Image Not Available

Antonio Rossellino

Italian, 1427 - 1479

BiographyBorn Settignano, 1427–8; died Florence, 1479.

Sculptor, brother of Bernardo Rossellino. He belonged to the same generation as Desiderio da Settignano and Mino da Fiesole; his development more closely parallels theirs than it does that of his brother, and his style is softer and more fluid. Yet it should be assumed that Antonio received his formal training from his brother, and there are clearly similarities in their work, especially from the 1450s.

1. Life and works.

Antonio’s first signed and dated work, a portrait bust of the distinguished physician Giovanni Chellini (1456; London, V&A), follows the mode established by Mino da Fiesole’s bust of Piero de’ Medici (Florence, Bargello). The rendition of the facial features suggests the influence of Roman Republican portraiture (Lightbown, 1962), and the only comparable work from the Rossellino workshop, the portrait medallion on the tomb of Neri Capponi (Florence, Santo Spirito), may also be an early work by Antonio (Schulz, 1977). The detailing of Chellini’s features is balanced by the simplicity of the base and by the forceful outline; the symmetrical, planar arrangement of the head is further emphasized by the tightly compressed hair. Even in profile, the head is presented as an oval, and the features are aligned with an almost geometrical precision. A similar abstraction of shape can be seen in the Portrait of a Woman (Berlin, Skulpgal.). While the typical idealization of the portrait is different from the harsh realism of the Chellini bust, the hard folds of the drapery and the sharp distinction between head and body suggest this was also an early work. The freer and livelier marble bust portrait of Matteo Palmieri (Florence, Bargello), which has been considerably damaged owing to its original placement on the exterior of the sitter’s home, is inscribed 1468.

The central monument of Antonio’s career is the funerary chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal in S Miniato al Monte, Florence (1461–6; see Florence, §IV, 7). Cardinal James of Portugal, who died in Florence in 1459 aged 25, had requested to be buried in the Florentine church and, according to the account of Vespasiano da Bisticci, left the commissioning of his tomb to the Bishop of Silves. Two contracts are known: the first of December 1461 is with Antonio alone; the second, made three weeks later, includes Bernardo. It appears, however, that Antonio was chiefly responsible for the sculpture, most of which is his own work, although workshop participation can be assumed. The chapel opens from the north aisle of the church, through a triumphal arch entrance, a motif repeated in the interior. To the right of the altar is the marble tomb, and opposite this is a marble episcopal throne below a frescoed Annunciation by Alesso Baldovinetti. The altarpiece was painted by Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo in 1466 (see Pollaiuolo), and the domed vault is decorated with terracotta reliefs by Luca della Robbia. The original architect, Antonio Manetti, died in 1460 and was succeeded by Giovanni Rossellino; Antonio was probably responsible for the overall design of the decoration of the chapel, for which, in accordance with his original contracts, a model was submitted. The combination of a variety of media was unprecedented at that date and an important innovation.

The tomb fills the right-hand niche of the chapel, and feigned marble curtains are drawn back to reveal the sarcophagus and effigy, which lies on a bier, the head supported on a pillow from which hang swinging tassels. The bier is supported by two weeping putti, precariously perched on a tomb inspired by an antique prototype. A pair of angels, who seem to have just alighted on the cornice above, lead the eye to a roundel with the Virgin and Child, supported by flying angels. The Virgin, with light, fluttering drapery on her right shoulder, leans forward and gazes tenderly at the effigy. The angels and the Virgin and Child are sharply carved, animated figures, while the base of the tomb reveals Antonio’s control of soft, delicate relief-carving. The use of Classical motifs, the concern for an idealized, but still recognizable naturalism and a surface finish that produces an effect of almost gem-like brilliance reveal Antonio’s mastery of the dominant trends in mid-15th-century Florentine sculpture. To these he added a new interest in the depiction of movement, most obviously in the angels that surround the tondo of the Virgin and Child, but also in the swinging tassels that hang from the pillow beneath the Cardinal’s head, the fluttering drapery on the Virgin’s right shoulder and the seated putti, precariously perched on the sarcophagus. The overall integration of the chapel depends on its use of a single, pervasive scale, and Antonio’s figures are neither so monumental that they overwhelm the viewer nor so delicate that they retreat into the background. The Virgin and Child in the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal is his only securely datable relief of this subject; other marble reliefs attributed to him are difficult to arrange chronologically. The Virgin and Child (New York, Met.) was probably earlier and is one of the most successful.

In 1467 the tomb of Filippo Lazzari (d 1462) was installed in S Domenico, Pistoia, a commission that Giovanni and Antonio had inherited from Bernardo. The relief of Lazzari Teaching is a notable example of Antonio’s interest in perspective. In 1473 Antonio was paid for three reliefs—the Presentation of the Virgin’s Girdle to St Thomas, the Stoning of St Stephen and the Funeral of St Stephen—for the interior pulpit in Prato Cathedral, a project underway by 1469. These reliefs reveal his interest in the Antique, both in the heavy reliance on undercutting and in the deeply drilled passages of hair evident in the St Stephen reliefs. The decorated column in the Stoning of St Stephen must also have been derived from the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome. Antonio is not known to have visited Rome, and his numerous quotations from antique images may have been inspired by coins, gems, sarcophagi and sketchbooks. The reliefs were also influenced by Filippo Lippi’s frescoes in the same church as well as reflecting Antonio’s study of Lorenzo Ghiberti, in the relationship of figure to architecture, and of Donatello, in the intense dramatic quality of the poses and gestures.

The life-size marble statue of St Sebastian (Empoli, Mus. S Andrea), the central image in a painted altarpiece by Francesco Botticini, is without parallel in Antonio’s work. Two marble angels placed above the gilt wooden frame are workshop versions of similar figures in the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal. Most critics have dated it c. 1470–75, the date of Botticini’s painted angels, but the date remains controversial (Pope-Hennessy, 1963; Apfelstadt, 1987). The elegance of the finish is combined with a sure knowledge of anatomy, and the expression and placement of the head, which reflect Hellenistic models (Pope-Hennessy, 1970–71), are especially telling.

Antonio’s late works reveal a growing fascination with the depiction of movement and an increasingly sophisticated ability not only to depict the individual elements of a face or body but also to imbue these features with emotional depth. The Running Infant St John the Baptist (1477; Florence, Bargello), which was made for the lunette over the doorway of the Palazzo dell’Opera di S Giovanni, illustrates Antonio’s interest in the activated figure. Its apparent coarseness reflects only its elevated position, while the complicated pose suggests a Classical source, possibly one of the groups known as Alexander and Bucephalus (Rome, Piazza del Quirinale). There is also a striking resemblance between this figure and the young John the Baptist in Filippo Lippi’s painting of the Adoration (Florence, Uffizi). Lippi’s influence is also apparent in a tondo of the Nativity (Florence, Bargello), which, in its narrative complexity and variety of images, is a strikingly pictorial work.

The tomb monument of Francesco Nori (Florence, Santa Croce), probably commissioned and completed before the patron’s death in 1478, is a highly unusual work. The monument consists of a tomb slab on the floor and a holy water font and relief of the Virgin and Child in a mandorla fixed to the south side of the first pier on the right side of the nave. The elegance of the surface treatment demonstrates the high quality of Antonio’s late productions.

2. Workshop.

Although Antonio became responsible for the sculptural output of his brother’s workshop sometime after 1451, he did not rent his own workshop until 1469, while his surviving brothers stayed at the first workshop. In the 1470s Antonio shipped many tombs and altars to cities outside Tuscany, and his repetition of images, especially from the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, suggests that he kept scale models both of his three-dimensional sculpture and of his reliefs. He probably learnt to do so from Bernardo. Among these works, the chapel of St John the Baptist (1471–6) in S Giobbe, Venice, built for the Martini family (Schmarsow, 1891), is a simplified reduction of the chapel in S Miniato, with a marble altarpiece produced in the Rossellino workshop in Florence. The statue of St John the Baptist is attributable to Antonio. In 1475 Antonio received payment for work on the tomb of Bishop Lorenzo Roverella in S Giorgio, Ferrara. Although the monument is signed by Ambrogio da Milano alone, the head of the effigy, the lunette decoration and the free-standing statuettes are the work of Antonio and his workshop. Antonio also intervened in the arrangement of the upper half of the monument.

The largest late workshop commission was for the tomb of Maria of Aragon in the Piccolomini Chapel of the church of Monteoliveto (also known as S Anna dei Lombardi) in Naples. The work was still unfinished at Antonio’s death, and in 1481 the patron requested the return of 50 florins from the sculptor’s heirs. The project then passed into the hands of Benedetto da Maiano. The monument imitates the tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, although the compression of the sarcophagus and effigy and the loss of the coloured inlays suggest a deliberate reduction of the original. Antonio’s direct intervention can be seen in the tondo of the Virgin and Child, where the rounder forms are close to those of the Virgin in the Nori monument. For this chapel Antonio also carved an altarpiece of the Nativity in which the Nativity itself forms the central image with statues of St James and St John the Evangelist flanking it, while a predella below depicts scenes from the Life of Christ and of the Virgin. The Nativity relief is an autograph work, and its richly pictorial style is close to that of the tondo of the Nativity (Florence, Bargello). The St James and the St John the Evangelist represent a logical progression from the figures sent to Venice and Ferrara; the Ascension relief on the predella, which was probably completed by Benedetto, also seems to have originated with Antonio. The half-length figures in the tondi are more problematic (Hersey, 1969): an attribution to Benedetto da Maiano is unlikely, however, since they appear so different from the figures carved by Benedetto for the Terranuova Chapel in the same church. The young prophet on the right bears notable comparisons both with Antonio’s relief figures from Prato and with the St Sebastian at Empoli. Antonio was still alive in 1478 and probably died the following year from the plague (Carl, 1983).

Shelley E. Zuraw and Alessandra Anselmi. "Rossellino." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T073983pg2 (accessed April 12, 2012).

Person TypeIndividual