Biography

Italian sculptor, part of a family of sculptors and architects. They were active in the 15th and the early 16th century. One of the most important and extensive family dynasties in Italian Renaissance sculpture, the Bregni came from the village of Righeggia, near Osteno on Lake Lugano. Active primarily in northern Italy (Lombardy, Emilia, and the Veneto), a few Bregni also worked in central Italy. Several Bregno artists are documented, although the precise familial relationship between most of them is still unclear. The most important artists in the family were Antonio Bregno, Andrea Bregno, Giovanni Battista Bregno and Lorenzo Bregno.

Together with his brother Lorenzo Bregno (c. 1475-1525), Giovanni Battista had a large workshop in Venice during the first years of the 16th century. Modern scholarship has elevated his status from that of a forgotten figure to that of one of the foremost Venetian sculptors of his generation. Nothing is known of his career before 1499, although many scholars consider it probable that he was trained in the workshop of Tullio Lombardo during the 1490s. His first documented commission was for the Beltiguoli Altar (1499-1503) in S Nicolò, Treviso. In 1502 Bregno received the commission to execute a low relief for the chapel of St Anthony in the basilica of Il Santo, Padua. While he did not execute the work, receipt of this commission suggests that he must already have achieved some degree of notoriety and maturity as a sculptor.

A major obstacle to understanding Bregno's art is the problem of attribution - involving a small corpus of works - to Giovanni Battista or to Lorenzo. The most important commission in Bregno's brief career was the decoration of the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Treviso Cathedral. In addition to executing the pavement and steps leading to the chapel (1504-08), Bregno was also commissioned to carve a Risen Christ (1506-08), two Adoring Angels and a figure of St Peter (all completed by December 1509). Additional work for the chapel commissioned from Giovanni Battista was apparently completed by Lorenzo. Bregno's figures for Treviso demonstrate a lightness and delicate movement that recall the sculpture of the Lombardo family. The use of contrapposto in the St Peter, as well as the harmonious drapery patterns that successfully reveal underlying anatomy, indicate Bregno's interest in contemporary classicizing forms. The slightly slender figure of the Risen Christ is quite elegant and highly refined, and characteristically combines a classical contrapposto with a slight axial twist, attesting to Bregno's great technical skill as a marble carver and to his indebtedness to the Lombardo family and to Antonio Rizzo.