Jacopo Sansovino

(1486-1570) Architect and sculptor, who apprenticed with Antonio Sansovino from 1502 and took his name. He went in the train of Giuliano da Sangallo to Rome at Julius II della Rovere’s election. Vasari says he won a prize there for his imitation of the ancient statue of the Laocoon, returning to Florence around 1510 and then going back to Rome eight years later. In Florence, besides completing sculptural commissions, Sansovino built a much-praised terracotta equestrian statue for the entry of Leo X (1515). He also raised a temporary wooden and plaster facade at the cathedral in the form of a colossal triumphal arch on a tall base, with paired corinthian columns. Andrea del Sarto helped paint the narrative panels of this rich facade, which Leo X himself was said to have wished was the true facade of the cathedral. For the visit of François I to Florence, the pope asked Sansovino to adorn the Porta San Gallo with a triumphal arch. Despite these successes and the pope’s positive reception of his model for the facade of San Lorenzo (1515-16), Sansovino was excluded from this major project by Michelangelo’s even more pleasing design.  Upon his return to Rome in 1518, Sansovino’s design for the central-plan church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (1518-21) was chosen over other entries by Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo, though he soon returned to Florence, where he designed a palace for the Gaddi family. It was in Venice, however, where he settled in 1529 with a post as proto, or chief architect at S. Marco, that his richly decorative interpretation of the ancient Roman style of architecture found full form in major public projects. These include the Zecca (1535-47), the Library (1536-60; completed 1591 by Scamozzi), and the loggetta at the Piazza of S. Marco (1537-40). Sansovino’s designs for Venetian palaces such as the Palazzo Corner (1545-66, called the Ca’ Grande) introduced novelties such as grand courtyards to Venetian palace design and augmented the ancient referents of the facade, while designs for churches such as S. Francesco della Vigna (1534) explored proportional and classicizing solutions to the disposition of interior space. (Alice Jarrard)

Percorsi Iconografici:

Piero di Cosimo, Ritratto di Giuliano da Sangallo