Bartolommeo (or Baccio) Bandinelli
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actually Bartolommeo
Brandini (October 17, 1493 – shortly before February 7, 1560), was a
prominent Renaissance Italian sculptor, draughtsman and painter.
Bandinelli was the
son of a prominent Florentine goldsmith, and first apprenticed in
his shop. As a boy, he was apprenticed under Giovanni Francesco
Rustici, a sculptor friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Among his earliest
works was a Saint Jerome in wax, made for Giuliano de' Medici,
identified as Bandinelli's by John Pope-Hennessy
Giorgio Vasari, a
former pupil in Bandinelli's workshop, claimed Bandinelli was driven
by jealousy of Benvenuto Cellini and Michelangelo; and recounts
that:
"(When) the cartoon
of Michelangelo in the Council Hall ("Battle of Cascina" at Palazzo
Vecchio) was uncovered, and all the artists ran to copy it, and
Baccio (most frequently) among (them),... having counterfeited the
key of the chamber. In ... 1512, Piero Soderini was deposed and the
... Medici reinstated. In the tumult, therefore, Baccio, being by
himself, secretly cut the cartoon into several pieces."
"Some said he did it that he might have a piece of the cartoon
always near him, and others that he wanted to prevent other youths
from making use of it; others again say that he did it out of
affection for Leonardo da Vinci, or from the hatred he bore to
Michael Angelo. The loss anyhow to the city was no small one, and
Baccio's fault very great." Bandinelli's lifelong obsession with
Michelangelo is a recurring theme in assessments of his career.
Bandinelli was a leader in the group of Florentine Mannerists who
were inspired by the revived interest in Donatello attendant on the
installation of Donatello's bas-relief panels for the pulpit in San
Lorenzo, 1515. The artist presented his relief of the Deposition to
Charles V at Genoa in 1529; though the relief has been lost, a
bronze from it by Antonio Susini in 1600 (Musée du Louvre) shows the
decisive inspiration of Donatello's emotional pitch and intensity;
Bandinelli made several drawings of the Donatello reliefs, though
later in life he disparaged them in a letter to Cosimo I de' Medici.
His sculptures have
never inspired the admiration given those of Michelangelo, specially
the colossal (5.05 m) marble group of Hercules and Cacus (completed
in 1534) in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, and Adam and Eve in
the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, which both stand within sight of
some of Michelangelo's masterworks. Vasari said of him "He did
nothing but make bozzetti and finished little", and modern
commentators have remarked on the vitality of Bandinelli's
terracotta models contrasted with the finished marbles: "all the
freshness of his first approach to a subject was lost in the
laborious execution in marble... A brilliant draughtsman and
excellent small-scale sculptor, he had a morbid fascination for
colossi which he was ill-equipped to execute. His failure as a
sculptor on a grand scale was accentuated by his desire to imitate
Michelangelo."
Hercules and Cacus
was commissioned by the Medici pope Clement VII, who had been shown
a wax model. The supplied block of Carrara marble wasn't big enough
to execute Bandinelli's wax model. He had to make new wax models,
one of which was chosen by the pope as the final draft. Bandinelli
had already carved the sculpture as far as the abdomen of Hercules,
when during the 1527 Sack of Rome, the pope was taken prisoner.
Meanwhile, in Florence, republican enemies of the Medici took
advantage of the chaos to exile Ippolito de' Medici. Bandinelli, a
supporter of the Medici, was also exiled. In 1530 Emperor Charles V
retook Florence after a long siege. Pope Clement VII subsequently
installed his illegitimate son Alessandro de' Medici as duke of
Tuscany. Bandinelli then returned to Florence and continue work on
the statue till completed in 1534, and transported from the Opera
del Duomo to its present marble pedestal. But from the moment it was
unveiled, it faced ridicule; Cellini compared the ponderous group to
'a sac full of melons'. Afterwards, the Bandinelli tried to sabotage
Cellini's career. The statue was restored between February and April
1994.
Bandinelli's
drawings, which have in the past masqueraded as Michelangelos in
connoisseurs' collections, have come into their own in the later
twentieth century.
Among Bandinelli's
pupils were Giorgio Vasari and Francesco de' Rossi (Il Salviati).
His sons Clemente Bandinelli, a collaborator in Baccio's studio, and
Michelangelo Bandinelli were also sculptors.
