BACCIO (Baccio Sinibaldi) da Montelupo. - Sculptor and architect, b. at Montelupo in 1469, d. at Lucca in 1535. Among his works are four terracotta statues for a Pietà in S. Domenico at Bologna (1495), inspired by a lively pictorial sensibility descending from Verrocchio and Leonardo; the lightness of the draperies, the soft flexion of the gesture, the subtle blending of planes, through which the pictorial intent is expressed, are balanced in the measured opposition of lights and shadows.

He executed many crucifixes (Florence, S. Marco; Arezzo, SS. Flora e Lucilla, etc.), but among them all the one in S. Lorenzo at Florence has a particular softness of modelling. More firm is the pensive bronze St. John the Evangelist of 1515 (Florence, Orsanmichele), where the chiaroscural balance and that of the attitude become more studied. In the late period of his activity, which unfolded at Lucca, the Madonna in the church of S. Martino (remainder of the Gigli monument) shows, in the enlargement of the forms and the continuous breaking of the draperies, a shattering of the initial equilibrium, whereby the work is emptied of its lyrical content.

Toward the end of his life he devoted himself to architecture, and his most important work is the church of S. Paolino at Lucca, with a disharmonious facade of three orders, excessively developed in height, and an interior with a single nave and transept, in which the architectural order is surmounted by an attic that gives the whole an disproportionate verticality. - See Pl. XL.

Plate XL CRUCIFIX IN POLYCHROME WOOD Florence, church of S. Lorenzo.(fol. Alinari)

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: A. Vasari, Le Vite, ed. Milanesi, IV, Florence 1881, pp. 539-62; M. Polverosi, Uno scultore del sec. XVI: B. S. da M., ibid. 1899; F. Filippini, B. da M. a Bologna, in Dedalo, 3 (1927-28), pp. 528-41; A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte ital., X, 1, Milan 1935, pp. 87-92; XI, I, ibid. 1938, pp. 646-50.

Guglielmo Matthise

@incollection{ec2_baccio_baccio_sinibaldi_da_mon, author = {Matthiae, Guglielmo}, title = {Baccio (Baccio Sinibaldi) da Montelupo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {649--650}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/baccio-baccio-sinibaldi-da-montelupo} }

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