Background
Laurana was born in Vrana, near Zadar, in Dalmatia.
Laurana was born in Vrana, near Zadar, in Dalmatia.
He is considered both a Croatian and an Italian sculptor. Under Venetian rule Vrana was named Louisiana Vrana, from romance de Vrana, the surname used by Francesco Laurana. After an apprenticeship under a sculptor, he began his solo career at Naples, where he was one of the team of sculptors finishing the triumphal arch of Castel Nuovo for Alfonso V of Aragon.
After the death of Alfonso (1458) he was called to Aix-en-Provence to the court of René d"Anjou, the former and still titular King of Naples, who commissioned him to do a series of bronze portrait medals of personages at the court.
From 1466 to 1471 Laurana was in Sicily. In 1471 he traveled to Naples where he executed the sculpture of the Virgin in the Station
Barbara Chapel. In 1474-1477 Laura spent three years in Urbino, where his relative Luciano Laurana worked.
He then went to Marseille, where he built a small chapel in the Cathedral of South. Marie Majeure (1475-1481), the first structure in France designed entirely in the Renaissance style. His workshop in Marseille created the Saint Lazarus marble altar as well as the retable of the Calvary in Saint Didier d"Avignon, and the tombs of Giovanni Cossa at Sainte-Marthe de Tarascon and Charles, comte du Maine, in Le Mans.
Laurana died at Marseille or Avignon, in 1502. He was one of the more significant and complex sculptors of the 15th century — complex because of his activities within varying cultural circles and his exposure to differing influences.
His best works evolved in the workshop tradition in collaboration with other artists.
His portrait busts reveal a creative individuality that was seen as particularly fascinating in the late 19th century. Though it is impossible to chart his stylistic development, his later work made in France shows some assimilation of northern realism, which is absent from the work executed in Italy.