ALESSANDRO LEOPARDI. — Goldsmith, bronze founder, and architect, born in Venice around 1450 and died there between June 1522 and March 1523. His early activity took place at the Venetian Mint, where he was listed as the third master in 1484.
He is responsible for the obverse of the zecchino coin 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 to Venice a few months later with the task of completing the equestrian monument to Colleoni, for which Verrocchio had only executed the model.
It fell to L. to cast the bronze, which the Florentine master had instead bequeathed to his pupil Lorenzo di Credi. The monument, cast in 1492, was erected in Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo in 1495, on a pedestal prepared by L. The banner-bearing pillars, still standing in Piazza San Marco and executed between 1501 and 1505, display a lively plastic temperament, enriched with decorative motifs drawn from antiquity, in a taste similar to that of Briosco and the Lombardo brothers, particularly Antonio, with whom L. collaborated for a brief period on the Zen monument in the family chapel in San Marco.
Notable also was his activity as an architect: he participated in 1507 and 1514 in competitions for the model of the Scuola della Misericordia and for the Fabbriche Vecchie of Rialto, was sent to inspect fortresses in the Veneto, and in 1521 took charge of the construction of San Giustina in Padua, inspired by the Venetian San Salvatore and of Codussi derivation, completed after his death.