Giovanni di Antonio di Banco, called Nanni di Banco ( 1374 – 1421), was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence. He was a contemporary of Donatello – both are first recorded as sculptors in the accounts of the Florence Duomo in 1406, presumably as young masters. He is one of the artists whose work manifested the transition from Gothic to Renaissance art in the city, finding inspiration in classical Roman sculpture and bringing a new naturalism to Florentine art.

Early life

Nanni di Banco, born probably about 1374 in Florence, was the son of Antonio di Banco and Giovanna Succhielli. Antonio married Giovanna in 1368 and joined the stonemasons' guild in 1372. He was employed for many years in the building works (Fabbrica di Santa Maria del Fiore) of Florence Cathedral as a "quarryman, stonemason, master builder, and designer". He ran the family workshop in the Sant'Ambrogio parish while Giovanna owned a farm in the parish of Santa Maria a Settignano. She also came from a long line of stonemasons who had important offices in the Fabbrica di S. Maria del Fiore. is carved on the keystone at the top of the frieze and framed by a pentagon (1407–1409).

Career

thumb|Main relief of the Assumption, Porta di Mandorla, [[Florence Cathedral, Nanni di Banco]]

Nanni di Banco's father Antonio attained the position of chief foreman (capomaestro) of the cathedral building works, and served as consul of the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname (Stonemasons' and Woodworkers' Guild) seven times. Nanni followed his father into the guild in 1405, membership of which gave him status as a qualified sculptor and allowed him to work as such at the cathedral. He would serve as a guild consul five times over the course of his career. Nanni and his father were commissioned to carve the statue of the prophet Isaiah for the cathedral in January 1408. who supplied building materials to the Opera del Duomo. His name appeared on the cathedral payroll in 1395 along with those of Niccolò Lamberti, Lorenzo di Filippo, and Giovanni d'Ambrogio, accomplished masters active in the first campaign of work on the Porta della Mandorla. About this time Nanni likely carved the small Hercules on a lower panel of the portal, while Antonio produced the frieze of the archivolt, for which Nanni later sculpted the keystone with the Man of Sorrows in 1407–1409. On 24 January 1408, Antonio and his son Nanni received the commission to carve the first, a marble Isaiah which was to set the standard for the other figures. Nanni did all the actual carving. A month later, Donatello was commissioned to sculpt a companion piece, a statue of equal size depicting David as prophet. At the time, Donatello was twenty-two and had been active in the workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti. Both of the statues were to be placed on the dome tribune on the north side of the Duomo. A resolution issued on 20 February 1408 stipulated that the David should be carved in the same manner, under the same conditions, and at the same rate of pay as the statue carved by Nanni.

Over the course of a year and a half, Nanni had sculpted the Isaiah, the first known full-length statue of the biblical prophet, and Donatello had carved his marble David. Both statues depict a biblical prophet as a youth, and share a Gothic sway in pose with a corresponding arrangement of drapery on the body. It is not known why the Isaiah was situated and then removed. Donatello's marble David remained at the Opera del Duomo until July 1416, when it was given to the Priors of the Arts (Priori delle arti) and moved to the Palazzo della Signoria. The work, identified by Jenö Lányi as the David, was transferred to the Bargello in the 1870s. The whereabouts of Nanni's Isaiah remained unknown until Lányi showed in 1936 that it must have been the statue in the nave of the church on the right side of the entrance, moved there after the facade was demolished in 1587.

On 12 September 1419 Nanni's was elected to the Dodici Bonomini, a committee of '"Twelve Good Men", which included three representatives elected from each of the four quarters of the city – they were advisors to the Signoria and had substantial authority.

Antonio was a member of the commission formed on 2 June 1407 to oversee the decoration of the cathedral's north tribune. Consequently, Nanni was active for the Opera del duomo at the time, working alongside his father and executing the Cristo in pietà and the Isaia (Isaiah). Nanni carved St. Luke (San Luca), a statue of the Christian evangelist, as part of a commission by the Operai in 1408 for the creation of four seated marble Evangelists to flank the facade of the main entrance to the cathedral, a series which included Donatello's St. John, Bernardo Ciuffagni's St. Matthew and Niccolò di Pietro Lamberti's St. Mark.

Nanni took the opportunity to exploit a new approach of expressing human feeling with themes of humanism in sculpture, the influence of this philosophical movement being expressed in the outline and in the human face through posture and shadowing. The project to create the set of the four evangelists is documented from purchase of the marble (1405–1407) until the relocation of the statues in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo after World War II.

Nanni di Banco was a contemporary of Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti. which was commissioned by the stone carvers and wood workers guild for the Church of Orsanmichele. Demonstrating his familiarity with antique prototypes of formal sculpture, Nanni depicted the four saints, sculptors who were martyred in the 4th century, as if they were Roman philosophers or senators. According to Mary Bergstein, Nanni di Banco's body of sculptural work "in many ways determined the course of Renaissance art in Florence".

The Quattro Coronati was created c. 1409 to 1416–17. Nanni's rendering of the four saints, patron saints of the stone carvers and wood workers guild, mostly ignores the confused legend on which it is based, that of the martyrs of Pannonia, who, during the reign of Diocletian chose to die rather than follow his command to carve an image of the god Asclepius. The sculpture depicts the four men, wearing sandals and togas in the ancient Roman style, engaged in serious, agreeable conversation. The relief carved on the plinth on which the figures stand depicts stonemasons, stonecutters, and bricklayers at work, also wearing clothes of the period. This relief was modeled on a Roman funerary stele depicting such craftsmen.

Authenticated works

Mary Bergstein has compiled a list of works by Nanni di Banco she deems to be authentic:

  • Hercules and Blessing Angel, ca. 1395, Marble, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence
  • Man of Sorrows, 1407–1409, Marble, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence,
  • Console Atlanti, Niccolò Lamberti and Nanni di Banco, ca. 1407–1408, Pietra forte (sandstone) Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence
  • Isaiah, 1408, Marble, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence
  • Saint Luke Evangelist, 1412/1413, Carrara marble, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
  • Quatro Santi Coronati, 1409–1416/1417, Marble Orsanmichele, Florence
  • Saint Philip, ca.1410–1412, Apuan marble, Orsanmichele, Florence
  • Arms of the Brunelleschi Family, ca. 1400–1410, Pietra serena (sandstone)
  • Prophet with Scroll, ca. 1410, Marble, Orsanmichele, Florence,
  • Saint Eligius, ca. 1417–1421, installed ca. 1422, Apuan marble, Orsanmichele, Florence
  • Agnus Dei: Stemma of the Wool Guild, 1419, Macigno (sandstone), Santa Maria Novella, Florence,
  • Assumption of the Virgin, 1414–1422, Marble, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence,
  • Four Agnus Dei reliefs, 1419, lost panels from two farmhouses at San Pietro a Monticelli (Florence)

References

  • National Gallery of Art
  • [http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/nanni-banco.htm]
  • Nanni di Banco | Britannica