Guido Mazzoni (sculptor)
Encyclopedia
Guido Mazzoni was an Italian
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...

 sculptor and painter of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 period, working in Bologna, Naples and France.

Biography

Guido Mazzoni was born in Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

 and first became active in that city, ruled at the time by the Este family of Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

. A case has been made for his early training in the studio of Francesco Cossa. His earliest recorded work appears in 1473, when he made theatrical masks and props for the Duke of Ferrara's wedding. He is known to have continued such ephemera of court life throughout his career, but is most famous for his ultra-realistic terracotta sculpture.

Mazzoni's best known works are a Lamentation
Lamentation of Christ
350px|thumb|Lamentation by [[Giotto di Bondone]] in the [[Scrovegni Chapel]]The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends and family mourned over his body...

 (Compianta) now in Ferrara's church of the Gesù, and another in the church of Sant'Anna dei Lombardi
Sant'Anna dei Lombardi
Sant'Anna dei Lombardi is a church and monastic complex in Naples, southern Italy. It was originally named S. Maria di Monteoliveto and was founded in 1411 under king Ladislaus of Durazzo...

 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...

. These realistic lifesize figures are modelled in polychromed terracotta, for native stone was lacking in Modena; both represent emotive mourners gathered around the dead Christ, in which each character is a portrait of either the donor or a relative of the donor; in the Modena Lamentation, for instance, Ercole I d'Este represents Nicodemus
Nicodemus
Saint Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, who, according to the Gospel of John, showed favour to Jesus...

 and his wife Eleonora Mary of Cleophas. In the Neapolitan piece, Alfonso II
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...

 is Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. He is mentioned in all four Gospels.-Gospel references:...

. It seems probable that Mazzoni's background in theatrical masks and props affected his work, because of the staged melodrama in their gestures and expressions. One attractive theory is that they relate to an annual passion play
Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....

, in which these notable figures may have played some part.

In the more prestigious artistic centre of Florence the Della Robbia
Della Robbia
Della Robbia may refer to:*Luca della Robbia , Italian sculptor*Andrea della Robbia , Italian sculptor, nephew of Luca*Giovanni della Robbia , son of Andrea*Girolamo della Robbia , son of Andrea...

 family became famous for their distinctive blue and white tin-glazed terracotta
Maiolica
Maiolica is Italian tin-glazed pottery dating from the Renaissance. It is decorated in bright colours on a white background, frequently depicting historical and legendary scenes.-Name:...

 work, which was highly skilfully made yet provided relatively cheap decoration. Most closely related to the work of Mazzoni, however, is that of Niccolò dell'Arca, who operated in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

. He also made scenes of the lamentation, but his show an expressionist style, as the figures display an exaggerated sense of movement and drama. Mazzoni's figures are far more realistic and their movements and gestures are more restrained.

Mazzoni's work was well respected by his contemporaries, and he was granted tax exemption in 1481. He soon attracted the attention of the outside world, when in 1489 he was asked by the aforementioned Alfonso of Aragon, brother-in law to Ercole, to carry out some work in Naples. There Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...

 was so taken with Guido's work during his successful military intervention in Naples that in 1495 Guido became one of the first Italian artists to move to the court of Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...

, where he was the best paid also knighted. Guido was entrusted with the kneeling lifesize figure of the king and accompanying angels for Charles VIII's tomb at the royal abbey of St-Denis
Saint Denis Basilica
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis is a large medieval abbey church in the commune of Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris. The abbey church was created a cathedral in 1966 and is the seat of the Bishop of Saint-Denis, Pascal Michel Ghislain Delannoy...

, destroyed during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. The French court became increasingly keen on Italian artists and afterwards began luring many more. Guido and his French workshop have been recognized with more and less certainty in other furnereal works of personages connected with the court: the figures of Philippe de Comminges, historian of Charles' expedition, and his wife, Hélène de Chambes, removed from the Grands-Augustins to the Louvre Museum reveal Mazzoni's dramatic realism through a workshop execution; the Dormition of the Virgin for the Abbaie de la Trinité, Fécamp, is attributed to Mazzoni with the aid of his studio;

In 1509 a document records a payment to Mazzoni for sculpted medallions all'antique for the Château de Gaillon
Château de Gaillon
The Château de Gaillon is a renaissance castle located in Gaillon, Haute-Normandie region of France.-History:The somewhat battered and denuded Château de Gaillon, begun in 1502 on ancient foundationswas the summer archiepiscopal residence of Georges d'Amboise, Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen; he ...

, built by Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, the faithful friend and councillor of Louis XII
Louis XII of France
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...

. Timothy Verdon notes the close relations of the abbot at Fécamp and the archbishop of Rouen, who was charged with the funeral arrangements for Charles VII, and suggests a further attribution, of a Pietà
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...

 with four lifesize figures that was formerly in the embrasure behind the altar in the abbot's chapel of the Hôtel de Cluny, Paris; the ensemble was commissioned by the brother of the Cardinal d'Amboise, Jacques d'Amboise, abbot of Cluny. The sculptural group was described in the 18th century by Jean-Aymar Piganiol de La Force
Jean-Aymar Piganiol de La Force
Jean-Aymar Piganiol de la Force , son of Pierre and of Marguerite Parisot, dame de La Force, was a French man of letters known above all for works of a descriptive geographical character, for which he travelled extensively in France...

, "d'une bonne main et très bien dessinées pour le temps"Description historique de la ville de Paris vol. vi (1765) pp 306f, but were destroyed at the Revolution; there remain only the subsidiary early 16th-century painted images of Mary of Cleophas and Mary Salomé, which Verdon suggests are by Mazzoni.

Guido Mazzoni is thus a much overlooked artist of the period. His art is beautifully crafted and stunningly realistic in its psychological portrayals, and he was sought after by some of the most powerful men of his age. This lack of interest in him can only be put down to the fact that he operated outside of the great centres of Florence, Venice and Rome. He was however a highly skilled and complex artist whose work not only has the power to move but is also full of symbolism. His medium of terracotta is similarly overlooked but it was easier to work with and thus produced a far more realistic finish than bronze or marble. Furthermore, as Alison Cole points out in her study of the Italian Renaissance Courts, it had a biblical symbolism as 'men are "no more than mortal clay"'. It is therefore possible to conclude that Mazzoni was a highly important artist of his period, both in terms of the skill of his art and the historical significance of his life.

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