VITTORIA, ALESSANDRO. - Sculptor and architect, b. in Trento in 1524, d. in Venice on 27 May 1608.
Sent to Venice at the age of nineteen by Bishop Madruzzo (1543), he placed himself in Sansovino's workshop, collaborating with him on the decoration of the Libreria. The first certain work of V. bears the clear Sansovinesque stamp: the Baptist in S. Zaccaria, perhaps earlier than 1547.
Having come into conflict with the Florentine master, he separated from him and between 1547 and 1553 worked in Vicenza, decorating the Palazzi Arnaldi and Thiene there with stuccoes, and the Palazzo Porto with other sculptures. Reconciled with Sansovino, he then resided almost always in Venice. From 1553-55 are the Jeminoni of the door of the Libreria of S. Marco (partly executed by the assistants Lorenzo Rubini and Giovannantonio Vicentino); from 1555 the angels for the bell tower of the cathedral of Verona (one now in the episcopal palace). There follow the figures of Slaves and the statue of Fame in the Contarini monument at the Santo in Padua (1555-58); the statue of Mercury on the exterior of the Doge's Palace; the lunette and the statue of the deceased in the Sansovinesque tomb of Francesco Venier at S. Salvatore (1557-58); the altar with the Sts. Anthony, Sebastian and Roch in S. Francesco della Vigna (1561-63); in the same church a Baptist and a St. Francis in bronze; the stucco decorations in the Villa Barbaro at Maser (ca. 1565); the altar of St. Jerome at the Frari (earlier than 1568) with the statue of the Saint, the best-known work of V.; the emphatic statues of the Evangelists in S. Giorgio Maggiore (1574), the monument of Bishop Bollani at Brescia (1577-78, now in the episcopal palace and in the Museo civico); the decorations of the pergolas of the Doge's Palace (1577-79); the bronze Fugger altarpiece, now in America (1580-83); the Christ of the Frari (1581); the Baptist of the cathedral of Treviso (1583); the decorations and statues of the Scuola di S. Fantin (Ateneo Veneto), of the altar of the Merciai at S. Giuliano (1583-84) and of the Chapel of the Rosary at SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1587; there a Mater Dolorosa, a St. John and a St. Jerome). Among the late works are an altar in S. Salvatore and the tomb prepared for himself in S. Zaccaria (1602-1605).
In V.'s art, the determining value of Sansovinesque "pictorialism" and the Mannerist influence of Parmigianino are joined by a personal dramatic energy and a plastic research inspired by Michelangelo. Intensity of life and pictorial plasticism are also the characteristics of the numerous portraits, in which V. excelled: from the sober, almost spare primitive busts of Priamo da Lezze at the Gesuiti and of Parroco Manzini at the Ca' d'Oro (before 1561; there also the powerful Venetian Procurator and the two Diedo busts), to that of Tommaso Rangone (Ateneo Veneto), to the splendid series of the Berlin Museum and of the Seminary of Venice with some late portraits in which an ever more pronounced luminism is noticeable. Pictorialism and Mannerism then give a wholly particular character to V.'s plastic decorations, which in the stuccoes of the Scala d'oro in the Doge's Palace, in the vault of a chapel at S. Giuliano and elsewhere have left examples that have remained famous and that in a certain sense anticipate the Baroque.
Numerous small bronzes also remain by V. (in the Museums of Berlin, Vienna, the Victoria and Albert in London, etc.) and some medals from his youthful period. To V. as architect, besides the numerous altars and the decorations of the Sala del Collegio in the Doge's Palace, is attributed with good grounds, though without precise documentation, the Palazzo Balbi on the Grand Canal.
Bibliography14 works
Nolfo di Carpegna