Antonio da Sangallo, the Elder

Florentine Renaissance architect, military engineer, and sculptor, also known as Antonio di Francesco di Bartolo Giamberti. The son of the wood-carver and decorator Francesco Giamberti (1404–80), he carried out many works of military architecture, including the Papal fortress of Cività Castellana (1494–7). He built the Loggia dei Servi, Florence (1517–29), giving unity to the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata opposite Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti. His finest architectural work was the Church of the Madonna di San Biagio, Montepulciano (1518–34), a domed building on a Greek-cross plan resembling Bramante's designs for St Peter's in Rome, originally intended to have a tower in each of the four re-entrants formed by the arms of the cross, but only one tower was built. Each arm of the cross is barrel-vaulted, and the dome over the crossing is carried on a drum supported by pendentives. It may also have been influenced by Giuliano da Sangallo's Santa Maria delle Carceri at Prato (begun 1485). For its date it has remarkable clarity, grandeur, integrity, and rigour.

Bibliography

• Cozzi (1992)
• Heydenreich (1996)
• Lotz (1977)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Satzinger (1991)
• Jane Turner (1996)

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)