LOMBARDI, ALFONSO. - Sculptor, b. probably in Ferrara in 1497, to Niccolò Cittadella of Lucca and to Eleonora L., d. in Bologna on 2 Dec. 1537.
The native qualities of this master, who took his mother's surname and worked assiduously especially in Bologna and in Romagna, appear, with heightened feeling, in the terracotta busts of Christ and of the twelve Apostles, formerly in the Bolognese church of S. Giuseppe and, after that church was suppressed in 1769, transferred to the cathedral of Ferrara, where they were painted. In them one admires a vigorous modeling, joined to a penetrating somatic and psychological characterization, wholly Ferrarese (Francesco Filippini, however, attributes them to Baccio da Montelupo: cf. F. Filippini, Baccio da Montelupo in Bologna, in Dedalo, 8 [1927-28], pp. 527-42 ff.). By comparison, the figures of the grandiose and crowded group in S. Maria della Vita, in Bologna, representing the Transit of the Virgin, take on an academic theatricality; it is, in a certain sense, a plastic equivalent of the best paintings of Gerolamo da Carpi, for the courtly Romanism of the poses and the background of classicizing architecture (1522). To this period also belongs a gigantic and proud Hercules, in the Palazzo comunale, while from 1526 to 1530 L. executed in marble some panels with biblical subjects and a solemn, harmonious Resurrection of Christ, for the portal on the left of the church of S. Petronio. Having won in 1530 the favor of Charles V, on the occasion of that Emperor's stay in Bologna, he portrayed his features, just as he also made, in Rome, the portraits of Clement VII and of Giuliano de' Medici. Works of his last period are the statue of the Virgin and figures of saints, at the Madonna del Baraccano, the Pietà in S. Pietro and the elegant marble predella for the famous ark in S. Domenico, with an Adoration of the Magi and episodes from the life of the Saint (1533).
Bibliography3 works
Alberto Neppi