SANSOVINO, Jacopo

(1486-1570)

A Florentine architect and sculptor, Jacopo Sansovino orchestrated the archi­tectural renewal of the political center of Venice, helping to modernize the city and bring it into the High Renaissance. In Florence, Italy, Jacopo Tatti trained as a sculptor with Andrea Sansovino and subsequently adopted the surname of his mentor. While he was in Florence, he encountered the High Renaissance as it was currently unfolding in the studio and the city. Around 1506 Sansovino went to Rome, where he established himself as an important sculptor whose work was deeply influenced by ancient sculpture and the art of Michelangelo.* Sansovino also continued to pursue his interest in architecture as he studied ancient buildings and eventually received religious and private architectural commissions.

After the sack of Rome, Sansovino moved to Venice in 1527, where he was in demand from the beginning, subsequently becoming famous as an architect. His formation and commissions in Rome and Florence meant that he brought with him the latest artistic and architectural innovations to Venice. In 1529 he was named chief architect of St. Mark's and received the commission to restruc­ture and unify the central piazza of St. Mark, the political, economic, and cul­tural center of the city. The Roman vocabulary and the scale of his projects there, including the Library, the Loggetta underneath the campanile, various offices, and the Venetian mint, made a tremendous impact. While outwardly modern, Sansovino's buildings responded to the local architectural tradition and Venice's specific construction needs as Sansovino likewise adapted the design to the site and function of the building. Stylistically, his architecture reflects his sculptural formation with a pictorial dynamism owing to the play of light and shade on the surface.

Sansovino also continued to sculpt in Venice, renewing the Venetian and northern Italian sculptural scene there with his sculptures, tombs, and reliefs that embodied his mixture of classical and modern models, as evidenced in his sculp­tures for the Loggetta. Sansovino simultaneously continued to study fifteenth-century sculpture, especially the work of Donatello, as he sensitively responded to the northern Italian artistic tradition and fused it with central Italian devel­opments. Sansovino worked in Venice for more than forty years, helping to visibly establish the all'antica style there with his sculptures and architecture.

Bibliography

B. Boucher, The Sculpture ofJacopo Sansovino, 1991.

D. Howard, Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, 1975.

Mary Pixley