LEOPARDI, ALESSANDRO. - Goldsmith, bronze-founder, and architect, b. in Venice about 1450 and d. there between June 1522 and March 1523. His earliest activity was carried out at the Mint of Venice, where he is recorded as third master in 1484.
The recto of the zecchino of Doge Giovanni Dandolo is attributable to him. Banished from the city in 1487, he entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara but, perhaps for political reasons, was recalled to Venice a few months later, with the commission to complete the equestrian monument to Colleoni, of which Verrocchio had executed only the model.
L. was responsible for the casting, which the Florentine master had instead entrusted by will to Lorenzo di Credi, his pupil. The monument, cast in 1492, was erected in Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo in 1495, upon a base prepared by L. The flagstaff pedestals, still in Piazza S. Marco, executed between 1501 and 1505, display a lively sculptural temperament, enriched by decorative motifs drawn from antiquity, in a taste similar to that of Briosco and the Lombardo brothers, especially Antonio, with whom L. collaborated for a brief period on the Zen monument in the family chapel in S. Marco.
His activity as an architect was also noteworthy: in 1507 and 1514 he took part in competitions for the design of the Scuola della Misericordia and the Fabbriche Vecchie di Rialto; he was sent to inspect fortresses in the Veneto; and in 1521 he assumed direction of the works of S. Giustina in Padova, inspired by S. Salvatore in Venice and derived from Codussi, completed after his death.