Luca della Robbia

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Madonna Enthroned, Medici Chapel, Santa Croce , Florence

Luca della Robbia (* around 1400 in Florence ; † 1481 ibid) was an Italian sculptor from the Della Robbia family . Along with Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello, he was one of the founders of the early Renaissance in Florence.

Life

Luca was born into a Florentine family who practiced the dyeing trade ( Robbia , Latin Rubia tinctorum, is the Italian name for madder ).

He entered the workshop of Nanni di Banco in 1414 , where he trained as a sculptor. During a trip to Venice he had the opportunity to get to know Venetian art and the handicrafts of the lagoon city. After the death of his teacher in 1421, he joined Donatello's workshop , he made the acquaintance of Filippo Brunelleschi , and he learned the techniques of wax casting and goldsmithing.

Choir by Luca della Robbia, Florence

Between 1432 and 1435 he worked on the singer's pulpit ( cantoria ) for the Florence Cathedral, for which Donatello created an idiosyncratic and innovative counterpart in competition. While in Della Robbia's pulpit the various relief panels with dancing and singing boys are still conventionally fitted into a strictly structured architectural framework, Donatello placed a single coherent relief with the dance of dancing boys behind five pairs of columns that support the final entablature .

Between 1437 and 1438, Luca created five figures of the seven liberal arts for the campanile of the Florentine cathedral as one of his last sculptural works . From 1439 he mainly and very successfully devoted himself to glazed ceramics. Terracotta reliefs with blue glazes for the background, white glazes for the figures and green and yellow for the festoons are typical for him . The Della Robbia family subsequently ran a flourishing workshop with a production method that can be described as factory-like.

On August 31, 1446 the brothers Luca and Simone Della Robbia bought a house on the edge of the urban development. This house became the seat of a terracotta art production workshop run by three generations of Della Robbia. After Simone's death in 1448, Luca adopted his six sons, including Andrea della Robbia , the most successful member of the family. From 1450 Andrea initially worked closely with his uncle. The two separated only after differences of opinion. In 1470 Luca changed his will in favor of his nephew Simone, and Andrea started his own business, which with its industrialized production of colored terracotta reliefs was superior to his uncle's workshop. Luca Della Robbia died on February 20, 1481. He was buried in the church of San Pier Maggiore.

The Della Robbia workshop

St. Sebastian from the Della Robbia workshop

The workshop was taken over by his nephew Andrea, whose five children all worked in the company. Only after the death of Giovanni della Robbia, the third son Andreas, did production come to a standstill.

The family business of della Robbia exported its products all over Europe. Friezes , tondi , lunettes , altarpieces, coats of arms and other items were made for the needs of the nobility, as well as devotional images with saints or with Mary and the child for private use.

Works

  • Cantoria for the Florentine Cathedral , 1431–1437
  • Reliefs of the Artes Liberales on the Campanile of Florence Cathedral, 1437–1439
  • Tabernacle for Santa Maria Nuova in Peretola near Florence, 1443
  • Bronze door of the sacristy of the Florentine Cathedral, together with Michelozzo and Maso di Bartolomeo, 1445–1469,
  • Lunettes for Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel in Florence,
  • Marble and terracotta tomb for Bishop Federighi, 1454 to 1457
  • Furnishing of the chapel of Cardinal del Portogallo in the church of San Miniato al Monte in Florence, together with Andrea della Robbia , 1461 to 1466
  • with Andrea della Robbia: Sculptural wall frieze The Works of Christian Mercy , Ospedale del Cappo in Pistoia.

Web links

Commons : Luca della Robbia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Giancarlo Gentilini:  DELLA ROBBIA, Luca. In: Massimiliano Pavan (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 37:  Della Fratta – Della Volpaia. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1989.
  • Jean de Foville: Les Della Robbia. Laurens, Paris 1910, pp. 7-94 ( online ).
  • Paul Schubring: Luca della Robbia and his family. Artist monographs, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld 1905.
  • Giorgio Vasari : The life of Jacopo della Quercia, Niccolò Aretino, Nanni di Banco and Luca della Robbia. Newly translated into German by Victoria Lorini. Ed., Commented by introduced by Johannes Myssok. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8031-5049-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. Friedrich v. Zglinicki : Uroscopy in the fine arts. An art and medical historical study of the urine examination. Ernst Giebeler, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-921956-24-2 , pp. 130 and 133.