BACCIO d'AGNOLO. - B. in Florence on 19 May 1462, d. there on 6 May 1547. In his youth he was a woodcarver and executed the choir stalls in S. Maria Novella; in maturity he also devoted himself to architecture, seeking, in the footsteps of Cronaca, a severe massiveness that often accords poorly with the Brunelleschian motifs to which his style simultaneously refers.
He designed various civil buildings in Florence, among them the palace of Agostino della Seta (Serristori), with its characteristic lateral projections, well conceived in its mass relationships; the Bartolini-Salimbeni palace (1520), the Antinori palace, etc. Besides the adaptation works in Palazzo Vecchio, between 1506 and 1515 he built a section of gallery at the springing of the dome of S. Maria del Fiore, a work harshly criticized by Michelangelo. In 1506 he erected the bell tower of S. Spirito, with broad openings inspired by Brunelleschi and an eccentric crowning, and that of S. Miniato al Monte (1527). The later church of S. Giuseppe in via dei Malcontenti, on the other hand, is a severe and solid structure, devoid of those woodcarver’s extravagances that B. displays on other occasions: the scheme of a single nave with side chapels is not original, since it had already been employed by Antonio da Sangallo il Vecchio. His sons Giuliano (1491-1555) and Filippo (d. 1569), themselves architects, are known respectively for the rectory of S. Martino a Montughi and for the Boutourlin palace in Florence.