PONTELLI, BARTOLOMEO, called BACCIO. - Architect and master carpenter, b. in Florence before 1450, d. at Urbino after 1494. A pupil of Francione, he is recorded in Pisan documents from 1471 to 1478 as engaged in wood-carving work in the Cathedral.
Around 1483, after having been sent by Sixtus IV della Rovere to Civitavecchia, together with Francesco di Giorgio, to inspect that fortress, he built the fortress of Ostia and the church of S. Aurea. Later, during the pontificate of Innocent VIII, he was sent to the Marches, again to carry out activity as a military architect, and there he built, after 1488, the fortresses of Jesi, Osimo and Offida. Nevertheless, P.'s greatest fame derives from a series of Roman buildings assigned to him by Vasari and which modern criticism has several times attempted to take away from him, precisely because in the years in which those were rising P. is recorded by the documents, as has been said, at Pisa engaged in woodwork. These Roman buildings are: the old Vatican Library, the hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia, the Ponte Sisto, the church of S. Maria del Popolo, that of the SS. Apostoli and the other of S. Pietro in Vincoli. These edifices, which by their stylistic characteristics - especially the first three - do not seem at all discordant with the master's certain and documented works. On the other hand, a simultaneous activity as architect and master carpenter does not conflict with fifteenth-century customs, when precisely great architects rose from the practice of wooden models to that of true and proper executors of their own or others' designs. This is attested, among other things, by the activity of a Giuliano da Maiano, and by that of P. himself, master carpenter and builder of fortresses.
Bibliography4 works
Emilio Lavagnino