Giuliano da Maiano
Encyclopedia
Giuliano da Maiano was an Italian
architect, intarsia
-worker and sculptor, the elder brother of Benedetto da Maiano
, with whom he often collaborated.
, near Fiesole
, where his father was a stone-cutter who moved his family and business to Florence
, where, according to Vasari
, he operated a stonemason's yard, providing mouldings and carved stone detail for construction. Giuliano showed early promise, and his father hoped at first to make of him a notary, but his talent for sculpture and design won out. His first designs were for the intarsia
inlay in the fittings for the New Sacristy of the Duomo, Florence
, carried out in collaboration with Benedetto in 1463-1465, where Giuliano carved the wooden bas-reliefs of putti and garlands in the frieze, and for works in Palazzo Vecchio
in collaboration with Benedetto, notably the ceiling in octagonal compartments and the white marble doorcase in Benedetto's Sala d'Audienza intarsia in the Sala dei Dugento (1472-1477) and in the Sala del Giglio. In 1480 he finished a tabernacle of the Madonna dell'Olivo for the Cathedral of Prato, executed in collaboration with his brothers Benedetto and Giovanni.
As an architect he was virtually the house architect for the Pazzi
, rebuilding Palazzo Pazzi (1462–1472), the main seat of the family, for Jacopo de' Pazzi. For the Strozzi
, at the Palazzo dello Strozzino
he added a piano nobile (c. 1456) in the manner of Palazzo Medici-Riccardi to a ground floor that had been begun by Michelozzo
; he is also often credited with Palazzo Antinori
(1465-1469). In Siena, he built Palazzo Spannocchieschi (c. 1475), in the Florentine manner of delicately rusticated facade and twinned arch-headed windows within a blind arch that had been established in Florence by Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai and Michelozzo's Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. Between the two cities, at San Gimignano
, Giuliano is credited with enlarging the Romanesque church of Santa Maria and building the chapel of Santa Fina, in collaboration with Benedetto; at Arezzo
, where Benedetto built the Portico of S. Maria delle Grazie, Giuliano built the cloister of the Badia.
The Badia of Fiesole influenced the design of the Brunellesque church of Santa Maria del Sasso
, outside Bibbiena
, built in 1486-87, where documents show craftsmen were presenting their bills to Giuliano for countersigning. The monks of San Marco were in charge, but the patron was a Medici
, for stemme for the church were being painted even as construction progressed; doubtless it was Lorenzo de' Medici
himself who paid the expenses. The rock for which the church is named, site of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, rises through the floor at the domed crossing, where Giuliano's delicate domed baldachin
identifies and protects the sanctified spot.
His established reputation elicited commissions in Rome, Loreto
(Basilica della Casa Santa), Faenza
(at the Duomo, 1474-1486), in Recanati
, where Lorenzo sent him to build Palazzo Venier for Cardinal Anton Giacomo Venier, and in other locations in the Marche. Above all, from 1487 he worked in Naples, where Alfonso, then duca di Calabria
, employed him at the Villa di Poggio Reale (1487-1488, demolished). Giuliano erected the marble Porta Capuana
closely flanked by the cylindrical towers of the Castello; it takes the form of a triumphal arch
with Corinthian columns
and an elaborate sculptural program; in the Sala Grande of the Castello he carved bas-reliefs above the doors, within and without (Vasari).
He died in Naples
in 1490, and Alfonso himself supplied mourners for the funeral.
He was also famous for the Wooden room.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
architect, intarsia
Intarsia
Intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. The term is also used for a similar technique used with small, highly polished stones set in a marble matrix .- History :...
-worker and sculptor, the elder brother of Benedetto da Maiano
Benedetto da Maiano
Benedetto da Maiano was an Italian sculptor of the early Renaissance.Born in the village of Maiano , he started his career as companion of his brother, the architect Giuliano da Maiano. When he reached the age of thirty he started training under the sculptor Antonio Rossellino...
, with whom he often collaborated.
Biography
He was born in the village of MaianoMaiano
Maiano is small hilltop locality, now part of Fiesole, in Tuscany.The Chiesa di San Martino was founded there in the eleventh century and subsequently restored in the fifteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. A palagio existed at Maiano in the Middle Ages, but in 1467 it was destroyed in a...
, near Fiesole
Fiesole
Fiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
, where his father was a stone-cutter who moved his family and business to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, where, according to Vasari
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.-Biography:...
, he operated a stonemason's yard, providing mouldings and carved stone detail for construction. Giuliano showed early promise, and his father hoped at first to make of him a notary, but his talent for sculpture and design won out. His first designs were for the intarsia
Intarsia
Intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. The term is also used for a similar technique used with small, highly polished stones set in a marble matrix .- History :...
inlay in the fittings for the New Sacristy of the Duomo, Florence
Santa Maria del Fiore
The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church of Florence, Italy. The Duomo, as it is ordinarily called, was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi...
, carried out in collaboration with Benedetto in 1463-1465, where Giuliano carved the wooden bas-reliefs of putti and garlands in the frieze, and for works in Palazzo Vecchio
Palazzo Vecchio
The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. This massive, Romanesque, crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany...
in collaboration with Benedetto, notably the ceiling in octagonal compartments and the white marble doorcase in Benedetto's Sala d'Audienza intarsia in the Sala dei Dugento (1472-1477) and in the Sala del Giglio. In 1480 he finished a tabernacle of the Madonna dell'Olivo for the Cathedral of Prato, executed in collaboration with his brothers Benedetto and Giovanni.
As an architect he was virtually the house architect for the Pazzi
Pazzi
The Pazzi family were an ancient, noble Tuscan family who had given up their titles so that members could be elected to public office. Their main trade, during the 15th century was banking. They are linked to the "Pazzi conspiracy"—to assassinate Giuliano de' Medici and simultaneously attempt...
, rebuilding Palazzo Pazzi (1462–1472), the main seat of the family, for Jacopo de' Pazzi. For the Strozzi
Strozzi
Strozzi is the name of an ancient and noble Florentine family. Palla Strozzi played an important part in the public life of Florence, and founded the first public library in Florence in the monastery of Santa Trinita...
, at the Palazzo dello Strozzino
Palazzo dello Strozzino
Palazzo dello Strozzino is a palace in Florence, Italy. was a residence of the Strozzi family, older than the larger and more prestigious Palazzo Strozzi.It was also called Palazzo delle Tre Porte for his three portals...
he added a piano nobile (c. 1456) in the manner of Palazzo Medici-Riccardi to a ground floor that had been begun by Michelozzo
Michelozzo
thumb|250px|[[Palazzo Medici]] in Florence.Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi was an Italian architect and sculptor.-Biography:...
; he is also often credited with Palazzo Antinori
Palazzo Antinori
Palazzo Antinori is a Renaissance palace in Florence, central Italy. It is located at one end of Via de' Tornabuoni-History:The palace was built in 1461-1469, perhaps under the design of Giuliano da Maiano, for Giovanni di Bono Boni...
(1465-1469). In Siena, he built Palazzo Spannocchieschi (c. 1475), in the Florentine manner of delicately rusticated facade and twinned arch-headed windows within a blind arch that had been established in Florence by Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai and Michelozzo's Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. Between the two cities, at San Gimignano
San Gimignano
San Gimignano is a small walled medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, north-central Italy. It is mainly famous for its medieval architecture, especially its towers, which may be seen from several kilometres outside the town....
, Giuliano is credited with enlarging the Romanesque church of Santa Maria and building the chapel of Santa Fina, in collaboration with Benedetto; at Arezzo
Arezzo
Arezzo is a city and comune in Central Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 km southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 m above sea level. In 2011 the population was about 100,000....
, where Benedetto built the Portico of S. Maria delle Grazie, Giuliano built the cloister of the Badia.
The Badia of Fiesole influenced the design of the Brunellesque church of Santa Maria del Sasso
Santa Maria del Sasso
Santa Maria del Sasso, also known as the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Sasso is a Renaissance church near Bibbiena in Tuscany, Italy.The first church on the site was constructed in 1347 following a reported appearance of the Virgin Mary on 23 June 1347. The current building was commissioned by...
, outside Bibbiena
Bibbiena
Bibbiena is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany , the largest town in the valley of Casentino. It is located 60 kilometers from Florence, 30 kilometers from Arezzo, 60 kilometers from Siena and 20 kilometers from the Sanctuary of La Verna.The town is on top of a hill at an...
, built in 1486-87, where documents show craftsmen were presenting their bills to Giuliano for countersigning. The monks of San Marco were in charge, but the patron was a Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
, for stemme for the church were being painted even as construction progressed; doubtless it was Lorenzo de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...
himself who paid the expenses. The rock for which the church is named, site of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, rises through the floor at the domed crossing, where Giuliano's delicate domed baldachin
Baldachin
A baldachin, or baldaquin , is a canopy of state over an altar or throne. It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy, but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent architectural feature, particularly over high altars in cathedrals, where such a structure is more correctly called a ciborium when it is...
identifies and protects the sanctified spot.
His established reputation elicited commissions in Rome, Loreto
Loreto (AN)
Loreto is a hilltown and comune of the Italian province of Ancona, in the Marche. It is mostly famous as the seat of the Basilica della Santa Casa, a popular Catholic pilgrimage site.-Location:...
(Basilica della Casa Santa), Faenza
Faenza
Faenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....
(at the Duomo, 1474-1486), in Recanati
Recanati
Recanati is a town and comune in the Province of Macerata, Marche region of Italy. Recanati was founded around 1150 AD from three pre-existing castles. In 1290 it proclaimed itself an independent republic and, in the 15th century, was famous for its international fair...
, where Lorenzo sent him to build Palazzo Venier for Cardinal Anton Giacomo Venier, and in other locations in the Marche. Above all, from 1487 he worked in Naples, where Alfonso, then duca di Calabria
Alfonso II of Naples
Alfonso II of Naples , also called Alfonso II d'Aragon, was King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 22 February 1495 with the title King of Naples and Jerusalem...
, employed him at the Villa di Poggio Reale (1487-1488, demolished). Giuliano erected the marble Porta Capuana
Porta Capuana
Porta Capuana is an ancient city gate in Naples, southern Italy.In spite of the name, the portal is not the ancient gateway to the decumanus maximus, the main east-west road that once led out of Roman Naples to Capua...
closely flanked by the cylindrical towers of the Castello; it takes the form of a triumphal arch
Triumphal arch
A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be...
with Corinthian columns
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
and an elaborate sculptural program; in the Sala Grande of the Castello he carved bas-reliefs above the doors, within and without (Vasari).
He died in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
in 1490, and Alfonso himself supplied mourners for the funeral.
He was also famous for the Wooden room.
Further reading
- Lorenzo Cendali, Giuliano e Benedetto da Maiano (Sancasciano) 1926. Still the standard monograph.
- Cornelius von Fabriczy, "Giuliano da Maiano" Jahrbuch der preussischen Kunstsammlungen 24 (1903) Spannocchieschi]