[Bologna, Giovanni; Boulogne, Jean]
(b Douai, 1529; d Florence, 1608). Flemish sculptor, active in Italy. Born and trained in Flanders, he travelled to Italy in 1550 to study the masterpieces of Classical and Renaissance sculpture. On his way home, he visited Florence (c. 1552) and was persuaded to settle there under the patronage of the Medici dukes, eventually becoming their court sculptor. As a sculptor, Giambologna grafted an understanding of the formal aspect of Michelangelo’s statuary on to a thorough reappraisal of Greco-Roman sculpture, as it was being daily revealed in new excavations. Particularly influential were the ambitious representations of figures and groups in violent movement, and the technical finesse of late Hellenistic work, most of which had not been available to earlier generations (e.g. the Farnese Bull; Naples, Mus. Archeol. N.; excavated in 1546).
Charles Avery