AGOSTINO di DUCCIO. — Sculptor and architect (born in Florence in 1418, died c. 1481). His artistic education is unknown; nevertheless, especially in his very low relief, the influence of Donatello can be discerned, while his manner likewise reveals an affinity with the technique of Florentine goldsmiths and bronze sculptors.
His vision of reality is essentially linear, and in this he is akin to his contemporary Botticelli, whom he also recalls in the expression of his languid and thoughtful figures. — Vedi Tavv. XXXVI-XXXVIII.
After several works of lesser importance, in 1447 A. undertook the decoration of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, and there displayed all the finest qualities of his art, enlivening the architecture of six chapels with highly original sacred and secular representations, to which the polychromy of the marbles and the colour of the stuccoes impart animation and gaiety. In 1457 he was summoned to Perugia to decorate the façade of S. Bernardino, which he himself had erected in the manner of Alberti, and there left a distinguished monument of decorative art, in which statues and bas-reliefs are combined and enlivened by polychromy. More restrained and more coherent, that is, free from the excessive filling of sculptural elements, is the Porta S. Pietro in the same city.
Among his independent sculptures, we may recall the exceedingly graceful Madonna with Child and Angels in the Museo dell’Opera del duomo in Florence, in which, as in his other sacred works, the lightness of the lines and the delicacy of the relief produce a sense of refined elegance.