LAMBERTI, FAMILY. - NICCOLÒ, Florentine sculptor whose personality was separated only recently (1931) from that of Niccolò di Luca Spinelli da Arezzo, with whom he had been confused following an error by Vasari.

Active from as early as 1388 in the Opera del duomo of Florence, he worked on the Porta della Mandorla (1393-94, 1407), on the Porta dei Canonici (1402-1403), and on the statues of the facade (4 Saints and 4 Doctors of the Church, removed when the old facade was demolished in 1588). In 1401-1402 he took part in the competition for the second door of the Baptistery, and in 1415 he finished the statue of St. Mark which, together with those of the other 3 Evangelists (commissioned respectively from Donatello, Nanni di Banco, and Giuffagni), was to be placed on the facade of the Cathedral (the statues are today in the interior). Bound to the fourteenth-century tradition, Niccolò did not take part in Donatello's innovative movement but persisted wearily in the decorative play of late-Gothic linearism (cf. the St. Luke, formerly in Orsanmichele, now in the Bargello, of 1403-1406, and the St. Mark); this manner he carried to Venice, where he worked from 1416 on the decoration of the facade of St. Mark's (frieze and crowning of the central arch); he then moved on to Bologna, where he is still recorded in 1429 (restoration of the Palazzo degli Anziani). In Venice his son PIERO worked with him (b. in Florence ca. 1393, d. in Venice around 1434). While there are no certain works from his Florentine period (the attribution to him of an Annunciation in Orsanmichele and of the tomb of Onofrio Strozzi in S. Trinità do not seem tenable), Piero signs in Venice, together with Giovanni di Martino da Fiesole, the Mocenigo tomb in SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1423); and on the model of the tomb of John XXII he erects, with the collaboration of Giovanni di Bartolomeo da Firenze, the Fulgosio monument (1431) in the church of the Santo in Padua. Attributed to him are, among other things, in St. Mark's in Venice, the figures of the doccione-bearers on the side of the Basilica toward S. Basso; with Piero, and with his collaborator Giovanni di Martino, are almost unanimously identified the "duo sotii fiorentini" who signed the capital of Justice in the Doge's Palace, while the attribution to him (De Fabriczy, 1902) of the well-known corner group of the Judgment of Solomon is highly controversial. After a stay in Verona (1430), in 1434 he was working on the Ca' d'Oro.

Bibliography9 works

BIBL.: L. Planisic, Nicolò di Piero I., in Thieme-Becker, XXV, pp. 436-38, and Piero di Nicolò L., ibid., XXVIII, pp. 24-25 (with previous bibl.); Venturi, VI (1908), p. 222 ff.; VIII, II (1924), p. 473; G. Fiocco, I. L. a Venezia, in Dedalo, 8 (1927), pp. 287-313, 343 ff.; U. Procacci, Nic. di P. L. detto di Pela di Firenze e Niccolò di Luca Spinelli da Arezzo, in Il Vasari, 1 (1928), p. 200 ff.; L. Planisic, Die Bildh. Venedig in d. r. Hälfte d. Quattrocento, in Jahrb. d. Kunsthistor. Samml. (Vienna), new series, 4 (1930), pp. 47-120; G. Fogolari, Gli scultori toscani a Venezia nel '400 e B. Buon veneziano, in Arte, new series, 1 (1930), pp. 427-64; G. Fiocco, in Riv. d'arte, 12 (1930), pp. 565-68 and 13 (1931), pp. 266-84; G. Fogolari, Ancora di B. Buon scultore veneziano, in Arte, new series, 3 (1932), p. 27 ff.

Maria Vittoria Brugnoli

@incollection{ec7_lamberti_famiglia, author = {Brugnoli, Maria Vittoria}, title = {Lamberti, famiglia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {836--837}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/lamberti-famiglia} }

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Lamberti, Family

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