BEGARELLI, ANTONIO. – Sculptor, born in Modena around 1499, died there in 1565. He worked in Modena, Ferrara, Parma, Mantua, continuing the Emilian sculptural tradition of Niccolò dell’Arca (v.) AMAZZONI (v.) in new 16th-century forms (e.g., the *Pietà* in S. Agostino, Modena, 1524). To the monumental breadth LOMBARDIA (v.), he united the soft grace of modeling inspired by Raphael and Correggio (*Madonna with Child and St. John*, Civic Museum, c. 1527; *Nativity*, Modena Cathedral, 1527). His work shows a persistent search for the pictorial animation of surfaces (cf. fragments of the Bellandi monument, Estense Gallery, 1529) and scenes, achieving spectacular effects of already Baroque taste (*Deposition*, in S. Francesco, Modena, 1531).
Begarelli achieved a rare balance between serene plastic amplitude and delicate pictorial sensibility in the statues for the church of S. Pietro in Modena (1532–33), but later this balance was lost through the predominance of a mannered elegance (statues for S. Giovanni Evangelista in Parma, c. 1540) and excessive sculptural vigor that distorted forms (*Pietà* in S. Pietro, 1546; altarpiece group, ibid., commissioned in 1553; statues for the church of S. Benedetto at Polirone near Mantua, 1559).
His nephew Ludovico assisted him (born in Modena c. 1530, died there in 1577), to whom, though without certainty, are attributed the four figures of saints on the S. Pietro altarpiece and the group with St. Mary and Martha in S. Domenico, Modena.
— See Plate LXXII.