BENEDETTO dei GRAZZINI, called da ROVEZZANO. - Sculptor, b. at Campale (Pistoia) in 1474, d. at Vallombrosa about 1552. Trained in the taste disseminated by Benedetto da Maiano, he resolved his compositions with lively plasticism; these, however, never attained a clear formal balance owing to the dispersive effect of exuberant decoration.
His first certain work is the choir loft of S. Stefano in Genoa (1499); in 1509 he carved the base for Michelangelo’s bronze David, and in 1510 the tomb of Pier Soderini (church of the Carmine in Florence). His most significant work is the tomb of s. Giovanni Gualberto (1505-15), now fragmentary, in the refectory of S. Salvi and in the National Museum of Florence. In England, in 1525, he carved for Westminster Abbey the funerary monument of Enrico VIII and the tomb of Card. Wolsey, of which only four candelabra and the sarcophagus incorporated into the Nelson monument in S. Paolo in London remain.
(photo Alinari)
BENEDETTO dei GRAZZINI - Detail of the tomb of s. Giovanni Gualberto - Firenze, S. Salvi.