b Settignano, nr Florence, 1670;
d Florence, 1736.
Italian sculptor, medallist, architect and festival designer. He was a leading figure in the generation of sculptors trained in Florence after the dissolution of the Accademia Fiorentina in Rome (1686). Taught by Carlo Marcellini and Giuseppe Piamontini, he worked under Giovanni Battista Foggini on sculpture for the Feroni Chapel in SS Annunziata, Florence (1691–3), and the nave of SS Michele e Gaetano (1694–6). His principal sculptures are marble works for the high altar of SS Annunziata (1704–6) and portraits. His statues of St Filippo Benizzi and St Giuliana Falconieri for the Annunziata altar, with their animated balance and restrained intensity, are among the best of their date in Florence. Several portrait busts and reliefs, with an unsparingly detailed realism tempered by coolly imperious expression, have been attributed to him. The basis for these attributions is the signed marble effigy of Baron Philipp Bertram Degenhard Joseph von Hochkirchen (d 1703), shown reclining in armour and peruke (1701; tomb destr.; effigy in Cologne Cathedral). It is possible that he executed the Baron’s tomb during a sojourn in Germany.

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