SALÒ, Pietro di Lorenzo da - b. ~1510 ?, d. ~1570 Venezia

Italian sculptor, part of a family of sculptors. He worked in Venice and Padua. His style principally shows the influence of his teacher, Jacopo Sansovino, but also derives from that of Alessandro Vittoria and Danese Cattaneo. Two records of payment exist, from 4 July 1535 and 5 July 1549, for some unspecified works carried out at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice, and in 1536 he executed and signed the statue of Mars for Doge Andrea Gritti’s balcony at the Doge’s Palace. Further works there include two chimneys executed in 1553-54 in collaboration with Danese Cattaneo.

From 1557 Pietro also worked on figural decorations on the façade of the library of St Mark’s. In 1554 he competed unsuccessfully for the prestigious office of Proto al Sal (Master Builder of the Doge’s Palace). Besides state commissions he executed a portrait bust for the tomb of Pietro Lando (c. 1545; untraced) and some of the figure sculpture for the tomb of Alessandro Contarini (1555-58; Padua, Sant’Antonio). His son Domenico di Pietro da Salò (active Venice, 1542-1571) was also a pupil of Sansovino.

St George Fighting the Dragon

There are still reliefs showing St George on many buildings in Venice, showing that they once belonged to the abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore or the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. The relief commissioned by the Scuola from Sansovino’s pupil Pietro da Salò in 1551 outdid these older works in its high degree of plasticity and the entirely new dynamic of the depiction of the battle. The relief must have created a sensation even before its installation, attracting the attention of Venetian artists and connoisseurs, among them Tintoretto, who made use of Pietro da Salò’s composition in his own St George and the Dragon.