BARONCELLI, NICCOLÒ. — Sculptor, also called Nicolò dal Cavallo, b. in Florence, d. at Ferrara in 1453.
He was a pupil of Brunelleschi; later, having gone to Padua (before 1434), he came under the influence of Donatello’s art. Of his works from this period there remain a terracotta bas-relief depicting S. Eligio (Civic Museum) and the side door of the church of the Eremitani (1442). The ten statues that B. sculpted for the tomb of Galeazzo da Santa Sofia (1436), and the sumptuous tomb of Battista Sanguinacci (1440, church of the Eremitani at Padua), have been lost. The influence of Donatello, felt with northern severity, is particularly vivid in the bronze Crucifixion in Ferrara Cathedral; in this city B. worked for Leonello d’Este. In 1451 he executed the horse for the equestrian monument of Niccolò III d’Este (because of this work, now lost, B. was called « Niccolò dal cavallo »). B. maintained an active workshop in Ferrara which, after his death, was continued by his son Giovanni and by Domenico Paris.