Giovanni Francesco Rustici

Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1474 – 1554) was an Italian Renaissance painter [No paintings securely attributed to him survive.] and sculptor.__NOTOC__He was born into a noble family of Florence, with an independent income. Rustici profited from study of the Medici sculpture in the garden at San Marco, and Vasari said that Lorenzo de' Medici placed him in the studio of Verrocchio, [Other sculptors from Verrocchio's atelier included Francesco di Simone and Agnolo di Polo.] and that after Verrocchio's departure for Venice, he placed himself with Leonardo da Vinci, who had also trained in Verocchio's workshop. He shared lodgings with Leonardo while he was working on the bronze figures for the Baptistery, for which he was ill paid and resolved, according to Vasari, not to work again on a public commission. At this time, Pomponius Gauricus, in "De sculptura" (1504), named him one of the principal sculptors of Tuscany, the peer of Benedetto da Maiano, Andrea Sansovino and Michelangelo.

Vasari tells of the elaborate suppers given by Rustici and his comrades. At the time of the siege of Florence, 1528, he went to France, where he was pensioned by King Francis I but after the king's death died in poverty at Tours.

Baccio Bandinelli apprenticed with Rustici.

Some glazed terracotta bas-reliefs in the technique familiar from the della Robbia workshops, are attributed to Rustici, notably a "Madonna and Child" in the Bargello and a "Saint John the Baptist" in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Major works

* "Bust of Boccaccio" (1503) for Giovanni Boccaccio's funeral monument at Certaldo [http://www.comune.certaldo.fi.it/turismo/ss_if_eg.htm] .
* "John the Baptist with the Pharisee and the Levite". Three figures on the Baptistery, Florence. The work was commissioned in 1506 to replace Late Gothic figures by Tino da Camaino.
* "Mercury taking Flight". Commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici (later Pope Clement VII), to decorate a fountain in the garden court of Palazzo Medici, Florence, probably in 1515. It was probably installed above the fountain bowl that originally held Donatello's 'Judith'. Vasari praised the sculpture, now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. [http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/italy_pages/M_2_1997/PIC_SE-M_2_1997.html] [http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about/press/2002/rustici.htm]
* "The Infant Jesus and Saint John the Baptist". Bas-relief marble and onyx tondo. Louvre Museum.
* "Virgin and Child" Bas-relief bronze plaque, attributed to Rustici. Louvre Museum.
* "Battle scene". Terracotta. A horseman and four assailants, showing the influence of Leonardo's drawings. Louvre Museum.

References

* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/vasari/vasari23.htm Giogio Vasari, "Vite dell più eccelente architetti, pittori...": Rustici] (English translation)

Notes

External links

* [http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=3122 Louvre Museum official site: Giovanni Francesco Rustici]