AMMANATI, BARTOLOMEO. — Architect and sculptor, born at Settignano on 18 June 1511, died at Florence on 22 April 1592; pupil of Baccio Bandinelli, he benefited from the influence of Jacopo Sansovino and was a devoted follower of Michelangelo. His activity as a sculptor unfolded chiefly in Florence, Pisa, the Veneto, Rome, and Naples: famous is the *Nettuno* (popularly called *il Biancone*) for the Florentine fountain in Piazza della Signoria, and noteworthy, for their Mannerist and decorative character, are the statues executed for the Boboli Garden. He was presented by Vasari to Giulio III, who, having received a favorable opinion from Michelangelo, entrusted him with the tomb of del Monte in S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome.
As an architect, he left his most important works in Florence (the palaces of the Giugni, Grifoni, Ramirez families, etc., as well as the destroyed Ponte di S. Trinita, which some would attribute to Michelangelo), in Lucca (the Palazzo and Palazzetto della Provincia), and in Rome, where he worked together with Vasari and Vignola on the villa of Pope Julius, for which he also executed the fountain, later enlarged and incorporated into the Palazzetto di Pio IV on the Via Flaminia. Other Roman works include the porticoed façade of the courtyard of Palazzo Firenze, the palaces of Catani and Ruspoli, and, with a high degree of probability, the internal façade of Villa Medici. Tradition and the testimony of his principal biographer, Baldinucci, attribute to him at least the design of the façade of the Palazzo del Collegio Romano, which authoritative studies (Pirri) Valeriani (v.). This building is important not only for its architectural typology (it establishes the type of the large school building) but also for the art history of the period of the Counter-Reformation (v. CONTROFORMIA, Arte della). The Society of Jesus, which held him in high esteem, entrusted him with the Casa and S. Giovanni in Florence, and often sought his advice and works, which he gave generously with selfless and devout spirit.
A typical personality of an artist of the second half of the 16th century, he directed his original researches toward the composition of architectural elements already in common use and now part of the common repertoire; he also tackled the theoretical themes then in vogue, compiling, for example, the drawings—unfortunately lost—of the ideal city. He developed his style of pure Mannerism, often characteristically discontinuous, in contact and familiarity with the artists and learned men of his time, favored also by the sagacious culture of his wife Laura Battiferri, as is proven by her extensive correspondence with Annibal Caro. He was so esteemed by Michelangelo that he was entrusted with completing the staircase of the Laurentian Library.
The lively Catholic spirit of his time marked the second half of his life, which he spent in the strictest religious observance, even when, in his old age, his intellectual and creative powers waned. Similarly devout in religious spirit, always within the historical climate and taste of his age, were his convictions as an artist; so much so that on 22 August 1582 he addressed a long letter to the Academicians of Design which reads like a clear statement of position regarding the relationship between art and morality: in it, with the tone of a public confession, he repudiates his own former production as a sculptor, on account of the figures he had represented nude, following the usage of the High Renaissance, and lays down the norms for the Catholic artist of his time. — See Plates XCI–XCII.