Giovanni da Bologna - Biography

Sculptor and architect, born in Douai, N France. He went to Italy in 1551 and executed much sculptural work in Florence for the Medici, including the ‘Flying Mercury’ (1564) and various fountains in the Boboli gardens, the ‘Rape of the Sabines’ (1580), and ‘Hercules and the Centaur’ (1599). His bronzes can be seen in the Wallace Collection and elsewhere.

Giambologna, born as Jean Boulogne, also known as Giovanni Da Bologna and Giovanni Bologna (1529 - 1608) was a sculptor, known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.

Biography

Giambologna was born in Douai, Flanders (now in France). Pope Pius IV gave Giambologna his first major commission, the colossal bronze Neptune and subsidiary figures for the Fountain of Neptune (the base designed by Tommaso Laureti, 1566) in Bologna. Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553.

Giambologna became well known for the fine sense of action and movement. Among his most famous works are: the winged Mercury (of which he actually did multiple versions), poised on one foot, supported by a zephyr, several depictions of Venus, Florence defeating Pisa, the three intertwined figures of The Rape of the Sabine Women (1574-82) and Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus (1599), both in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, the equestrian statue of Cosimo I de' Medici also in Florence, as well as many sculptures for garden grottos and fountains in the Boboli Gardens of Florence and at Pratolino, and the bronze doors of the cathedral of Pisa.

Giambologna was an important influence on later sculptors through his pupils Adriaen de Vries and Pietro Francavilla who left his atelier for Paris in 1601, as well as Pierre Puget who spread Giambologna's influence throughout Northern Europe, and in Italy on Pietro Tacca, who assumed Giambologna's workshop in Florence, and in Rome on Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Alessandro Algardi.

Recently debate has occurred within the antiques industry after antique dealer Colin Wilson found two bronze monkeys believed to be the work of Giambologna, assumed to be a part of one of his famous fountains currently situated in Aranjuez, south of Madrid. This calls into question the validity of the monkey held in the Louvre, claimed by experts to be the real work of Giambologna. Colin Wilson's monkeys, however, do match this drawing, are made of a gunmetal characteristic of the 16th/17th century, are unrefined and of a high lead content, all of which are traits of a work of Giambologna.