BANDINI, GIOVANNI. — Sculptor, born in Castello (Florence) perhaps in 1540, died in Florence on 16 April 1599, known as Giovanni dell'Opera for having worked in the Opera del Duomo in Florence. He was a pupil of Baccio Bandinelli, but he knew how to react against the Michelangelesque imitation and the mannerism of his time; among his works, portraits are particularly praised. Among his sculptures of sacred subject matter, we recall the statues of the apostles and the bas-reliefs in the choir of S. Maria del Fiore; the Presentation of Mary and the Marriage of the Virgin in S. Maria Novella. He sculpted the statue of Ferdinand I in the monument in Livorno and that of Architecture in Michelangelo’s tomb in S. Croce.
BIBL.: Anon., s. V. in Thieme-Becker, II, p. 442; U. Middeldorf, *Drawing by Giovanni dell'Opera*, in *The Art Quarterly*, 2 (1939), pp. 386-93; P. Rotondi, *Contributi all'attività urbana di G. B. detto dell'Opera*, Urbino n.d.; G. Geza de Francovich, s. V. in *Enc. Ital.*, XVII, p. 250.