MADERNO, STEFANO. - Lombard sculptor, born at Bissone in 1576, died at Rome on 17 September 1636.
By 1600 he was already in Rome and produced his masterpiece in the statue of St. Cecilia, represented lying with her head severed, to adorn the altar in the church dedicated to her in the Trastevere quarter. Earlier records mention sculptures executed by him on behalf of the Sienese goldsmith Alessandro de Turchis. Subsequently he made an Angel in bas-relief for the transept of the basilica of St. John Lateran, several sculptures for the Pauline Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore, where for the altar he modelled the relief of Pope Liberius Marking out the Plan of the Basilica in the Snow and, for the Pope’s tomb, that of the Hungarian Expedition. He also carved the statue of St. Charles Borromeo in S. Lorenzo in Damaso, the figures of Peace and
Justice on the high altar of the church of S. Maria della Pace, the St. Peter reclining on the pediment of the Quirinal portal, and other marbles besides. Also highly interesting are some of his terracotta sketches at the Ca’ d’oro in Venice, representing mythological fables. An imaginative and uneven master, M. produced his finest work, rich in intense emotional life, in the delicate image of St. Cecilia: a marble of extreme significance for the time and milieu in which it was created (Rome, 1600), in which the classical composure of the art of the century ending in that year seems truly united with, and the somewhat affected sweetness of the following century foreshadowed.