Bartolommeo Bandinelli

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Hercules and Cacus. Piazza della Signoria, Florence

Bartolommeo (or Baccio) Bandinelli (November 12, 1493 - February 7, 1560), Florentine sculptor and painter, was the son of an eminent goldsmith, and from him Bandinelli obtained the first elements of drawing. Showing a strong inclination for the fine arts, he was early placed under Giovanni Francesco Rustici, a sculptor and friend of Leonardo da Vinci, with whom he made rapid progress. The ruling motive in his life seems to have been jealousy both of Benvenuto Cellini and of Michelangelo, whose cartoon Vasari says he cut into pieces:

"It was at this time that the cartoon of Michelangelo in the Council Hall was uncovered, and all the artists ran to copy it, and Baccio among others. He went more frequently than anyone, having counterfeited the key of the chamber. In the year 1512, Piero Soderini was deposed and the house of 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 Lionardo 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." (Giorgio Vasari)

He is regarded by some as inferior in sculpture only to Michelangelo, with whom a comparison, unfavourable to Bandinelli, is tempted in such works as the marble colossal group of Hercules and Cacus (5.05 m) in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, and the group of Adam and Eve in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello.

The group Hercules and Cacus was a commission 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 in the Sack of Rome, 1527, the pope was taken prisoner in Rome. Meanwhile, in Florence, republican enemies of the Medici took advantage of the chaos to expel Ippolito de' Medici from the city. Bandinelli, as a supporter of the Medici, had to leave the city as well. In 1530 Emperor Charles V retook possession of Florence after a long siege. Pope Clement VII subsequently installed his illegitimate son Alessandro de Medici as duke of Tuscany. Bandinelli could then return to Florence and continue his work on the statue. Finally in 1534 the work on the statue was finished and the statue was transported from the Opera del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria and placed on its marble pedestal. But it was ridiculed from the moment the sculpure was shown to the public. Even Benvenuto Cellini compared the ponderous group to 'a sac full of melons'. Afterwards, the insulted Bandinelli tried to sabotage Cellini's career. The statue was restored between February 1994 and April 1994.

Among Baccio Bandinelli's best works must be reckoned :

the bas-reliefs in the choir of the cathedral of Florence
his copy of the Laocoon, then in the Cortile del Belvedere, commissioned by Pope Leo X as a gift to François I. Bandinelli boasted that he would exceed the original, and when he was finished, after a hiatus during the pontificate of Adrian VI, the Medici Pope Clement VII could not bear to part witrh it, sent some antiquities to the King of France, and sent Baccio's Laocoon to Florence. It remains at the Uffizi.
the Pietà (in the SS. Annunziata church in Florence)
Orpheus (in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici)
the figures of Christ and Nicodemus on his own tomb.
the choir enclosure of the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

References

[Giorgio Vasari, Vite...:] Baccio Bandinelli. The classic brief anecdotal account of Baccio's career.

Bartolommeo Bandinelli

References

Further reading