Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge.According to Frederick Hartt: "It is striking that the great new figurative style of the Renaissance is seen first in sculpture, and only later in painting" – Hartt, 163, of Ghiberti; White, 73 The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy,Avery, 4 above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.
Italian Renaissance sculpture was dominated by the north, above all by Florence.Hartt, 638: "the undeniable fact is that every one of the truly great Italian Renaissance sculptors came from Tuscany, and all but two of them were Florentines, native or adopted". This was especially the case in the quattrocento (15th century), after which Rome came to equal or exceed it as a centre,Campbell, 28; Avery, 10 though producing few sculptors itself. Major Florentine sculptors in stone included (in rough chronological order, with dates of death) Orcagna (1368), Nanni di Banco (1421), Filippo Brunelleschi (1446), Nanni di Bartolo (1451), Lorenzo Ghiberti (1455), Donatello (1466), Bernardo (1464) and his brother Antonio Rossellino (1479), Andrea del Verrocchio (1488), Antonio del Pollaiuolo (1498), Michelangelo (1564), and Jacopo Sansovino (1570). Elsewhere there was the Siennese Jacopo della Quercia (1438), from Lombardy Pietro Lombardo (1515) and his sons, Giovanni Antonio Amadeo (1522), Andrea Sansovino (1529), Vincenzo Danti (1576), Leone Leoni (1590), and Giambologna (1608, born in Flanders).For all, see Olsen, Index, or Osborne
While church sculpture continued to provide more large commissions than any other source, followed by civic monuments,Seymour, 10–11 a number of other settings for sculpture appeared or increased in prominence during the period. Secular portraits had previously mostly been funerary art, and large tomb monuments became considerably more elaborate. Relief panels were used in a number of materials and settings, or sometimes treated as portable objects like paintings. Small bronzes, usually of secular subjects, became increasingly important from the late 15th century onwards, while new forms included the medal, initially mostly presenting people rather than events, and the plaquette with a small scene in metal relief.Avery, 4; Osborne, 705–706, 879
The term "sculptor" only came into use during the 15th century; before that sculptors were known as stonecarvers, woodcarvers and so forth. Statua ("statue", and the art of making them) was another new Italian word, replacing medieval terms such as figura, simulacrum and imago, also used for painted images.Seymour, 4–5, 11; Hartt, 25
Periods
Gothic architecture, and Gothic art in general, had a limited penetration in Italy, arriving late and mostly affecting the far north, Venice and Lombardy in particular, often only as an ornamental style in borders and capitals.White, 19–34. The mendicant Franciscan and Dominican orders were regular patrons in the 13th century. Classical traditions were more deeply rooted than north of the Alps, making a deliberate revival of classical style less of a sharp change.Olsen, 8–9 In the Trecento (14th century), sculptors might be asked to work on buildings generally in a Gothic style, or those that were not. Some sculptors could adjust their styles somewhat to fit in, others did not.Avery, 60, 63 This complicated situation makes giving a clear start date for Renaissance sculpture difficult if not impossible.Osborne, 965,
As with Italian Renaissance painting, sculpture is conventionally divided into Early Renaissance, High Renaissance, Mannerist and Late Renaissance periods. Conveniently, 1400 and 1500 work fairly well as dates to mark significant changes in style, with key turning points being the competition for designs for the doors of the Florence Baptistery, announced in late 1400,Avery, 11, 33–37; Olsen, 41 and Michelangelo's Pietà, completed in 1499, and his David, begun in 1501.Seymour, 211–216 Sometimes the 15th century is divided around 1450 (or earlier) into a "First Renaissance" and "Second Renaissance", to some extent following Vasari.
Mannerist style starts to emerge around 1520, but the Sack of Rome in 1527, which greatly shook up and dispersed what had become the leading centre, provides a generally accepted end to the High Renaissance phase; the Medici were expelled from Florence the same year, displacing other artists.Olsen, 188 Though his workshop continued to turn out work in his style, the death of Giambologna in 1608, when Baroque sculpture was already well-established in Rome, can be taken to mark the end of the period.Avery, 253–256; Olsen, 201–202; Hartt, 660
Materials Generally, "sculpture of any quality" was more expensive than an equivalent in painting, and when in bronze dramatically so. The painted Equestrian Monument of Niccolò da Tolentino of 1456 by Andrea del Castagno appears to have cost only 24 florins, while Donatello's equestrian bronze of Gattamelata, several years earlier, has been "estimated conservatively" at 1,650 florins. Michelangelo was paid 3,000 florins for painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, while Ghiberti said his first set of doors for the Florence Baptistery, a century earlier, had cost 22,000, with perhaps a quarter representing the cost of materials.Seymour, 14
Understandably, sculptors tended "to produce the best work in the most durable materials", stone or metal; there was a great deal of quicker and cheaper work in other materials that has mostly not survived.Avery, 8 Sculptors made considerable use of drawings, and then of small and sometimes full-size modelli or maquettes in clay, with an internal framework of iron rods where necessary.Hartt, 25–26; Avery, 8 But such models were rarely fired, and very few have survived. Leonardo da Vinci's project for the Sforza Horse is an example.Kemp, 189–197, 203
Many sculptors worked in several materials; for example Antonio del Pollaiuolo produced finished work in stone, bronze, wood, and terracotta, as well as painting in tempera, oils and fresco, and producing an important engraving. Donatello's Saint George, for the armourers and swordsmith's guild, at the Orsanmichele is in marble, but originally wore a bronze helmet and carried a sword.Hartt, 169 Donatello also worked in wood, terracotta and plaster. Especially in the 15th century, many architects were sculptors by training, and several practised as both for most of their career.NGA, 6
Stone Marble, above all the pure white statuario grade of Carrara marble from the Apuan Alps in the north of Tuscany, was the most popular material for fine sculpture. Many Tuscan sculptors went to the quarries to "rough out" large works, some finishing them at Pisa nearby, so saving the cost of transporting large blocks. Long-distance transport was usually by boat, either by sea or down the Arno to Florence.Seymour, 15, 189
Although most parts of Italy had stone that could be carved,Seymour, 15, and 17 for a survey of other regional stones, also 189 the other most favoured stone was also in the north, from Istria on the Adriatic, now in Croatia and partly Slovenia. Istrian stone is "marble-like stone, capable of a polished finish, but far more varied in texture and colour than the Apuan white marble".Seymour, 15 The grey Tuscan sandstone known as pietra serena was mainly used as building stone, often contrasting with white marble, as in Florence Cathedral. But it was sometimes used for sculpture, especially in smaller reliefs and carved scenes on buildings.Seymour, 17
Metal
A bronze sculpture was then about ten times more expensive than marble and the difficult founding or making the alloy, as well as the lost wax technique of casting was most often performed by the sculptor and his studio.Avery, 6–7; Hartt, 25–26; Seymour, 17 This involved making a finished maquette in wax, or wax over clay, which is then destroyed during casting; the Horse and Rider is a very rare wax sculpture, probably a maquette that was never cast, which has survived; there is a small number of others, mostly small preliminary studies.Kemp, 201 on another horse, attributed to Leonardo, as the Horse and Rider is by some.
After the basic casting, which might be performed by outside specialists, there was a good deal of sculptor's work to be done in cleaning up, touching up and finishing the surface by polishing. In some cases this stage stretched over years, and used different sculptors.Avery, 6–7
Despite its cost and difficulty, following the classical taste known from ancient literature such as Pliny the Elder, and the very few ancient examples then known,Avery, 5; the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius and Boy with Thorn in Rome, the Lion of Venice and Horses of San Marco in Venice, the Regisole in Pavia (now destroyed), and the Colossus of Barletta were the leading examples, and almost the only large ones known to the Middle Ages. The Idolino was excavated in 1530 and The Orator in 1566. The Youth of Magdalensberg was found in Germany and never returned to Italy. bronze enjoyed a special prestige, even at a small scale.Seymour, 201–203; NGA, 5 In late medieval Italy it had been mostly used for grand cathedral doors, as at Pisa and San Marco in Venice, and the early Renaissance continued this, most famously at the Florence Baptistry.Avery, 5–6 Lorenzo Ghiberti's slightly over life-size bronze Saint John the Baptist for Orsanmichele (1412) was unprecedented.Avery, 58–59; Levey, 142–143
Bronze might be gilded.Hartt, 26 A range of metals were used for casts of portrait medals of princely, or just wealthy, patrons, and sometimes for plaquettes. Bronze was the normal metal, but a few might be cast in gold or silver, for presentation to persons of the same or higher rank, and some in lead.Osborne, 705–706, 879 Especially in the princely courts, above all the richest, Milan, small cast figures and sculpted objects such as inkwells were often made in gold and silver, but almost all of these have been melted down for their bullion value at some point. The famous gold Cellini Salt Cellar, made in 1543 for Francis I of France by Benvenuto Cellini is almost the sole survivor in gold, now in Vienna.Avery, 203–204 The set of 12 silver-gilt cups called the Aldobrandini Tazze were made for an Italian family before 1603, but perhaps not by Italians.Aldobrandini Tazza, Victoria and Albert Museum The Ghisi Shield of 1554 is another example of tiny scenes in relief."The Ghisi Shield" , British Museum
Wood
Unlike north of the Alps, wood was not a prestigious material, but because of its light weight continued to be used for Crucifixion figures, often hung in mid-air or on walls in churches, for example the Brunelleschi Crucifix in Santa Maria Novella. Other exceptions included Donatello's several figures for the altarpiece of the Frari church in Venice, his Penitent Magdalene and works by Francesco di Valdambrino in Tuscany around 1410.Seymour, 53. Guild restrictions may have played a part in this. When wood was used, it was usually painted, either by a painter or the sculptor or his workshop. Decorative carvings in wood were common, for furniture, panelling, and other uses. Choir stalls in large churches often included a good deal of sculpture; sometimes these included figures and narrative scenes. In the early 15th century, wood figures by in Siena moved towards "a new eloquence in gesture and facial expression".Seymour, 53
Terracotta