Il Bresciano: Bronze-caster of Renaissance Venice

The first comprehensive study of an important Italian Renaissance bronze-caster by a leading authority. 'This monograph is a testament to the work of Charles Avery, who has put Il Bresciano on the map as a leading Italian Renaissance sculptor… Avery has established an impressively substantial oeuvre for Bresciano.' David Ekserdjian, The Art Newspaper A nucleus of sculptures cast by Andrea di Alessandri, commonly called from his native city, ‘Il Bresciano’, or from his products, ‘Andrea dai bronzi’, has been identified over the centuries. His style has been described as having similarities both with the High Renaissance of Sansovino and the Mannerism of Vittoria, the two successive master sculptors of sixteenth-century Venice, though he cast major bronzes for both. Andrea’s signed masterpiece is a Paschal Candlestick in bronze, over two metres high and with sixty or more fascinating figures, made for Sansovino’s magnificent lost church of Santo Spirito in 1568 and now in Santa Maria della Salute. The author’s identification in 1996 of a pair of magnificent Firedogs with sphinx feet (which in 1568 had been recommended to Prince Francesco de’Medici in Florence), and in 2015 of an elaborate figurative bronze Ewer in Verona, have been the culmination of the process of recognition. Archival research has at last revealed the span of Andrea’s life as 1524/25-1573, as well as many significant facts about his family and patronage. So the time is ripe for a comprehensive, well-illustrated, book on Il Bresciano, a ‘new’ and major bronzistà in the great tradition of north Italy.

Table of Contents:
Chronology for Andrea Bresciano 1 Who was Andrea dai Bronzi, Il Bresciano? 2 Santo Spirito in Isola, a lost treasure house of High Renaissance art 3 The Paschal Candlestick, its iconography and six altar candlesticks 4 Other Paschal Candlesticks: Bari; Rovigo; Santo Stefano, Venice 5 The Soranzo–Bute Firedogs: Robert Adam and Luton Park 6 The recognition and reconstitution of the Firedogs – a detective story 7 The bronze stand for the Cross of St Theodore; two drawings; Pietro Rota; the ex-Heim–Sackler Crucifix; two lost sanctuary lamps 8 The Calzolari Ewer 9 Door knockers, attributed to Bresciano 10 Michelangelo and a Mannerist masquerade 11 The riddle of the sphinxes 12 Figure sculpture Selective Catalogue of Works Documentary Appendix End-notes Bibliography Image credits Index

About the Author :
Charles Avery is a specialist on European sculpture, particularly Italian, French, English and Flemish. A graduate of Cambridge University and the Courtauld Institute of Art, he later obtained a doctorate from Cambridge. He is a Cavaliere of the Order of Merit of Italy, and has been a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Trustee of the British-Italian Society. He was Deputy Keeper of Sculpture at the Victoria & Albert Museum for twelve years, then a Director of Christie's for a decade: since 1990 he has been an independent historian, writer and lecturer. His published works include Giambologna: The Complete Sculpture; Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in the Frick Art Museum; Donatello: An Introduction; David Le Marchand (1674-1726): 'An Ingenious Man for Carving in Ivory'; Bernini, Genius of the Baroque; The Triumph of Motion: Francesco Bertos (1678-1741); A School of Dolphins and Joseph de Levis & Company: Renaissance Bronze-founders in Verona (PWP).

Review :
This monograph is a testament to the work of Charles Avery, who has put Il Bresciano on the map as a leading Italian Renaissance sculptor… Avery has established an impressively substantial oeuvre for Bresciano. Bien illustré, il fournit donc tout le matériel actuellement disponible pour connaître un artiste qui méritait assurément d’être tiré de l’oubli où dorment encore presque tous les bronziers de ce temps. Charles Avery has been on the trail of Il Bresciano for decades and ... he makes the case for setting the sculptor alongside more well-known masters of bronze in 16th century Venice. This excellent monograph is a major contribution to our understanding of Venetian Renaissance sculpture, eloquently demonstrating that, in his best works, he was a gifted and fluent craftsman.