ANTONIO ROSSELLINO, FLORENTINE SCULPTOR; AND BERNARDO, HIS BROTHER.
[Antonio, born 1427, died about 1490—Bernardo, bom 1409, died about 1470.]
It has in truth been ever a priseworthy and virtuous thing to possess modesty, and to be adorned with those amiable qualities and rare gifts, so clearly to be perceived in the honourable conduct of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino,[1] an artist, who pursued his calling with such devotion and so much grace that he was esteemed something more than man by all who knew him, and was venerated almost as a saint for the admirable virtues which he added to his knowledge of art.
Antonio was called the Rossellino of the Proconsolate,[2] from the circumstance of his workrooms being in a part of Florence, so called. His works display so much softness and delicacy, with a refinement and purity so entirely perfect, that his manner may be justly called the true and really modern one.
The marble fountain in the second court of the Medici Palace was constructed by Antonio Piossellino, the decorations of this work consist of Children with Dolphins, from the mouths of which the water is poured. The whole is executed with exceeding grace, and finished with the utmost care.[3] In the church of Santa Croce, and near the holy-water font, this master erected a sepulchral monument for Francesco Nori, with the Virgin above it in basso-rilievo;[4] and a second figure of Our Lady, in the palace of the Tornabuoni family,[5]
- ↑ The family name of this artist was Gamberelli, and he was the son of Matteodi Domenico de’ Gamberelli. Rossellino was a bye-name, as we find from a fiscal document, published by Gaye, Carteggio, &c., vol. i. p. 188.
- ↑ The office of the Proconsul was at the corner formed by the Via del Proconsolo, and the Via de’ Pandolfini.
- ↑ This fountain is no longer in the Palazzo de’ Medici (now Riccardi Palace); nor do we know whither it has been transported.—Masselli.
- ↑ This work is opposite to the monument of Michael Angelo. Francesco Nori was killed in the cathedral by Giovanni Bandini, one of the conspirators of the Pazzi party, but the monument had been previously ordered by himself.
- ↑ The fate of this work is not known.
