LEOPARDI, ALESSANDRO. - Goldsmith, bronze founder and architect, b. in Venice around 1450 and d. there between June 1522 and March 1523. His first activity took place in the Mint of Venice, where he appears as third master in 1484.
To him is owed the recto of the zecchino of Doge Giovanni Dandolo. Banished from the city in 1487, he entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara but, perhaps for political reasons, was recalled a few months later to Venice, with the task of completing the equestrian monument to Colleoni, of which Verrocchio had executed only the model.
The casting fell to L., which had instead been entrusted by the Florentine master's will to Lorenzo di Credi, his pupil. The monument, cast in 1492, was erected in Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo in 1495, on a base prepared by L. The banner-bearing pillars, still in Piazza S. Marco, executed between 1501 and 1505, show a lively plastic temperament, enriched with decorative motifs drawn from antiquity, of 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 notable: he took part in 1507 and 1514 in competitions for the model of the Scuola della Misericordia and for the Fabbriche Vecchie di Rialto, was sent to inspect fortresses in the Veneto, and in 1521 assumed the direction of the works of S. Giustina in Padua, inspired by S. Salvatore in Venice, and of Coducci derivation, completed after his death.
Bibliography
Eugenio Battisti