DELLA QUERCIA, JACOPO. - Sculptor, b. at Quercia, a castle near Siena, probably in 1367, d. there on 20 October 1438. Nothing precise is known about his training except that, like many other sculptors, he began as a goldsmith. One may nevertheless allow his distant derivation from Giovanni Pisano. In 1401 he took part in the competition for the second door of the baptistery of Florence together with Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, who was the winner. Unfortunately the trial piece submitted by Jacopo has not come down to us and it is therefore impossible to compare it usefully with those of the two other competitors that have been preserved. Perhaps in 1406 he carved in the cathedral of Lucca the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, wife of Paolo Guinigi, who died in 1405.
The Madonna of Ferrara dates from 1408, and in the same year he was given the commission for the fountain in the Piazza at Siena, known as the Fonte Gaia. This work was finished only in 1419 and was so celebrated as to earn its author the nickname of Jacopo della Fonte. In the last century a reproduction of it was made, which took the place of the original, while the parts of the ancient one were placed, so as to be better preserved, in the Palazzo Pubblico. Between 1413 and 1422 Jacopo executed in S. Frediano at Lucca the altarpiece of the Trenta chapel, still rich in Gothic features. In 1425 he was commissioned to make the portal of S. Petronio in Bologna, which he left unfinished at his death. His last work was the altar bas-relief for the Casini chapel in the cathedral of Siena (Florence, Ojetti collection).
The tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, by its arrangement, may recall classical motifs, evident in the putti that support the heavy festoon. But the recumbent figure, in which line dominates without depriving the planes of energy, can be better understood by linking it to the taste proper to Gothic art.
In the Fonte Gaia he represented in various bas-reliefs the Creation of Adam and Eve, Wisdom, Hope, Strength, Prudence, an Angel, the Madonna with Child, another Angel, Justice, Charity, Temperance, Faith and the Expulsion of Adam and Eve; he also carved there the groups of Res. Silvia and of Acca Larentia with Romulus and Remus, allusions to the Roman derivation of Siena. In these sculptures a violent energy dominates, which links them to the Gothic formal tradition, whose persistence is clearly visible in the tormented line and in the intense expression of the figures. And a frank predominance of Gothic taste is still found in the altarpiece in the Trenta chapel in S. Frediano at Lucca.
Jacopo's greatest work is the decoration of the central door of S. Petronio in Bologna, in which he adorned the two pilasters with reliefs representing stories of the Old and New Testament and the prophets. In the lunette is the fully round group of the Madonna with child and St. Petronius. In these sculptures Jacopo appears truly admirable in the broad and synthetic forms of the figures, in the energy of the relief, in the absolute predominance of the naked human figure. Not in vain must Michelangelo have looked to this work during his stay in Bologna. To Jacopo is also due the design of the baptismal font of S. Giovanni in Siena, which is likewise adorned with a bronze bas-relief by him, representing Zechariah driven from the Temple, a work carried out with a grave and solemn manner.
Also attributed to Jacopo are the wooden statues of St. Gabriel and of the Annunciate of the cathedral of Montepulciano, certainly in his manner, painted by Martino di Bartolomeo.
J. D. Q. in Tuscan sculpture of the Quattrocento is an isolated figure. To explain his most singular art it is necessary to reconnect him to the Gothic tradition, which nevertheless does not prevent him from understanding the intimate values of the new Renaissance currents, which in him seem rather to be strengthened by that tradition. An underground sap, the atavistic tradition of the Tuscan land that goes back to Etruria, circulates in his figures and animates them with a rude energy, at times tempered by an austere sweetness, while the Gothic intensity of feeling infuses in them a vivid sense of dramatic spirituality.
Bibliography9 works
Vincenzo Golzio