VINCENZO ONOFRI. — Bolognese sculptor, first mentioned in 1493 for the payment of two statues of Bl. Albertus Magnus and Raymond of Peñafort in S. Domenico in Bologna; he is recorded until 1524.
He carried out his activity almost exclusively in Bologna, where his most important works remain. In the Morotio in S. Petronio, signed “Vincentius de Bononia fecit,” a terracotta group similar to that of Niccolò dell’Arca in S. Maria della Vita, he approaches the master, though tempering his style under the influence of Sperandio and Francia, to whose paintings he is especially close in the polychrome altarpiece with the Virgin, St. Lawrence, and St. Eustace in S. Maria dei Servi (1503). His works also show influences foreign to the Bolognese milieu: his attempt to assimilate Tuscan forms, which reached him through Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, is evident in the famous funerary monument, in terracotta and marble, to Cesare Nacci, bishop of Amelia, in S. Petronio (1504), forms that become harsh, almost metallic, deeply carved; yet there remains, especially in the decorative details, a search for elegance and refinement that brings him close to Tuscan models.
These Tuscan influences reappear in the monument beneath the organ, also in S. Petronio (1505), and in that executed for Antonio Busi after 1506 at Poggio a Persiceto near Bologna. Not all scholars accept the attribution to O. of the bust of Beroaldo (Bologna, S. Martino). Other works attributed to him are in the Galleria Davia-Bargellini in Bologna, the Glyptothek in Munich, and the Louvre in Paris.