PIERINO DA VINCI

For the inauguration in 1550 of Pisa’s market-place, Pierino executed an allegorical statue of Abundance, the contrapposto theme of which is a variation of the earlier River God.

In 1546-47 Pierino stayed in Rome for about a year. The only surviving works that can reasonably be ascribed to Pierino’s Roman period, although possibly begun in Florence, are the pair of bronze statuettes of Pomona and Bacchus, on a bronze base (height 13 cm) that carries the inscription MDXLVII - OPERA DI PIERO DA VINCI, in the Ca’ d’Oro, Venice.

This large, exquisitely carved, low-relief marble panel demonstrates the influence of both ancient reliefs and the style of Michelangelo. Perino was deeply influenced by Michelangelo, whom he had met in Rome. The relief shows the duke elevating a figure representing Pisa. With a general’s baton, Cosimo drives away Pisa’s enemies, who are laden with plunder. Behind him reclines the bearded River Arno, doubtless derived from one of Michelangelo’s river gods planned for the Medici Chapel.

This is Pierino’s most famous and compositionally complex relief, called Pisa Restored. Two preparatory drawings for it are preserved in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence and the Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth.

In Pisa, Pierino began the relief of the Death of Count Ugolino and his Sons, a subject at once Pisan and Dantesque, suggested to him by Luca Martini. Already known through numerous versions in different materials (wax and terracotta, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and private collection, Florence), the original bronze version, mentioned by Vasari, was lost and has been identified at Chatsworth in 2010.

The subject is taken from Canto XXXIII of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The writer, led by Virgil, encounter in Hell Ugolino della Gherardesca. The count recounts the punishment he has suffered: he was imprisoned in a tower, condemned to starve to death in gaol. According to legend, Ugolino died after eating his own sons and grandsons who shared his cell.

In 1546-47 Pierino stayed in Rome for about a year. The only surviving works that can reasonably be ascribed to Pierino’s Roman period, although possibly begun in Florence, are the pair of bronze statuettes of Pomona and Bacchus, on a bronze base (height 13 cm) that carries the inscription MDXLVII - OPERA DI PIERO DA VINCI, in the Ca’ d’Oro, Venice.

In 1546 Pierino supplied the terracotta models (cast in 1547 by Zanobi Lastricati) for the four bronze putti then positioned on the rim of the lower basin of Tribolo’s Fountain of Hercules at Castello. During casting one of Pierino’s putti broke and was replaced by one executed by Tribolo.

In 1546 Pierino supplied the terracotta models (cast in 1547 by Zanobi Lastricati) for the four bronze putti then positioned on the rim of the lower basin of Tribolo’s Fountain of Hercules at Castello. During casting one of Pierino’s putti broke and was replaced by one executed by Tribolo.

Pierino’s first works, which can be dated after 1544, are a series of putti so similar in style to Tribolo’s as to cause frequent misattributions. Among them is the Putto with a Mask made for a fountain.

In Rome in 1547 Pierino extended his knowledge of Michelangelo’s sculptures, and when he returned to Tuscany he began work on a statue which had its subject a theme associated with Michelangelo, was loosely based on Michelangelo’s designs, and was an essay in Michelangelo’s sculptural technique. This is the marble group of Samson Slaying a Philistine, now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio.

In Rome in 1547 Pierino extended his knowledge of Michelangelo’s sculptures, and when he returned to Tuscany he began work on a statue which had its subject a theme associated with Michelangelo, was loosely based on Michelangelo’s designs, and was an essay in Michelangelo’s sculptural technique. This is the marble group of Samson Slaying a Philistine, now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio.

Pierino da Vinci, a nephew of Leonardo and a disciple of Tribolo, did more than merely apply the formulas of his masters. His brief career, cut short by his untimely death at the age of twenty-thre, was marked by some major creations. The marble Young River God, arched in melancholy and distractedly holding an urn supported by laughing putti, has the meditative face that Michelangelo gave his Genius of Victory in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Pierino da Vinci was a hypersensitive marble sculptor. His sensuous apprehension of the possibilities of his material are apparent in the beautiful figure of a River God. The affinities of this enchantingly elegant work are not with Cellini or Bandinelli, but with Michelangelo, and though the tone is more intimate and the idiom more feminine, it is clear that Michelangelo’s Apollo was the source of inspiration of the group.

In 1548 Luca Martini, who had been appointed Provveditore at the Ufficio dei Fossi in Pisa by Cosimo I de’ Medici, summoned Pierino to Pisa to carve a marble statue of a River God, which Martini later presented to Cosimo’s wife, Eleonora of Toledo, and she to her brother, Don Garcia, who put it in the gardens of Chiara, Naples. The statue came from the Palazzo Balzo in Naples.