Briosco Benedetto
(b Milan, c. 1460; d ?Milan, after April 1514).
Italian sculptor. The first notice of his activity dates from 1477,
when he and his brother-in-law Francesco Cazzaniga were employed as
sculptors on the monument to Giovanni Borromeo and Vitaliano
Borromeo (Isola Bella, Palazzo Borromeo, chapel), which was
executed for S Francesco Grande, Milan. By 1482 he had begun
employment for the Works of Milan Cathedral and in 1483 was paid for
carving a figure of S Apollonia (untraced). Although he was a
master figure sculptor at the cathedral until the middle of 1485,
the other work he did there remains unknown. During 1483–4 it is
likely that he assisted Francesco and Tommaso Cazzaniga in the
execution of the tomb of Cristoforo and Giacomo Antonio della
Torre (Milan, S Maria delle Grazie). In 1484 he and the
Cazzaniga brothers began work on the tomb of Pietro Francesco
Visconti di Saliceto destined for the Milanese church of S Maria
del Carmine (destr.; reliefs in Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.; Kansas City,
MO, Nelson-Atkins Mus. A.; and Washington, DC, N.G.A.; architectural
elements in Paris, Louvre). This project was completed by Briosco
and Tommaso Cazzaniga following Francesco Cazzaniga’s death at the
beginning of 1486. In the same year Benedetto and Tommaso were
commissioned to finish the tomb of Giovanni Francesco Brivio
(Milan, S Eustorgio), designed and begun by Francesco. Briosco’s
hand is virtually impossible to distinguish in these collaborative
works. In 1489 the Apostolic Prothonotary and ducal councillor
Ambrogio Griffo engaged Briosco to execute his funerary monument, to
be installed in the church of S Pietro in Gessate, Milan. This tomb,
which in its original form consisted of an effigy mounted on a high
rectangular sarcophagus, appears to be Briosco’s first major
independent work and represents a significant break with Lombard
tradition; although its design may to some extent have been
influenced by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo’s tomb to Medea Colleoni
(Bergamo, Colleoni Chapel), it was free-standing and entirely
secular in content. In 1490 Briosco returned to Milan Cathedral,
where he was engaged to carve four life-size statues each year until
he or his employers should cancel the arrangement. Although he
worked at the cathedral until mid-1492, only a figure of St Agnes
(Milan, Mus. Duomo) is documented from this period.
