Bandinelli (or Baccio) Bartolommeo
Baccio Bartolommeo. Self-Portrait
Oil on canvas, 147 x 112 cm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Baccio Bartolommeo
Baccio Bandinelli, (born Nov. 12, 1493?, Florence [Italy]�died Feb. 7, 1560, Florence), Florentine Mannerist sculptor whose Michelangelo-influenced works were favoured by the Medici in the second quarter of the 16th century.
Bandinelli was trained as a goldsmith by his father, Michelangelo di Viviani de� Bandini, who was patronized by the Medici family. Showing a marked predilection for sculpture, he worked under the sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici and became one of the principal artists at the court of the Medicis, grand dukes of Tuscany. He founded an academy for artists in the Vatican (1531) and one in Florence (c. 1550). Accounts of Bandinelli given in Giorgio Vasari�s Lives and in the Autobiography of the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini represent him as jealous, malignant, and untalented. He assumed the surname Bandinelli in 1530.
Bandinelli�s surviving works prove him to have been a more distinguished sculptor than his contemporaries allowed. His copy of the Laocoön (Uffizi, Florence), his statue of Hercules and Cacus (1534; Piazza della Signoria), and his reliefs on the choir screen of Florence Cathedral explain the vogue that his austere, rather arid work enjoyed at the Medici court. In later life his sculpture was supplanted by the works of Cellini and Bartolommeo Ammannati. Shortly before his death Bandinelli, aided by his son Clemente, sculpted his own tomb (1554; Santissima Annunziata, Florence), noted for its Dead Christ Supported by Nicodemus (the latter figure a self-portrait).
Baccio Bartolommeo. Prophets
Duomo, Florence
Baccio Bartolommeo. Sleeping Hercules
Baccio Bartolommeo. Adam and Eve
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
Baccio Bartolommeo. Bust of Cosimo I
Baccio Bartolommeo. Andrea Doria as Neptune
Piazza del Duomo, Carrara
Baccio Bartolommeo. Hercules and Cacus
Marble, height: 505 cm
Piazza della Signoria, Florence
Baccio Bartolommeo. Pietà
Marble, over life-size
Santissima Annunziata, Florence
Baccio Bartolommeo. Equestrian Statue of Cosimo
Bronze, height 28 cm
Baccio Bartolommeo. Faun
Baccio Bartolommeo. Tjte colossale
Baccio Bartolommeo. Le Phre Eternel
Baccio Bartolommeo. Boboli Gardens
Baccio Bartolommeo. Laocoon
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence