Bartolommeo Bandinelli

Bartolommeo (or Baccio) Bandinelli, actually Bartolommeo Brandini (October 17, 1488 - shortly before February 7, 1560), was a prominent Renaissance Florentine sculptor and painter.

Biography

Bandinelli was the son of a prominent goldsmith,^[1] and first apprenticed in his shop. As a boy, he was apprenticed under Giovanni Francesco Rustici, a sculptor friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Among his earliest works was a Saint Jerome in wax, made for Giuliano de' Medici, identified as Bandinelli's by John Pope-Hennessy

Giorgio Vasari claimed Bandinelli was driven by jealousy of Benvenuto Cellini and Michelangelo; and recounts that:

"(When) the cartoon of Michelangelo in the Council Hall ("Battle of Cascina" at Palazzo Vecchio)[1] was uncovered, and all the artists ran to copy it, and Baccio (most frequently) among (them),... having counterfeited the key of the chamber. In ... 1512, Piero Soderini was deposed and the ... Medici reinstated. In the tumult, therefore, Baccio, being by himself, secretly cut the cartoon into several pieces."

"Some said he did it that he might have a piece of the cartoon always near him, and others that he wanted to prevent other youths from making use of it; others again say that he did it out of affection for Lionardo da Vinci, or from the hatred he bore to Michael Angelo. The loss anyhow to the city was no small one, and Baccio's fault very great."

His sculptures have never matched the admiration given those of Michelangelo, specially the colossal (5.05 m) marble group of Hercules and Cacus (completed in 1534) in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, and Adam and Eve in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, which both stand within sight of some of Michelangelo's masterworks.

Hercules and Cacus was commissioned by the Medici pope Clement VII, who had been shown a wax model. The supplied block of Carrara marble wasn't big enough to execute Bandinelli's wax model. He had to make new wax models, one of which was chosen by the pope as the final draft. Bandinelli had already carved the sculpture as far as the abdomen of Hercules, when during the 1527 Sack of Rome, the pope was taken prisoner. Meanwhile, in Florence, republican enemies of the Medici took advantage of the chaos to exile Ippolito de' Medici. Bandinelli, a supporter of the Medici, was also exiled. In 1530 Emperor Charles V retook Florence after a long siege. Pope Clement VII subsequently installed his illegitimate son Alessandro de Medici as duke of Tuscany. Bandinelli then returned to Florence and continue work on the statue till completed in 1534, and transported from the Opera del Duomo to its present marble pedestal. But from the moment it was unveiled, it faced ridicule; Cellini compared the ponderous group to 'a sac full of melons'. Afterwards, the Bandinelli tried to sabotage Cellini's career. The statue was restored between February and April 1994.

Among Bandinelli's pupils were Giorgio Vasari and Francesco de' Rossi (Il Salviati). His sons Clemente Bandinelli and Michelangelo Bandinelli were also sculptors.

Hercules and Cacus (1534). Piazza della Signoria, Florence

Among Baccio Bandinelli's works are:

• copy of Laocoon, at the time in the Cortile del Belvedere, commissioned by Pope Leo X as a gift to François I. Bandinelli boasted that he would exceed the original, and when he was finished, after a hiatus during the pontificate of Adrian VI, the Medici Pope Clement VII could not bear to part with it, sent some antiquities to the King of France in its stead, and sent Baccio's Laocoon to Florence. It remains at the Uffizi.
• Monument to Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a seated figure on a magnificent pedestal, in piazza San Lorenzo, Florence
• Pietà in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, Florence, where Bandinelli portrayed himself in the figure of Joseph of Arimathea. Bandinelli is buried in the chapel, with his wife Giacoma Doni.
• Ceres and Apollo (1552-1556) for niches in the façade of Buontalenti's grotto in the Boboli Gardens
• Orpheus for Palazzo Vecchio, now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. One of Bandinelli's few signed works.
• Works for the Duomo, Florence, including the high altar and its Adam and Eve (1551), now in the Bargello; much-praised bas-reliefs made for the enclosure of the choir, designed by the architect Giuliano di Baccio d'Angnolo (1555), now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo; Saint Peter, one of eight apostles by various sculptors in the piers of the crossing.
• Works in Palazzo Vecchio, including, in the Audience Hall, a statue of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and one of Pope Leo X blessing (finished after Bandinelli's death by Vincenzo de' Rossi)
• God the Father (1549) in Santa Croce cloister
• In the Bargello are also a number of lesser works: Noah (bas-relief), portrait busts of Eleonora di Toledo and Cosimo I de' Medici, Venus, Leda, Hercules, Bacchus Cleopatra and a portrait bust of an unknown man.

References

• Giorgio Vasari, Vite...: Baccio Bandinelli. The classic brief anecdotal account of Baccio's career.
• Touring Club Italiano, Firenze e Dintorni (1922) 1964.

Further reading

• Louis A. Waldman, Baccio Bandinelli and Art at the Medici Court: A Corpus of Early Modern Sources (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004).
• Paola Barocchi, ed. Scritti d'arte del Cinquecento. (Milan: Ricciardi, 1974. (pp 1359-1411: Baccio Bandinelli: Il Memoriale)
• Roger Ward, ed. Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560). (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum) 1988. ISBN 0-914160-06-0

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