Biography

Italian sculptor. He has long been considered a Lombard, but his death certificate gives Palestrina (30 km from Rome) as his place of birth. He was one of the outstanding sculptors in Rome in the early 17th century, and his work, together with that of such sculptors as Pietro Bernini, Nicolas Cordier, Camillo Mariani and Francesco Mochi, is generally considered to mark a transition from the late Renaissance (or Mannerist) style to the early Baroque.

He was one of the leading sculptors in Rome during the papacy of Paul V (1605-21) before Gian Lorenzo Bernini came into the ascendancy, working on statues and reliefs in numerous churches, notably the chapel that the pope had built (the Cappella Paolina, begun 1605) in Santa Maria Maggiore. One of his sculptures has attained lasting fame: the recumbent figure of St Cecilia in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.