GIOVANNI, DALMATA. — Sculptor and architect, born in Traù around 1440, died after 1509. In 1464 he carved a bust of Pius II. Another famous bust by G. is that of Paul II, in the Museum of Palazzo Venezia in Rome, previously erroneously attributed to Bellano and Mino da Fiesole. The style of Dalmatia is distinguished, in fact, from that of the aforementioned sculptors by the clear definition of masses and sharp, chiselled planes.
In collaboration with Mino, G. worked on the construction of an altar now in the sacristy of S. Marco in Rome and on the tomb of Paul II (fragments in the Vatican Grottoes and in the Petriano Museum) and demonstrated that he had absorbed its influence when in 1476 he carved the tomb of Cardinal Rovellia, in S. Clemente in Rome; then from 1481 to about 1491 G. was in Hungary, a guest at the court of Matthias Corvinus. In 1491 he was in Venice, where he worked for Bishop Nicolò Franco, and it is precisely from this period that the bust of Carlo Zen, preserved in the Correr Museum, dates.
In 1509 he carved his last work: the mausoleum of Blessed Jerome Ginelli in the cathedral of Ancona.
As an architect, he is credited, with some foundation, with the loggia on the square and the two entrance portals of Palazzo Venezia in Rome, the door of Palazzo Vitelleschi in Tarquinia, and above all the crowning of the door of the tempietto of Vicovaro.