CIVITALI. — Family of artists. MATTEO, sculptor and architect, b. in Lucca on 5 June 1436; d. there on 12 October 1501. He completed his apprenticeship in Florence, almost certainly under Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino, with the latter of whom he maintained friendly relations for a long time: in fact, in 1468 C. appraised in Pistoia the monument to Filippo Lazzeri commissioned from Bernardo and executed by Antonio Rossellino, while Antonio Rossellino, in turn, appraised the monument to the jurist and diplomat Pietro da Noceto (d. in 1467), executed in 1472 by C. for the cathedral of Lucca and constituting the first important work of the Lucchese sculptor.
Between 1473 and 1478 he executed the tabernacle of the Sacrament, now dismantled, of which two Adoring Angels remain in Lucca, while the ciborium is in London (in the Victoria and Albert Museum), and the famous high relief with Faith, which probably formed part of it, is preserved in Florence (in the Bargello Museum). The monument to Dom. Bertini, apostolic abbreviator, dates from 1479; he commissioned C. to make the small temple of the Volto Santo and the statue of S. Sebastiano, also in the cathedral of Lucca, executed between 1472 and 1484. From the same year are the altar of S. Regolo (Lucca Cathedral) and the tomb monument of SS. Pellegrino and Bianco, partly altered, in the sanctuary of S. Pellegrino in the Tusco-Emilian mountains. In 1487, the Opera della primaziale of Pisa commissioned him to make twenty-two marble altars for the Duomo, of which only some candelabrum pilasters remain: the work was probably not carried out, since as early as 1489 C. was working on the tabernacle for the church of S. Frediano in Lucca, converted into a baptismal font in 1508, and in 1490 he executed the tomb of S. Romano in the church of the same name in Lucca, likewise dismantled and altered. This period also saw several works and projects for architectural constructions, such as the bridge over the Serchio at Moriano (1490), now destroyed, and plans for the fortifications of the city of Lucca (1491). For Lucca Cathedral he also executed a marble pulpit (1494) and two holy-water stoups (1498); he then went to Genoa, where for the chapel of S. Giovanni in the Duomo he sculpted the six statues of Adam, Eve, Abocuc, Isaia, Zaccaria and Elisabetta (c. 1499), as well as a group of S. Giorgio and the dragon, commissioned from him by the Protectors of the Banco di S. Giorgio and destroyed during the revolution of 1797. The Cristo in Pietà in the church of Lammari (Lucca) is C.’s last work. An extremely prolific and somewhat monotonous artist, he was nevertheless one of the most original interpreters of Bernardo Rossellino’s art: his sculpture is distinguished by a lucid, incisive and precise manner, even though it is not without a certain rigidity. A sincere and delicate religious feeling made some of his representations famous. He possessed highly refined architectural sensibility and a taste for decoration, and gave the Genoese statues a precociously sixteenth-century grandeur. He also had the merit of introducing the art of printing into Lucca.
His son NICOLAO, b. in 1482, d. in 1560, collaborated with his father, working in Pietrasanta and Lucca, and sculpted the tabernacle in the church of the Servi. Together with his son VINCENZO he sculpted the holy-water stoup and the marble choir lofts for the church of S. Paolino in Lucca. He built several fine palaces in Lucca, such as that of the Cassa di risparmio and that of the Bernardini family; others are attributed to him, such as Palazzo Cenami and Palazzo Orsetti. Enzo Carli