MONTELUPO, Baccio da
(b. 1469, Montelupo, d. 1535, Lucca)

Biography

Italian sculptor and architect, father of Raffaello da Montelupo. In his Lives, Giorgio Vasari dedicates chapters to this sculptor and calls him "a rare and excellent master". While we know little of his early career, Vasari further notes that Baccio worked with Michelangelo at Lorenzo de' Medici's Giardino di San Marco in Florence.

Although Baccio da Montelupo's first recorded work is a terracotta Pietà of 1495, the success of his wooden crucifix (1496) in San Marco, Florence, led to his workshop specializing in the production of wood corpora. Several notable large-scale examples of his work survive including a corpus in Santa Maria Novella, Florence and SS. Flora e Lucilla in Arezzo.

In 1515 Baccio da Montelupo completed his finest sculpture, the bronze statue of St John the Evangelist for Orsanmichele, Florence, made in competition for the Arte dei Linaioli (Guild of Linen Merchants). It was placed in a tabernacle in the outer wall of the church. Recently it was removed from its original place for