SANSOVINO, ANDREA CONTUCCI called il. — Architect and sculptor, born at Monte S. Savino (from which the name derives) in 1460, died probably there in 1529.
Having gone to Florence at a very young age, he was perhaps a pupil of Cronaca (v.) and certainly his collaborator in the atrium of the sacristy of S. Spirito, where several capitals are attributed to him; in the same church, the altar of the Sacrament erected for the Corbinelli family is his work, still linked to the tradition of Benedetto da Maiano (1490–91). His stay in Portugal should probably be placed in the immediately ensuing period, as recalled by Vasari, but today denied by most scholars. What is certain is that none of the works attributed to him in Portugal can genuinely be considered his. Still later, after a brief stay in Florence, S. went to Rome, where he was highly active under the pontificates of Julius II and Leo X. Dating from this period are the monument to Cardinal Manzi in S. Maria in Aracceli (1504), and those to Cardinal Sforza (1505) and Cardinal Basso (1507) in S. Maria del Popolo. In the first, despite its powerful plastic sense, S. is still bound to Bregno’s models in the simplicity of the architectural conception and the minuteness of the ornamentation; but the tombs in S. Maria del Popolo, in the monumentality of their architecture, conceived as a triumphal arch, and in the classicism of their sculptures, reveal inspiration from antiquity, at first elaborated with cold intellectualism, then absorbed and relived. Classical culture is increasingly manifest in his subsequent works, both as a sculptor (statues of the Virgin with the Child above the doors of S. Giacomo in Augusta and S. Maria dell’Anima, from 1509; the group of the Virgin with the Child and s. Anna in S. Agostino, from 1512) and as an architect (among which the portico of S. Maria in Domnica, erected between 1513 and 1514 and formerly attributed to Raffaello or Peruzzi, deserves particular mention). After Bramante’s death, Leo X sent him to Loreto, where he played the principal role in the marble revetment of the Holy House, and continued the construction of the Apostolic Palace and the Basilica, apparently departing from Bramante’s designs; consequently, in 1520, following the unfavorable judgment passed on his work by Antonio da Sangallo il G., he was replaced as architect by Cristoforo di Simone Ressa da Imola. He was instead entrusted with the sculptural work, to which he devoted himself until his death. Other certain works by S. are the courtyard of the town hall of Jesi, the staircase in front of the cathedral of Arezzo, and the house he built for himself in his native town; the attribution of the palace erected in Rome in Piazza dei Caprettari for Giuliano de’ Medici and later transferred to Lante is also plausible. — Vedi tav. CXVII.