SOLARI (SOLARIO), CRISTOFORO detto IL GOBBO. - Milanese sculptor and architect, b. around 1460, d. according to some at Vigevano in 1525, according to others at Mantua in 1527.

After a stay in Venice (1489) he was active in Milan, especially at the Opera del Duomo, with duties as sculptor, founder, architect, engineer. In 1514 he was in Rome. Of his activity as a sculptor - the group of Hercules and Cacus being lost - the funeral monument of Ludovico il Moro and Isabella d'Este (1499) in the Certosa di Pavia, and the statues of Adam, of Eve and of the signed Christ at the Column in the cathedral of Milan bear witness. Starting from the rude and compact plasticism of the Sforza monument, the style of C. S. evolves toward researches of classicizing measure, of grace and of sentiment, driven thereto both by the experience of the brief journey to Rome and by the tendency of the contemporary Lombard art dominated by the influence of Leonardo.
Attributed works: Bust of the Redeemer (Pavia, Museo Malaspina); Pietà (Certosa di Pavia); Madonna (Certosa di Pavia); another Madonna (Detroit, Institute of Arts).

SOLARI (SOLARIO), CRISTOFORO CALLED IL GOBBO - Apse of the Cathedral - Como.(phot. Alinari)

To his activity as an architect are owed, according to some, the church of S. Maria della Passione in Milan, with its broad Bramantesque polygonal tiburio, and the apse of the cathedral of Como, inspired by drawings of Leonardo, the execution of which was entrusted to Tommaso Rodari.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: anon., s. v. in Thieme-Becker, XXXI (1937), p. 227 with bibl.; Venturi, XI, 1 (1938), p. 699 ff.; C. Baroni, Docum. per la stor. dell'archit. a Milano nel Rinascim. e nel Barocco, Florence 1940, p. 215 ff.; id., L'archit. lombarda dal Bramante al Richini, Milan 1941, p. 114 ff.; W. R. Valentiner, A Madonna by C. S., in Bull. of The Detroit Inst. of Arts, 21 (1941-42), no. 3; P. Mezzanotte - G. C. Bascapé, Milano nell'arte e nella storia, Milan 1948, passim.

Amalia Mezzetti

@incollection{ec11_solari_solario_cristoforo_dett, author = {Mezzetti, Amalia}, title = {Solari (Solario), cristoforo detto il gobbo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {930--931}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/solari-solario-cristoforo-detto-il-gobbo} }

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Solari (Solario), Cristoforo detto Il Gobbo

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