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Antonio Rossellino Edit Profile

sculptor

Antonio Rossellino was an Italian Renaissance sculptor.

Background

Antonio Rossellino was born in 1427 in Florence, Italy. He was the son of Matteo di Domenico Gamberelli, and had four brothers, who all practised some branch of the fine arts.

Education

He received his formal training from his older brother, sculptor and architect Bernardo Rossellino.

Career

Almost nothing is known about the life of Antonio, but many of his works exist, and are full of religious sentiment, and executed with the utmost delicacy of touch and technical skill. The style of Antonio and his brother Bernardo is a development of that of Donatello and Ghiberti; it possesses all the refinement and sweetness of the earlier masters, but is not equal to them in vigour or originality. Antonio's chief work, still in perfect preservation, is the lovely tomb of a young cardinal prince of Portugal, who died in 1459. It occupies one side of a small chapel, also built by Rossellino, on the north of the nave of San Miniato al Monte. The recumbent effigy of the cardinal rests on a handsome sarcophagus, and over it, under the arch which frames the whole, is a beautiful relief of the Madonna between two flying angels. The tomb was begun in 1461 and finished in 1466; Antonio received four hundred and twenty-five gold florins for it. A reproduction of this tomb with slight church of S. Maria del Monte at Naples, where it still exists. For the same church he also executed some delicate reliefs, which perhaps err in being too pictorial in style, especially in the treatment of the backgrounds. A fine medallion relief by him in marble, originally modelled in terra-cotta, is preserved in the Bargello at Florence.

Achievements

  • Antonio Rossellino’s greatest work is the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal in San Miniato al Monte, outside Florence, which is an elaborate and decorative combination of architecture and figurative sculpture.

Connections

Father:
Matteo di Domenico Gamberelli

Brother:
Bernardo Rossellino

Sculptor and architect