SANGALLO, FAMILY - Wooden carved and painted ceiling (photo Alinari)
Antonio S. and M. G. Fiorentino - Viterbo, church of the Madonna della Quercia.
ANTONIO THE ELDER (known as A. Giambetti). - Brother of the preceding, also born and died in Florence (1463-1534). He followed his brother to Rome, first as a simple assistant, then receiving direct commissions from Pope Alexander VI. In 1493 and 1494 he worked in the Vatican Palace and in Castel Sant’Angelo; the following year he began work on Santa Maria di Monserrato according to a single-naved, apsed plan with simple architectural lines, later altered by the lavish decoration superimposed upon II.
He left Rome with his brother after the election of Julius II and returned to Tuscany, where he remained until his death, carrying out a vast and multifaceted activity. To his first period belongs the church of Santa Anna Nunziata in Arezzo, where he resumed construction begun by Bartolomeo della Gatta, following a three-naved plan with a large dome. The church remained unfinished, as did the reconstruction of the ancient thirteenth-century temple of Sant’Agostino in Colle Val d’Elsa. These works are of little significance; but in his late maturity he realized in San Biagio in Montepulciano (begun in 1518) one of the masterpieces of sixteenth-century architecture. In the Greek-cross plan, at whose center rises the dome above a tall drum, there is a full adherence to Bramantesque conceptions, through direct inspiration from classical models. In this work, admirable for its perfect balance and complete correspondence between spatial harmony and plastic sense, the personality of A. the Elder finally frees itself from every tie to his brother, marking the transition to the full Renaissance.
Among his works are also remembered the various palaces erected in Montepulciano and the fortress of Civitacastellana.
ANTONIO THE YOUNGER (A. known as Cordini). - Nephew of the two preceding (son of a sister), born in Florence in 1484, died in Rome in 1546. His artistic training and the early stages of his career remain unknown; plausible appear his contacts with Bramante, in whose circle A. undoubtedly entered while still very young. The direct Bramantesque inspiration is indeed recognized in his first work, Santa Maria di Loreto in Rome (1507), in which classical thermal elements are ingeniously fused with typically Lombard ones. The same plan is adopted in Santa Maria Porta Paradisi (1520), in which the architectural organism is simplified. To the same central-plan form also belongs the tomb of Pietro de’ Medici in the abbey of Montecassino (1531-32).
With the establishment of the Duchy of Castro, a vast field of activity opened up for A. in northern Lazio as the Farnese’s architect, but the destruction of the duchy’s capital erased the architectural complex he created there, one of the most significant of the Renaissance. Among the works that remain are the so-called “Rocchina” on Bisentina Island and the unusual church of S. Maria di Montemoro near Montefiascone; while the church of S. Tolomeo in Nepi, which with its intermediate plan between a central and longitudinal layout would have marked the prelude to the design for St. Peter’s Basilica, was completed in a far more modest form by others. The artist also devoted himself to lesser but no less significant works: in Viterbo, the church of S. Maria della Quercia, for which he designed the marvelous ceiling; in Rome, the Cesi Chapel in S. Maria della Pace (1524–29) and the chapel of Cardinal Albornoz in S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli (now S. Cuore di Maria); in Foligno, the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament (1516) in the Cathedral, with its complex polygonal plan. His reputation as an expert builder led to his being chosen as the most suitable technician for particularly difficult consolidation problems, such as at the Basilica of Loreto (1526) and at S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where he was summoned by Clement VII; for the latter church, A. also provided several designs. Much debated and subject to lively criticism, beginning with Vasari, was A.’s work on St. Peter’s Basilica, which unfolded in two distinct periods: the first, very brief, in 1520 following Raphael; the second from 1537 until his death. The latter period saw the famous design, later translated by Labacco into the wooden model still preserved today. A. was also extremely active in civil and military architecture, as evidenced by such works as the courtyard and main façade (excluding the cornice) of Palazzo Farnese, the Palazzo della Zecca in Via Banco di S. Spirito, the Palazzetto della Farnesina ai Baullari, and Porta S. Spirito, all in Rome; the now-vanished Rocca Paolina in Perugia and the fortress of Nepi. Modern criticism, however, has denied or cast doubt on other traditionally attributed works, such as Palazzo Sacchetti, the church of S. Spirito in Sassia in Rome (perhaps only the interior is by A.), and the cloisters of Montecassino.
As has been rightly observed, A. appears inconsistent in his vast output, for at times his excessive concern for structural stability comes at the expense of artistic expression; the formal purity of S. Maria di Loreto would never be matched by him again. Nonetheless, he exerted a significant influence on his contemporaries.
FRANCESCO (F. GIAMBERTI, also called IL MAR-GOTTA). — Son of Giuliano, b. and d. in Florence (1494–1576). He worked chiefly as a sculptor and medallist, showing a studious rather than imaginative and brilliant temperament in the group of the Madonna with the Child and St Anne in Orsanmichele (1522) and in the relief of the Transitus of the Virgin in the Holy House of Loreto (1526), where he collaborated with Tribolo. In the monument to Bishop Marzi in the Annunziata in Florence, slightly later, he felt the Sansovinesque influence. At Montecassino he executed the sculptural part of the monument to Pietro de’ Medici, whose design had been given by his cousin Antonio the Younger. His best work is considered the bust of Giovanni dalle Banche, in which he succeeds in giving, with simplicity of means, a sense of constructive firmness. As a medallist, F., though with little elegance, stands out for breadth of conception. As to his architectural activity, he is known to have succeeded Baccio d’Angelo as architect of S. Maria del Fiore (1546) and to have designed the bell-tower of S. Croce (1589), replaced in the last century by the present one. — V. tavv. CXII–CXIII.