Search Results

(b Settignano, nr Florence, 1670; d Florence, 1736).

Italian sculptor, medallist, architect and festival designer. He was a leading figure in the generation of sculptors trained in Florence after the dissolution of the Accademia Fiorentina in Rome (1686). Taught by Carlo Marcellini and Giuseppe Piamontini, he worked under Giovanni Battista Foggini on sculpture for the Feroni Chapel in SS Annunziata, Florence (1691–3), and the nave of SS Michele e Gaetano (1694–6). His principal sculptures are marble works for the high altar of SS Annunziata (1704–6) and portraits. His statues of St Filippo Benizzi and St Giuliana Falconieri for the Annunziata altar, with their animated balance and restrained intensity, are among the best of their date in Florence. Several portrait busts and reliefs, with an unsparingly detailed realism tempered by coolly imperious expression, have been attributed to him. The basis for these attributions is the signed marble effigy of Baron Philipp Bertram Degenhard Joseph von Hochkirchen...

[Ludwig, Johann Friedrich]

(b Hohenhart, Swabia, 1670; d Lisbon 1752).

German goldsmith and architect, active in Portugal. The information on Ludovice is sometimes contradictory, but there is no doubt that his work contributed decisively to the creation of the courtly Joanine style, a style named in honour of the King, John V, who was a great patron of architecture and who had colossal wealth from the Portuguese colonies at his disposal. In Ludovice he had the services of an architect of distinction, one who to a large degree determined the character of southern Portuguese architecture into the third quarter of the 18th century.

By the age of 19 Ludovice was in Augsburg where he acquired the rudiments of architecture. He served in the Imperial Army against the French. In 1697 he left for Rome, where he worked for the Jesuits and frequented the studios of other architects, including perhaps that of Carlo Fontana. In Rome he was employed on Andrea Pozzo’s gilt-bronze and marble altarpiece of ...

(b Florence, c. 1644; d Florence, June 22, 1713).

Italian sculptor, stuccoist and architect. After training in Florence as a goldsmith, he studied with the painter Felice Ficherelli. In 1671 he went to Rome, having been chosen for the Tuscan Accademia Granducale. He studied sculpture under Ercole Ferrata and Ciro Ferri, showing a predilection for modelling rather than the marble carving expected by his patron, Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1672 he won first prize at the Accademia di S Luca for a terracotta relief of Decaulion and Pirra. He modelled the angels (1673–4) for the ciborium at the Chiesa Nuova (S Maria in Vallicella), which was designed by Ferri and cast by Stefano Benamati, and a terracotta relief of the Fall of the Giants (1674), pendant to a Niobid relief by Giovanni Battista Foggini (both Florence, Mus. Opificio Pietre Dure). When recalled to Florence in 1676, he was working on a more than life-size marble bust of ...

(b Florence, May 13, 1666; d Rome, after 1739).

Italian sculptor, medallist, miniaturist and architect. He came from a family of craftsmen (his brother Cosimo Merlini (fl 1692–1736) was a silversmith of some repute) and, like his father, trained in the grand ducal workshops in Florence. He then worked for the Medici court. His emergence as a sculptor dates to c. 1692, with his two marble Angels for the Ferroni Chapel (Florence, SS Annunziata). In November 1694 he moved to Rome, where for about a year he was active as a medallist and miniaturist. For the altar in the chapel of St Ignatius in the church of Il Gesù, Rome, Merlini executed a bronze relief of St Peter Appearing to St Ignatius (1695–6), based on a drawing by Andrea Pozzo, and Two Putti Flanking a Cartouche (1697). His monument to the Marchesa Riccardi (c. 1700; Rome, S Giovanni dei Fiorentini), which demonstrates his fine abilities as a portrait artist in the manner of Lorenzo Ottoni, is the most significant work of his first stay in Rome. Returning to Florence in ...

(b Florence, c. 1685; d Rome, after 1740).

Italian sculptor, medallist and possible architect. A pupil in Florence of Giuseppe Piamontini, he was first active as a medallist; one of his earliest and most exquisite medals celebrated the visit of King Frederick IV of Denmark and Norway to Florence in 1708. On the obverse is a portrait of the King; on the reverse, a view of the city with a reclining river god personifying the Arno (Florence, Bargello). A medal of Conte Lorenzo Magalotti, dated 1712 (version, London, BM), has Apollo on the reverse, whose exaggerated sway in the hips is reflected in two later small bronzes (Rome, Pal. Corsini). There are also two medals of the Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’ Medici (before 1723 and 1731; both Florence, Bargello). Montauti’s careful characterizations in the portrait medals are reflected in his marble portrait busts. One, of Gian Gastone de’ Medici (c. 1724; Florence, Arcisp. S Maria Nuo.), emphasizes the ugly features of large nose, pouting lips and jutting chin by using a schematic treatment for the wig....

(b Turin, March 17, 1690; d Madrid, Dec 3, 1764).

Italian architect, active also in Spain. He came from a family of goldsmiths who served the Savoy court in Turin. He was a pupil and follower of the architect Filippo Juvarra, whose drawings he meticulously catalogued. Sacchetti became a member of the Accademia di S Luca, Rome, in 1745 and was appointed honorary director of architecture at the new Academia de S Fernando, Madrid, in 1752.

In Turin Sacchetti assisted Gian Giacomo Planteri (1680–1756) on the Palazzo Saluzzo di Paesana, designed catafalques for the court, supervised work (1734) on the church of S Filippo for Juvarra and probably assisted him with the renovations of the royal palace. In 1735 Juvarra was commissioned by Philip V, King of Spain, to design a royal palace in Madrid to replace one that had been destroyed by fire the previous year. Juvarra died in January 1736, having recommended Sacchetti as his successor. On his arrival in Spain in ...

(b Nancy, June 30, 1658; d Nancy, Jan 10, 1738).

French medallist and architect. He trained under his father, Claude Urbain (1628–98), a medallist and engraver. He went to Munich in 1671, then to Bologna, where he was an engraver at the mint (1673–83), and finally to Rome, where from 1683 to 1703 he was engraver and architect to Innocent XI, Alexander VIII and Innocent XII. While in Rome he married Elisabeth Mantenois (d 1743), a flower and fruit painter. One of their daughters, Marie-Anne de Saint-Urbain (c. 1711–89), established a reputation as a medallist and wax modeller in Vienna.

After his return to Nancy in 1703, Saint-Urbain was appointed architect and engraver to Duke Leopold of Lorraine (1707). Among his works are a series of portraits of the Dukes and Duchesses of Lorraine, 17 medals for a series of papal portraits (from St Peter to Clement XI), seven medals commemorating the regency of the Duke of Orléans, and coinage for the mints of Bologna, Rome and Nancy. His medals for private patrons include portraits of ...

(b Florence, March 6, 1671; d Florence, 1744).

Italian sculptor, architect, medallist and writer. He was a pupil of Giovanni Battista Foggini in Florence and, like many of his contemporaries, studied at the Tuscan Accademia Granducale in Rome. His earliest surviving works are bronze medals: Giulio Benedetto Lorenzini (1701) and Lorenzo Bellini (c. 1704). None of his work in marble seems to have survived from his early years in Florence and Rome. In 1708 he left Florence for Vienna, where he is said to have been sculptor and architect to Emperor Joseph I until the latter’s death in 1712. He then returned to Florence. After Foggini’s death in 1725 Ticciati began to receive many important commissions. His marble tomb of Anton Domenico Gabbiani (1726; Florence, S Felice) follows the style established by Foggini, as does his life-size marble statue of Geometry for the tomb of Galileo Galilei (erected 1737) in Santa Croce, Florence. Ticciati’s main commission of the 1730s was the marble high altar (erected ...

Maltese family of silversmiths, architects and designers. The first recorded family member is Carlo Troisi (fl 1697–1736), followed by Andrea Troisi (fl 1750), Pietro Paolo Troisi (?1700–50) and Massimiliano Troisi (fl 1794). A silver sugar bowl (1775–97; London, Mus. Order St John) is attributed to Aloisio Troisi, probably a member of the same family. During the 17th and 18th centuries various members of the Troisi family filled the post of Master of the Mint of the Order of St John of the Knights Hospitaller. The Mint was established in Valletta, Malta, in 1566. The best-known Troisi silversmith is Pietro Paolo, who was also an architect. His best work is the Altar of Repose, which he designed for Mdina Cathedral, and which was constructed by the Maltese painter Francesco Vincenzo Zahra in 1750. It is a magnificent Baroque scenographic creation in wood executed in a masterful ...