CAMPAGNA, Girolamo
(b. ca. 1549, Verona, d. 1625, Venezia)

Biography

Italian sculptor. He was one of the most important sculptors working in Venice and the surrounding region in the late 16th century and the early 17th. Although his older rival Alessandro Vittoria was a more versatile artist, Campagna's talents centred on a remarkable gift for religious statuary. In this he was unrivalled in Venice and scarcely equalled elsewhere in Italy.

He studied under Jacopo Sansovino and Danese Cattaneo, and completed many of the latter's works. He was responsible for the figure of Doge Leonardo Loredano on the tomb which Cattaneo made in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. After his master's death, Campagna went to Padua where he secured the commission intended for Cattaneo in the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. The greater part of his life was spent in Venice, and there we have the majority of his works: the statues of St Francis and St Clare bearing the ostensorium at Santa Maria dei Miracoli; that of St Justina of Padua over the door of the Arsenal, commemorating the Battle of Lepanto (1571), which occurred on her feast-day (7 October), during Campagna's lifetime; the colossal St Sebastian at the Zecca; the figures of the Virgin Mary, the Archangel Gabriel and patron saints of Venice, in relief on the Ponte di Rialto. He also made terracotta figures in San Zulian and worked in the Frari.

Among his most impressive achievements are the high altars for the Venetian churches of San Francesco della Vigna, Il Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore. His brother Giuseppe Campagna (d. 1626) was also a sculptor and assisted him.