Agostino di Duccio

(b Florence, 1418; d ?Perugia, after 1481). Italian sculptor and architect. His father, Antonio di Duccio, a weaver, reported in his catasto (land registry declaration) of 1427 that Agostino was eight years old. On his father's death, the young Agostino enrolled in the company of the mercenary Giovanni da Tolentino, with whom he was serving in 1433. He may be the apprentice named Agostino who was working on the external pulpit for Prato Cathedral on 14 May 1437; this would suggest that he trained in the circle of Michelozzo and Donatello. What may be his earliest known work, datable c. 1440 (Rosenauer, 1977), is a marble statue of the Virgin and Child (Florence, S Maria del Carmine), influenced by Michelozzo.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Italian sculptor Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481) evolved a highly personal style in relief sculpture. He executed his major works in Rimini and Perugia.

One of 10 children of a weaver, Agostino di Duccio was born in Florence. He left the city in 1433. This early departure and the style of his first independent work, an altarpiece with scenes from the life of St. Gemignano (Modena, ca. 1442), suggest that he may have studied sculpture under Jacopo della Quercia in nearby Bologna.

Agostino returned to his birthplace in 1442, but by 1446 he was forced to leave Florence for Venice because he was charged with the theft of silver from the Church of SS. Annunziata. Perhaps by 1450, and certainly by 1454, Agostino was engaged in the most important enterprise of his life: the sculptural program for the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini. His collaborator was Matteo di Pasti.

Executed with extraordinary precision, assurance, and delicacy, the reliefs of Rimini are carved in a style so dependent on finely incised curvilinear patterns that they evoke such far-ranging analogies as Oriental calligraphy, the "Neo-Attic" style of Greco-Roman art, and the ethereal designs of Agostino's younger compatriot Sandro Botticelli.

From 1457 to 1462 Agostino was in Perugia, chiefly engaged on the facade of the small oratory of S. Bernardino. The main emphasis is on the tympanum over the entrance door; the sensitive, frail figure of the saint is framed by angels playing musical instruments, and the angels are surrounded by a ring of gay and charming cherubim heads.

In 1463 Agostino worked briefly in Bologna preparing a model for the facade of S. Petronio. That same year he received commissions for two colossal figures for the Cathedral of Florence. The first, probably executed in stucco, is lost; the second, in marble, was not finished by Agostino, and the marble block was used 40 years later by Michelangelo for his David. During the next decade Agostino completed various smaller works, including the attractive tabernacle for the Church of the Ognissanti in Florence. In 1473 he again left Florence and spent his last years in Perugia executing a series of commissions that reveal a somewhat weary repetition of his fresher and more incisive earlier works. Agostino is presumed to have died after 1481.

Further Reading

There is no adequate monograph on Agostino. Useful information and critical insights are presented in John Pope-Hennessy, The Virgin and Child by Agostino di Duccio (1952) and Italian Renaissance Sculpture (1958), and in Charles Seymour, Jr., Sculpture in Italy, 1400-1500 (1966).

Florentine sculptor and architect, he worked (c.1450–7) on Alberti's Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini, where he created refined and original personifications of the Liberal Arts. He designed the early Renaissance façade of the Oratorio di San Bernardino at Perugia (1457–61), on which both coloured marble and terracotta are used to great effect. He was also responsible for the decorations on the monumental Porta San Pietro in the same city (1473–81).

Bibliography

• S. Hesse (1992)
• Heydenreich (1996)
• Pope-Hennessy (1958)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

The marble façade of the church of S. Bernardino at Perugia.

Agostino di Duccio (1418 – c. 1481) was an Italian early Renaissance sculptor.

Born in Florence, he worked in Prato with Donatello and Michelozzo, who influenced him greatly. In 1441, he was accused of stealing precious materials from a monastery in Florence and was banished from his native city as a result. The following year he continued the work on the altar of S. Geminiano for the Cathedral of Modena, a work noticeable for the influence of Michelozzo.

In 1446, he studied late Gothic sculpture in Venice and met Matteo de' Pasti who called on him to execute the sculptural decoration of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, where he stayed from 1449 and 1457. The decorations were supposed to be a sort of mediaeval encyclopedia, with reliefs of zodiacal and other allegorical and mythological figures.

Between 1457 and 1462 he created the marble façade of the church of S. Bernardino at Perugia and the following years until 1470 he created many works especially in Florence, such as a Madonna d'Auvillers for Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, now found at the Louvre. In 1473 he designed the outer facade of the Porta di San Pietro in the city walls of Perugia, in a style influenced by Leone Battista Alberti. Other works are at Amelia^[1] and at the National Gallery of Umbria at Perugia.^[2] He died in about 1481 in Perugia.

References

1. ^ Brief biography and pictures of works including at Amelia (Italian)
2. ^ The di Duccio room at the National Gallery of Umbria (Italian)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Agostino di Duccio

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)