DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO (14281464)

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 95 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DEM-DIO

DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO (14281464) , Italian sculptor, was born at Settignano, a

village

VILLAGE

on the southern slope of the hill
of Fiesole, still surrounded by the quarries of

sandstone

SANDSTONE

of which the hill is formed, and inhabited by a race of " stone-cutters." Desiderio was for a short time a pupil of Donatello, whom, according to

Vasari

VASARI, GIORGIO (1511-1571)

, he assisted in the

work

WORK

on the pedestal of

David

, and he seems to have worked also with Mino da Fiesole, with the delicate and refined style of whose works those of Desiderio seem to have a closer affinity than with the perhaps more masculine tone of Donatello.

Vasari

VASARI, GIORGIO (1511-1571)

particularly extols the sculptor's treatment of the figures of , women and children. It does not appear that Desiderio ever worked else-where than at Florence; and it is there that those who are interested in the Italian sculpture of the Renaissance must seek his few surviving decorative and monumental works, though a number of his delicately carved

marble

MARBLE (from Lat. marmor, Gr. pApµapos, shining stone)

busts of women and children are to be found in the museums and private collections of Germany and France. The most prominent of his works are the tomb of the secretary of state, Marsuppini, in Santa Croce, and the

great

GREAT

marble

MARBLE (from Lat. marmor, Gr. pApµapos, shining stone)

tabernacle of the Annunciation in San Lorenzo, both of which belong to the latter period of Desiderio's activity; and the cherubs' heads which form the exterior

frieze

FRIEZE

of the Pazzi Chapel. Vasari mentions a marble bust by Desiderio of Marietta degli Strozzi, which for many years was held to be identical with a very beautiful bust bought in 1878 from the Strozzi family for the Berlin Museum. This bust is now, however, generally acknowledged to be the

work

WORK

of Francesco Laurana; whilst Desiderio's bust of Marietta has been recognized in another marble portrait acquired by the Berlin Museum in 1842. The Berlin Museum also owns a coloured plaster bust of an Urbino lady by Desiderio, the model for which is in the possession of the

earl

EARL

of Wemyss. Other important busts by the master are in the Bargello, Florence, the Louvre in Paris, the collections of M. Figdor and M. Benda in Vienna, and of M. Dreyfus in Paris. Like most of Donatello's pupils, Desiderio worked chiefly in marble, and not a single work in bronze has been traced to his hand.
See Wilhelm Bode, Die italienische Plastik (Berlin, 1893).

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