Baccio d'Agnolo

BACCIO d'AGNOLO. - Born in Florence on 19 May 1462, died there on 6 May 1547. In his youth he was a wood carver and executed the choir stalls in S. Maria Novella; in his mature years he also devoted himself to architecture, seeking, in the footsteps of Cronaca, a severe massiveness that often sits poorly with the Brunelleschian touches to which his style simultaneously harkens.

He designed various civil buildings in Florence, among them the palace of Agostino della Seta (Serristori) with its characteristic lateral overhangs, well proportioned in its masses; that of Bartolini-Salimbeni (1520), that of Antinori, etc. In addition to the adaptation works in the Palazzo Vecchio, between 1506 and 1515 he built a stretch of balustrade 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 of Brunelleschian inspiration and a bizarre crowning, and that of S. Miniato al Monte (1527). The later church of S. Giuseppe on via dei Malcontenti is instead a severe and solid organism, devoid of those carver's whims of which B. d'Agnolo gives proof at other times: the scheme of a single nave with side chapels is not original, because it was already used by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder. His sons Giuliano (1491-1555) and Filippo (d. 1569), themselves architects, are known respectively for the canonica of S. Martino a Montughi and for the Palazzo Boutourlin in Florence.

Guglielmo Matthise