesco Rustici , andJacopo Sansovino .Baccio received his first important commission from the friars of the
Basilica of San Domenico inBologna , for a "Compianto" (lamentation scene), a series of terracotta statues (c. 1495). He then returned to Florence where he created several wooden Crucifixes: at the Basilica di San Lorenzo and San Marco, both in Florence, the Badia di SS. Flora e Lucilla in nearbyArezzo , and the church of San Martino in the Florentine municipality ofLastra a Signa .In Bologna, Baccio created 12 busts of the
Apostles in terracotta (now in the Cathedral ofFerrara ). [ [http://www.efn.org/~acd/vite/VasariBaccioM.html Link to on-line biography of Baccio and Raffaello da Montelupo from Vasari's "Vite"] .]In
1506 , Baccio received a commission for several sculptures for the Benedictine abbey ofSan Godenzo , of which today only the "San Sebastiano" survives.The crowning moment of his career perhaps came with the commission in 1514 from a competition sponsored by the Florence silk merchants guild to create a statue in bronze for one of the remaining empty niches on the facade of
Orsanmichele . Vasari writes:It is said that when he had made the figure in clay, all who saw the arrangement of the armatures, and the moulds laid upon them, held it to be a beautiful piece of work, recognizing the rare ingenuity of Baccio in such an enterprise; and when they had seen it cast with the utmost facility, they gave Baccio credit for having shown supreme mastery, and having made a solid and beautiful casting. These labors endured in that profession, brought him the name of a good and even excellent master; and that figure is esteemed more than ever at the present day by all craftsmen, who hold it to be most beautiful. [ [http://www.efn.org/~acd/vite/VasariBaccioM.html Link to on-line biography of Baccio and Raffaello da Montelupo from Vasari's "Vite"] ]
Baccio's bronze "St. John the Evangelist" took its place on the exterior of
Orsanmichele beside works by Italian masters of the preceding century:Donatello ,Lorenzo Ghiberti , andNanni di Banco .In
1515 he created a marble "edicola" surrounding a fresco of the Virgin Mary in the church of Sant'Agostino atColle di Val d'Elsa . Toward the end of the decade, he worked primarily in the area ofLucca , completing a marble "Pietà" for the church ofSegromigno (1518). He then worked on a series of funeral monuments including "Tomba del vescovo Silvestro Gigli" (San Michele al Foro , with his son Raffaello; "Monumento di San Silao" (now atMuseo di Villa Guinigi , Lucca); and "Monumento a Giano Grillo" (Santa Maria dei Servi , Bologna).Baccio died around 1523, in Lucca.
References
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