Galeazzo Mondella, known as Moderno (Verona, 1467 – Verona, 1528),Rognini, Luciano (1975). "Galeazzo e Girolamo Mondella, artisti del Rinascimento veronese". Atti e Memorie della Accademia di Agricoltura, Scienze e Lettere di Verona. Series 6, 25: 95–119. was an Italian goldsmith and medallist who became one of the most important designers of bronze plaquettes during the Italian Renaissance.Lewis, Douglas (1994). "Galeazzo Mondella, called Moderno". In Stephen K. Scher, ed. The Currency of Fame: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance. New York. pp. 80–83, 85–87.Lewis, Douglas (1996). "Moderno". In Jane Turner, ed. The Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. London. 21: 783–784.
Life and career
Early career Mondella began his career as a medallist at the court of Mantua, where in 1487 he adopted the professional name "Moderno" (meaning "the Modern"). This name was chosen in contrast to his contemporary, the Mantuan bronzist Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, who was in the same year called "Antico" ("the Ancient") for the first time.In a letter from Antonia del Balzo of Bozzolo, of 16 August 1487: Lewis 1987, 92, and 97 note 85. Mondella had joined the Goldsmiths' Guild of Verona in 1485 at age eighteen.Lewis, Douglas (1989). "The Plaquettes of 'Moderno' and His Followers". In Italian Plaquettes. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers IX. Studies in the History of Art 22: 105–141. Moderno's pax design dated 1490, the Madonna and Child with Saints Anthony Abbot and Jerome (see Works no. 14) was signed on one cast "Mondella," but "Moderno" on almost all remaining casts.
Family connections His brother Girolamo Mondella (1464–1512) was a celebrated painter with close ties to the Este court at Ferrara. This family connection probably influenced Moderno's early four-part series of Hercules plaquettes, which may have been created as a tribute to Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (r. 1471–1505). The connection between the courts was strengthened when Ercole's daughter Isabella d'Este married Francesco II Gonzaga of Mantua in 1490.
Professional activities From approximately 1485 to 1505, Moderno worked intermittently as a medallist at Mantua, also serving a cadet branch of the Gonzaga family at their court in Bozzolo.Lewis, Douglas (1987). "The Medallic Oeuvre of 'Moderno': His Development at Mantua in the Circle of 'Antico'". In Italian Medals. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers VIII. Studies in the History of Art 21: 77–97. He served two terms as president of the Goldsmiths' Guild of Verona, from 1496–1497 and 1506–1507.
Artistic development
Moderno's artistic style evolved significantly throughout his career. His early work showed the influence of local Veronese artists including Francesco Bonsignori, Liberale da Verona, the Falconetto family, and particularly Andrea Mantegna. Through study of contemporary masters from Emilia, Lombardy, and the Veneto—such as Vincenzo Foppa, Antonello da Messina, the Bellini family, Bartolomeo Montagna, and Giovanni Battista Cima—his style developed toward a confident Roman classicism reminiscent of Raphael.
Moderno may have had access to Mantegna's studio at Mantua, either before 1488 or during 1490–1506. His Venetian patron Cardinal Domenico Grimani (1461–1523) introduced him to patrician families in Venice and possessed extensive collections of Raphael's drawings and cartoons.Paschini, Pio (1928). "Le collezioni archeologiche dei prelati Grimani nel Cinquecento". Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia. 3rd series, Rendiconti 5. Rome. p. 174. The Cardinal may possibly have facilitated a visit by Moderno to Rome around 1509–1511.
Moderno's acknowledged masterpieces (Works, nos. 47 and 48) are his two large gilded silver reliefs of 1506-1507, for the doors of Cardinal Grimani's famous Cabinet ["Scrigno"], which after being looted from the Ducal Palace in Venice (during the first years of the Austrian occupation, at the turn of the 19th century), are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Later career and legacy Moderno assumed leadership of his family workshop in 1512, after which his independent plaquette inventions appear to have declined. Following the Imperial occupations of the Veneto (1509–1516), the Mondella family was restored to the Verona council of nobles in 1517. There follows a ten-year gap in his documented activity, during which Giorgio Vasari suggested Moderno may have traveled to France.Vasari, Giorgio (1881). Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori scritte da Giorgio Vasari. Gaetano Milanesi, ed. Vol. 5. Florence; repr. 1906. pp. 375–376.
He had returned to Verona by 1527 and wrote his will there on May 5, 1528. The family workshop was inherited by his son Giambattista Mondella (1506–c. 1572), who with various collaborators continued to produce Moderno's designs for decades, with some production also occurring in Padua.
Recognition and influence Moderno's work attracted significant attention from prominent figures of his time. His plaquettes were collected by ErasmusLewis, Douglas (2008). "Collectors of Renaissance Reliefs: Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536)...". In Nicholas Penny and Eike D. Schmidt, eds. Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers XLVII. Studies in the History of Art 70: 129–143. and drew the interest of northern European artists including Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, as well as French sculptors. One of the best of them, the David and a Companion with the Dead Goliath (see Works no. 32) provided -- in its kneeling, secondary figure -- a prototype for a comparable figure in Michelangelo's Last Judgment (1536) in the Sistine Chapel.
Plaquettes by Moderno and his associates