Bandinelli, Baccio

born Nov. 12, 1493?, Florence

died Feb. 7, 1560, Florence

Italian sculptor and painter active in Florence.

Though trained as a goldsmith by his father, he soon became one of the principal sculptors at the Medici court. He often failed to complete his commissions and was accused of jealousy and incompetence by Benvenuto Cellini and Giorgio Vasari. He is remembered more for accounts of his unattractive character than for the quality of his work, although surviving works prove him to have been a more distinguished sculptor than his contemporaries allowed. His most famous sculpture is Hercules and Cacus (1534), in the Piazza della Signoria.

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▪ Italian sculptor

born Nov. 12, 1493?, Florence [Italy]

died Feb. 7, 1560, Florence

 Florentine Mannerist (Mannerism) sculptor whose Michelangelo-influenced works were favoured by the Medici in the second quarter of the 16th century.

      Bandinelli was trained as a goldsmith by his father, Michelangelo di Viviani de' Bandini, who was patronized by the Medici Family. Showing a marked predilection for sculpture, he worked under the sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici and became one of the principal artists at the court of the Medicis, grand dukes of Tuscany. He founded an academy for artists in the Vatican (1531) and one in Florence (c. 1550). Accounts of Bandinelli given in Giorgio Vasari (Vasari, Giorgio)'s Lives and in the Autobiography of the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (Cellini, Benvenuto) represent him as jealous, malignant, and untalented. He assumed the surname Bandinelli in 1530.

      Bandinelli's surviving works prove him to have been a more distinguished sculptor than his contemporaries allowed. His copy of the Laocoön (Uffizi, Florence), his statue of Hercules and Cacus (1534; Piazza della Signoria), and his reliefs on the choir screen of Florence Cathedral explain the vogue that his austere, rather arid work enjoyed at the Medici court. In later life his sculpture was supplanted by the works of Cellini and Bartolommeo Ammannati (Ammannati, Bartolommeo). Shortly before his death Bandinelli, aided by his son Clemente, sculpted his own tomb (1554; Santissima Annunziata, Florence), noted for its Dead Christ Supported by Nicodemus (the latter figure a self-portrait).

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