Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570) – unappreciated in Rome, famous in Venice

Tombstone monument of Giovanni Michiel and Antonio Orso, fragment, Jacopo Sansovino, Church of San Marcello

Tombstone monument of Giovanni Michiel and Antonio Orso, fragment, Jacopo Sansovino, Church of San Marcello

When while fleeing Rome in 1527, Jacopo Sansovino on his way to France stopped over in Venice, he probably did not think that the city would turn out to be “promised land” for him. In the city on the Lagoon he showed the entire spectrum of his artistic abilities and became one of its most respected citizens. Today it is difficult to imagine the splendor of Serenissima without his monumental buildings. What would he have created had he stayed in Rome, will forever remain a mystery – perhaps he never would have received the kind of commissions offered to him by the Venetian doge. But then again perhaps he would.

Tombstone monument of Giovanni Michiel and Antonio Orso, fragment, Jacopo Sansovino, Church of San Marcello
Jacopo Sansovino, Saint James, Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato
Madonna del Parto, Jacopo Sansovino, Basilica of Sant'Agostino
Jacopo Sansovino, Madonna del Parto, Basilica of Sant'Agostino
Tombstone monument of Giovanni Michiel and Antonio Orso, Jacopo Sansovino, Church of San Marcello
Tombstone monument of Cardinal Francesco Quignones, Jacopo Sansovino, Basilica of Santa Croce

When while fleeing Rome in 1527, Jacopo Sansovino on his way to France stopped over in Venice, he probably did not think that the city would turn out to be “promised land” for him. In the city on the Lagoon he showed the entire spectrum of his artistic abilities and became one of its most respected citizens. Today it is difficult to imagine the splendor of Serenissima without his monumental buildings. What would he have created had he stayed in Rome, will forever remain a mystery – perhaps he never would have received the kind of commissions offered to him by the Venetian doge. But then again perhaps he would.

 

Jacopo Sansovino was born in Florence in a family of a mattress manufacturer. He was student of Andrea Sansovino and although he was not related to him, in recognition of his master he took on his nickname. Along with him, at the beginning of the XVI century, he went to the teeming with life and architectural and sculptural works Rome. He helped his master, occupied himself with reconstructions and restorations of antique structures, which were excavated at that time with great determination all across Italy and used to decorate papal and cardinal residences. However, after a few years, which passed without great accomplishments, he returned to Florence, to try and find commissions there, however in 1518 he once again came back to the city on the Tiber. The following nine years he spent on working at both sculptural and architectural designs. He  did not receive the commission for the construction of the planned Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, but he was entrusted with the modernization of another church – San Marcello al Corso. It is for this church that he also built an impressive, two-story tombstone monument of Cardinal Giovanni Michiel and Antonio Orso. In it he showed himself to be a skilled continuator of the work of Andrea Sansovino, taking from him not only his way of representing figures of the deceased, who seem to be resting or sleeping, but also the composition itself, enriching the tombstone with the personifications found around it.

It seems that the sculpture which really caught the hearts of Romans, is the one found at the enterance of the Basilica of Sant’Agostino. It show the Virgin Mary (Madonna del Parto) with a young Jesus – a boy. There is a distinction borrowed from the art of antiquity in this representation, a kind of dynamism of a lively child. However, it was not the artistic valor which decided that this group became one of the most worshipped Roman sculptures, but the miracles which it caused. We will see this, by the numerous votive offerings, letters of gratitude and photographs of children. The Madonna became famous as the intercessor of pregnant women and a fortuitous birth. Her fame became especially great in the XIX century during the pontificate of Pope Pius VII, when the often kissed foot of  Mary shrunk so much that a metal replacement had to be made.

Sansovino stayed in Rome until the memorable for its inhabitants Sacco di Roma (1527), when armed regiments of landsknechts of Emperor Charles V destroyed and looted the city. Many artists, including Jacopo left, looking for new commissions. At that time Rome became a different city – so greatly developing in the first three decades of the century, in the next it had problems recovering from the barbarous invasion

The most important works of Sansovino in Rome:

Statue of St. James in the Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato, 1518

Design of Palazzo Gaddi, 1520

Madonna del Parto, Basilica of Sant’Agostino, 1521

Modernization of the Church of San Marcello (1521-1527) and the sarcophagus of Cardinal Giovanni Michiel and Antonio Orso in the same church

Sarcophagus of Cardinal Francesco Quignones in the apse of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 1536