Giovanni delle Bande Nere Seated

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.