Bastiano da Sangallo

Portrait of Bastiano da Sangallo, called Aristotile (Aristotle), from Vasaris vite .

Bastiano da Sangallo called Aristotile (Aristotle) (* 1481 ; † May 31, 1551 ) was an Italian painter and architect of the Renaissance . At the Medici court in Florence he worked primarily as a stage architect and stage painter.

life and work

Sangallo came from a famous family of architects and was the nephew of Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and Giuliano da Sangallo . He got his nickname Aristotile because of his thoughtful temperament and erudition. He was a pupil of Perugino , whom he assisted with the main altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. With the Battle of Cascina in 1542, Sangallo created a copy of the lost model by Michelangelo (around 1500/1505), which was created for a planned fresco in the Hall of the Five Hundred ( Sala dei Cinquecento ) in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence .

Set designer

Together with Franciabigio and Ridolfo Ghirlandaio , he created the sets for the comedies that were performed in 1518 on the occasion of the wedding of Lorenzo de 'Medici , Duke of Urbino. In 1525 Niccolò Machiavelli's play Mandragola was premiered in Florence, and Andrea del Sarto and Bastiano created the sets. He also created sets for games and performances by various religious brotherhoods in the city. In 1533 Margaret of Austria visited Florence, in whose honor Duke Alessandro de 'Medici organized a festival week. Bastiano da Sangallo was commissioned to create a perspective stage prospect for the garden loggia in Piazza San Marco “full of columns, niches, tabernacles, statues and other special things that have never been done before”. The next major orders from the Medici came on the occasion of the weddings of Alessandro de 'Medici in 1536 and Cosimo I de' Medici in 1539.

In 1540 Bastiano went to Rome, where he worked primarily as a set designer for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and the Florentine banker Roberto Strozzi . Bastiano was probably the first modern stage designer to use moving backdrops in the manner of periacts as described by Vitruvius in his De libri architettura libri decem and as they have been described in contemporary reports.

In 1547 he returned to Florence, where he died four years later.

Web links

Commons : Bastiano da Sangallo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Vasari: Le vite de 'più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (1568) / Bastiano detto Aristotile da San Gallo
• Alice Jarrard: Parole chiave - Bastiano da Sangallo, detto Aristotile (1481-1551)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "piena di colonnnati, di nicchie, di tabernacoli, statue e molte altre cose capriciose, che in sin'allora in simili apparati non erano state usati". Quoted from Jarrad.
2. ↑ Alice Jarrad: Parole chiave - Bastiano da Sangallo, detto Aristotile ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.