BANDINELLI, Baccio

These statues were originally intended as ornament for the presbytery enclosure of the Cathedral in Florence, to be placed in the area at the head of the cross. They were later removed because of their excessive sensuality, echoing the manner of Cellini.

The figure of Alessandro de’Medici, at right to the seated Pope Leo X on the Udienza, was derived from Donatello’s marble St George (Florence, Bargello) but is risibly inferior to it in conviction and characterization.

This drawing is related to Bandinelli’s statue of Doria meant for a public place in Genoa. It was never finished and remains in Carrara where the marble was quarried and the preliminary work took place.

This sculpture, located in the left niche of the fa�ade of Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens, is paired with the statue of Ceres on the right, even though the two works were not created with the intent to display them together. The general layout is reminiscent of a recurring model in Bandinelli’s production and the pose is clearly inspired by Michelangelo’s David. In his left hand, Apollo appears to hold the remains of a bow, today considered a fragmented attribute; in his right hand, he holds a bandoleer, to which he would have attached the quiver.

A project began in 1547 to replace Brunelleschi’s octagonal wooden choir enclosure and altar under the crossing of Florence Cathedral with a grand new marble one, decorated with bronze reliefs and marble statuary. Its balustrade survives and once contained a series of 88 upright rectangular panels of individual Old Testament figures, depicted in a great variety of poses and from different angles, in characteristically academic fashion (64 panels in situ, the rest in Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence). They are carved in a creditable imitation of Donatello’s shallow relief: some on the western side are initialed BBF and dated 1555.

Baccio was sent off to Loreto to help Andrea Sansovino with one of the large reliefs for the marble revetment of the Santa Casa inside the Loreto basilica; he made several preparatory sketches and began carving the Birth of the Virgin between 1517 and 1519 (in situ), but abandoned work about half way through (the panel was eventually finished, 1530-33, by Raffaello da Montelupo). It is a rather arid and static rendering of the scene, perhaps reflecting a lack of enthusiasm for the remote Loretan commission that was shared by other Florentine sculptors.

Bandinelli was the son of a prominent Florentine goldsmith who was in the good graces of the Medici. Baccio remained loyal to the Medici, despite their being in exile from 1494 to 1513, and this led to a flow of commissions after the elections to the papacy of Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici) in 1513 and of Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici) a decade later; after Cosimo de’ Medici became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1537, these increased still further. This political stance made him unpopular with most Florentines, including Michelangelo, who were Republican at heart, and this lay at the root of much of the adverse criticism - not always justified - that greeted Bandinelli’s statues.

According to Giorgio Vasari, the sculpture was made by Baccio Bandinelli, in competition with his rival Benvenuto Cellini. The two sculptors were commissioned by Cosimo I to produce his portrait in bronze as proof of their respective abilities. For Baccio, this was his chance to regain the appraisal of the Grand Duke, who had not been happy with one of his previous portraits, commissioned for Palazzo Vecchio.

Even though this was not the first time Baccio had reproduced the image of the Grand Duke, in this work in particular the physiognomy of the portrait is surpassed by the sculptor’s attempt to place the figure in a precise historical and cultural context. He created the bust bearing in mind the ancient statuary tradition and it aims to show that the Medici family belonged to a historical past characterized by civil and politic virtues. Cosimo is presented as a leader with a firm and proud expression; he is wearing a piece of armor portraying two griffins facing one another, symbolizing protection, perhaps a reference to the protection guaranteed to the city of Florence by the Medici family.

According to Giorgio Vasari, the sculpture was made by Baccio Bandinelli, in competition with his rival Benvenuto Cellini. The two sculptors were commissioned by Cosimo I to produce his portrait in bronze as proof of their respective abilities. For Baccio, this was his chance to regain the appraisal of the Grand Duke, who had not been happy with one of his previous portraits, commissioned for Palazzo Vecchio.

Even though this was not the first time Baccio had reproduced the image of the Grand Duke, in this work in particular the physiognomy of the portrait is surpassed by the sculptor’s attempt to place the figure in a precise historical and cultural context. He created the bust bearing in mind the ancient statuary tradition and it aims to show that the Medici family belonged to a historical past characterized by civil and politic virtues. Cosimo is presented as a leader with a firm and proud expression; he is wearing a piece of armor portraying two griffins facing one another, symbolizing protection, perhaps a reference to the protection guaranteed to the city of Florence by the Medici family.

This marble Pietà (Dead Christ Tended by an Angel) is in the Famedio (basement, crypt) of Santa Croce in Florence.

This portrait of Cosimo is one of the earliest sculptural portraits of the duke, probably the first done in antique style. The Duke’s antique regalia have ancient imperial associations.

An unusual feature of the bust, the separate carving of head and torso (which in turn is in three parts), is a known working method of Bandinelli. In fact, carving a bust in separate pieces was an ancient Roman practice, as Bandinelli would have known from examples he could study in Florence and Rome.

The sharp turn of the head, a motif found in many of Bandinelli’s works, is meant to make Cosimo appear decisive; it appropriately echoes the pose of Michelangelo’s Giuliano de’ Medici in the Medici Chapel of the church of San Lorenzo, Florence.

The ultimate success of Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1545-53; Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi) was a severe blow to the morale of his rival, who had always experienced problems with statuary in bronze. Cellini also managed to produce some very credible carvings in marble, thus threatening Baccio in his chosen field, while pressure mounted after 1555, when Vasari and Ammanati both returned to Florence to work for the Grand Duke and Ammanati was awarded the desirable sculptural commission for the Fountain of Juno. Bandinelli contented himself with finishing off, in collaboration with his son Clemente, an over life-size group of the Dead Christ Supported by Nicodemus, the latter given his own features, for his tomb in Santissima Annunziata. This was doubtless inspired by the knowledge that Michelangelo was working on a Pietà for his tomb.

Bandinelli’s design was derived from his ideas for the choir of the cathedral, and though a peculiar composition, given the awkward physical relationship between the figures, it is reasonably satisfactory and well carved in detail.

The ultimate success of Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1545-53; Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi) was a severe blow to the morale of his rival, who had always experienced problems with statuary in bronze. Cellini also managed to produce some very credible carvings in marble, thus threatening Baccio in his chosen field, while pressure mounted after 1555, when Vasari and Ammanati both returned to Florence to work for the Grand Duke and Ammanati was awarded the desirable sculptural commission for the Fountain of Juno. Bandinelli contented himself with finishing off, in collaboration with his son Clemente, an over life-size group of the Dead Christ Supported by Nicodemus, the latter given his own features, for his tomb in Santissima Annunziata. This was doubtless inspired by the knowledge that Michelangelo was working on a Pietà for his tomb.

Bandinelli’s design was derived from his ideas for the choir of the cathedral, and though a peculiar composition, given the awkward physical relationship between the figures, it is reasonably satisfactory and well carved in detail.

This marble relief by the workshop of Baccio Bandinelli is based on the drawing by Pontormo showing Cosimo I de’ Medici in profile.

This statue may be connected to a project, never carried out, for an equestrian monument which Bandinelli proposed to the attention of Duke Cosimo. The wooden base inlaid with hard stones was typical of the collection of bronze statuettes belonging to Cosimo I.

The talents of Baccio Bandinelli - an ambitious imitator and rival of Michelangelo at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici - revealed themselves particularly in drawing and small-scale plastic art. His monumental sculptural groups are full of contradictions and compositional discord, but in smaller works he demonstrates the clear molding of volumes, smooth treatment of the marble, and moderate use of detail that laid the foundation for academic Classicism.

The figure of Giovanni delle Bande Nere is at right to the seated Pope Leo X on the Udienza.

Bandinelli had become distracted by his aim of cheating Niccolò Tribolo of a commission for a tomb in San Lorenzo for the father of Duke Cosimo, Giovanni delle Bande Nere. He succeeded in 1540, but even so, he never brought it to completion, though the elaborate pedestal with a handsome and extremely Mannerist relief was erected in the Piazza San Lorenzo: his indifferent statue of Giovanni delle Bande Nere Seated, a travesty of Michelangelo’s Captains in the New Sacristy, was put on top only in 1851.

Bandinelli was not a realistic portraitist; for him the portrait was an ideal image, which preserved only the general aspect of the sitter’s face. The head of his statue of Giovanni delle Bande Nere is far from reality.

Bandinelli had become distracted by his aim of cheating Niccolò Tribolo of a commission for a tomb in San Lorenzo for the father of Duke Cosimo, Giovanni delle Bande Nere. He succeeded in 1540, but even so, he never brought it to completion, though the elaborate pedestal with a handsome and extremely Mannerist relief was erected in the Piazza San Lorenzo: his indifferent statue of Giovanni delle Bande Nere Seated, a travesty of Michelangelo’s Captains in the New Sacristy, was put on top only in 1851.

Bandinelli was not a realistic portraitist; for him the portrait was an ideal image, which preserved only the general aspect of the sitter’s face. The head of his statue of Giovanni delle Bande Nere is far from reality.

The genesis of Hercules and Cacus dates to 1508 when a marble block was ordered for Michelangelo to carve as a counterpart to the David. However, the marble was not delivered until 1525 and was given to Bandinelli as Michelangelo was working on the Medici Chapel. His first model was incompatible with the block but he continued on the project through the 1527 expulsion of the Medici. In 1528, with the republicans in control, Michelangelo was given the block for a Samson and Philistine but after the Medici return in 1530 he was instructed to resume work in the chapel and Bandinelli to continue the Hercules and Cacus. After seeing it installed as a pendant to the David in the vast Piazza, Bandinelli concluded that the muscles were “too sweet” and further exaggerated it.

The basic theme of victor over vanquished seems forced and devoid of tension in comparison to Michelangelo’s Victory. In trying to outdo the David, it is rigidly posed and the facial grimaces are like deeply drilled caricatures.

The genesis of Hercules and Cacus dates to 1508 when a marble block was ordered for Michelangelo to carve as a counterpart to the David. However, the marble was not delivered until 1525 and was given to Bandinelli as Michelangelo was working on the Medici Chapel. His first model was incompatible with the block but he continued on the project through the 1527 expulsion of the Medici. In 1528, with the republicans in control, Michelangelo was given the block for a Samson and Philistine but after the Medici return in 1530 he was instructed to resume work in the chapel and Bandinelli to continue the Hercules and Cacus. After seeing it installed as a pendant to the David in the vast Piazza, Bandinelli concluded that the muscles were “too sweet” and further exaggerated it.

The genesis of Hercules and Cacus dates to 1508 when a marble block was ordered for Michelangelo to carve as a counterpart to the David. However, the marble was not delivered until 1525 and was given to Bandinelli as Michelangelo was working on the Medici Chapel. His first model was incompatible with the block but he continued on the project through the 1527 expulsion of the Medici. In 1528, with the republicans in control, Michelangelo was given the block for a Samson and Philistine but after the Medici return in 1530 he was instructed to resume work in the chapel and Bandinelli to continue the Hercules and Cacus. After seeing it installed as a pendant to the David in the vast Piazza, Bandinelli concluded that the muscles were “too sweet” and further exaggerated it.

The basic theme of victor over vanquished seems forced and devoid of tension in comparison to Michelangelo’s Victory. In trying to outdo the David, it is rigidly posed and the facial grimaces are like deeply drilled caricatures.

The genesis of Hercules and Cacus dates to 1508 when a marble block was ordered for Michelangelo to carve as a counterpart to the David. However, the marble was not delivered until 1525 and was given to Bandinelli as Michelangelo was working on the Medici Chapel. His first model was incompatible with the block but he continued on the project through the 1527 expulsion of the Medici. In 1528, with the republicans in control, Michelangelo was given the block for a Samson and Philistine but after the Medici return in 1530 he was instructed to resume work in the chapel and Bandinelli to continue the Hercules and Cacus. After seeing it installed as a pendant to the David in the vast Piazza, Bandinelli concluded that the muscles were “too sweet” and further exaggerated it.

The basic theme of victor over vanquished seems forced and devoid of tension in comparison to Michelangelo’s Victory. In trying to outdo the David, it is rigidly posed and the facial grimaces are like deeply drilled caricatures.

Baccio Bandinelli had a long series of projects for monumental statues of muscular, nude Classical gods or heroes - often showing Hercules, but sometimes Neptune - which obsessed the sculptor. Only a few of these were actually executed. The principles that Bandinelli advocated in his statuettes are the same as he proclaimed in marble on a larger scale. Sometimes the feet of his figures are retracted, sometimes they are advanced, but always the body is set flat across one plane.

The Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli produced a number of pen and ink studies on the theme of the Holy Family (the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, and the Christ Child), all drawn with his typically incisive clarity of contour and orderly hatching. However, the reclining Classical-style female figure with one bare breast (at centre) is not easily reconciled with traditional portrayals of the Virgin Mary. Rather, the arrangement of the figures in the present drawing may be inspired on the many variations of pose seen in the family groups among the Ancestors of Christ in Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling frescoes (1508-12).

As a draughtsman, Bandinelli derived some of his techniques from Michelangelo as well as Rosso Fiorentino.

With the statuary, Bandinelli set himself ambitious goals that he was hard put to achieve. Most turned out badly, and several were hastily converted by simple changes in their attributes into equivalent figures from Classical mythology, for display elsewhere. For example, a colossal figure of God the Father in Benediction for the Santa Croce, Florence became Jupiter in the Boboli Gardens.

Lao�con is an antique marble group (now in the Vatican Museums) representing the Trojan priest Lao�con and his two sons being crushed to death by snakes as penalty for warning the Trojans against the wooden horse of the Greeks, and incident related by Virgil in the Aeneid. It is usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC or the 1st century AD, although whether it is an original Hellenistic piece or a Roman copy has long been a matter of dispute.

Bandinelli was commissioned for making a copy of the Laoco�n by Pope Leo X. In his copy the artist made several modifications and additions to the original.

Like many of Bandinelli’s projects, his commission to paint two large frescoes for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence came to nothing. However, his patron was so impressed by his drawing for the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence that he granted him the Knighthood of Saint Peter. In order to spread the fame of this admired design, Bandinelli hired Marcantonio Raimondi to engrave it. Bandinelli is said to have complained to the pope of Marcantonio’s failings. However, when Clement VII compared the drawing and the print, he concluded that the engraver had corrected many of Bandinelli’s errors.

This engraving was made by Giulio Sanuto (active c. 1540-1580) after Baccio Bandinelli and Marcantonio Raimondi.

Returning to Rome in mid-1519, Bandinelli was drawn by papal patronage into the circle of Raphael and designed a large and complex Massacre of the Innocents to be engraved (c. 1520-21) by Marco Dente: its debt to Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving of the same subject after Raphael has always been acknowledged, but it did much to enhance Baccio’s reputation internationally.

A project began in 1547 to replace Brunelleschi’s octagonal wooden choir enclosure and altar under the crossing of Florence Cathedral with a grand new marble one, decorated with bronze reliefs and marble statuary. Its balustrade survives and once contained a series of 88 upright rectangular panels of individual Old Testament figures, depicted in a great variety of poses and from different angles, in characteristically academic fashion (64 panels in situ, the rest in Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence). They are carved in a creditable imitation of Donatello’s shallow relief: some on the western side are initialed BBF and dated 1555.

Bandinelli proposed to Pope Leo X a model of David Severing Goliath’s Head to replace Donatello’s David (Florence, Bargello), which had been removed from the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici, Florence, by the Republicans, but instead he was commissioned to carve a statue of Orpheus (c. 1519; in situ) for this position. Its composition was unashamedly derived from that of the Apollo Belvedere (Rome, Vatican, Museo Pio-Clementino), and it is accounted one of his best early works.

The marble sculpture portrays Orpheus enchanting with his song the three-headed dog Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld. The nude figure stands in the courtyard on a pedestal made by Benedetto da Rovezzano and Simone Mosca.

The seated figure of Pope Leo X, in the cenre of the Udienza, was completed by Vincenzo de’ Rossi.

Before the death of Clement VII in late 1534, Bandinelli made models in wood and wax (untraced) for his tomb and one for Leo X, but by 1536 the architectural design was allocated instead to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, with only the statues and reliefs being reserved for Baccio.

Baccio Bandinelli was an able sculptor and a shrewd court follower, but his tendency to please his patron often prevented him from rising to the heights of truly great art. His style took its oversize aspects from Michelangelo, but his interpretation focused on massive muscular bodies rather than abstract heroic ideas.

The low relief of Prophets on the chancel screen in the Duomo was made with the collaboration of Giovanni Bandini. The way Michelangelo’s ideals have been adopted is interesting.

This self-portrait shows the artist seated in an impressive classical architectural setting and pointing to a drawing of two male nudes, perhaps representing Hercules and Cacus, the subject of one of Bandinelli’s most famous sculptures.

All hope that Michelangelo would execute 12 more than life-size statues of Apostles for the Duomo was abandoned in 1508, when he began to work on the Sistine ceiling. For three years the scheme was in abeyance, and then, in the first half of 1511, it was decided to allot to statues separately to such sculptors as were available. In June the first commission, for the St James, was awarded to Jacopo Sansovino. In the second half of 1513, after a vain attempt to induce Andrea Sansovino to undertake two statues, a figure of St John the Evangelist was commissioned from Benedetto da Rovezzano, who completed it in twelve months, and about the same time a St Andrew was commissioned from Andrea Ferrucci.

In 1514 Ferrucci was unsuccessfully invited to carve a second statue, a St Peter, and when he refused, this was entrusted, early in 1515, to a young and unproved prot�g� of Giuliano de’Medici, Baccio Bandinelli.

The coloured marble tabernacles in which the statues are shown were designed in 1563-65 by Ammanati. Thereafter four further figures were commissioned, two (St Philip, 1577, St James the Less, 1576) from Giovanni Bandini, and two (St Matthew, 1580, St Thomas, c. 1580) by Vincenzo de’ Rossi.

Bandinelli’s St Peter for the crossing of the Duomo was inspired by Donatello’s statue of St Mark on Orsanmichele of a century earlier. Its boldly contrived design is smothered in inanimate detail.

In 1529 Bandinelli received a commission in Genoa to produce a monument to Admiral Andrea I Doria, initially conceived by the government as a bronze statue. After some preparatory drawings had been made by Baccio, its material was changed to marble to save money and to suit his predilections. This commission had a chequered history and was abandoned in 1538, resulting only in several marvellous drawings for the statue and its pedestal (Paris, Louvre) and a roughed-out group with the Admiral in the guise of Neptune standing tamely and improbably on the heads of a pair of dolphins (Carrara, Piazza del Duomo).

Andrea Doria, the commander of the imperial navy, could be identified easily with Neptune, the ancient god of the sea. Soon after he liberated Genoa from the French in 1528, city fathers (presumably with Doria’s blessing) commissioned an over-life-sized marble statue of him as Neptune from the Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli. This, the first Renaissance portrayal of a contemporary ruler as a nude Roman god, presented Doria as the pacific (peaceful) Neptune astride two dolphins who spout water into the antique-imitation basin below. The classicising image is alert and vigilant, a bearded counterpart to Michelangelo’s Florentine David, whose stance and bearing Bandinelli clearly emulated. Like David, Doria was to be seen as the city’s liberator and a man of the people.

Bandinelli worked on this statue, meant for a public place in Genow, intermittently from 1528 to 1536; it wasa never finished and remains in Carrara where the marble was quarried and the preliminary work took place.

The subject of this powerful drawing with the head of a man seen in three stages - youth, maturity, and old age - is elusive. Various interpretations have been suggested, from the Ages of Man to an allegory of past, present, and future. The central figure may have been intended as an idealized self-portrait of the artist, the Florentine sculptor and draftsman Baccio Bandinelli.

The portrayal of the three heads on the same scale from three different points of view - to the left, frontally, and in profile to the right - betrays Bandinelli’s interest in the description of forms in the round, an approach suited to his main occupation, sculpture. The juxtaposition of overlapping heads, turned at various angles, seems to have been a recurring theme in Bandinelli’s drawn oeuvre.

The first of the great undertakings contemplated by Cosimo I was for the Udienza, or stage, in the Salone del Cinquecento in the Palazzo della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio), which Cosimo had taken over as his residence.

The Udienza is a raised platform for public audiences at one end of the Salone. The interior of the northerly window wall and the adjacent flanking walls was given a revetment of marble niches in which were ensconced statues of prominent members of the new Medici dynasty, to bolster the legitimacy of its claims to power: Cosimo himself, his predecessor and father and the two popes. That of Alessandro was flatteringly derived from Donatello’s marble St George (Florence, Bargello) but is risibly inferior to it in conviction and characterization, while the sculptor did not achieve much greater success with such of the other statues as he actually began, or delivered, between 1542 and 1547: once again, the project had to be brought to completion later on by other sculptors (e.g. Giovanni Battista Caccini and Vincenzo de’ Rossi).

The first of the great undertakings contemplated by Cosimo I was for the Udienza, or stage, in the Salone del Cinquecento in the Palazzo della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio), which Cosimo had taken over as his residence.

The Udienza is a raised platform for public audiences at one end of the Salone. The interior of the northerly window wall and the adjacent flanking walls was given a revetment of marble niches in which were ensconced statues of prominent members of the new Medici dynasty, to bolster the legitimacy of its claims to power: Cosimo himself, his predecessor and father and the two popes. That of Alessandro was flatteringly derived from Donatello’s marble St George (Florence, Bargello) but is risibly inferior to it in conviction and characterization, while the sculptor did not achieve much greater success with such of the other statues as he actually began, or delivered, between 1542 and 1547: once again, the project had to be brought to completion later on by other sculptors (e.g. Giovanni Battista Caccini and Vincenzo de’ Rossi).

In the picture Pope Leo X is in the centre, Giovanni delle Bande Nere at left, and Alessandro de’Medici at right.