Sansovino, Jacopo

Related Category: European Art to 1599: Biographies

(yä´kōpō sänsōvē´nō), 1486–1570, Italian sculptor and architect of the Renaissance. His surname was taken in place of his own, Tatti, as homage to the Florentine sculptor Andrea Sansovino, under whom he was apprenticed. After early years devoted to sculpture, he was architect of several buildings in Rome and in 1527 moved to Venice, importing to that city the classic manner of high Roman Renaissance architecture. In Venice, besides his masterpiece, the Library of St. Mark's (designed 1536) in the Piazza San Marco, he built the Palazzo Corner della Ca' Grande, the mint, the loggia at the base of the great campanile, and several churches. His versatility as a sculptor is realized in his creation of the supple figure Apollo and the three other imposing statues in the niches of the campanile: Minerva, Mercury, and Peace. Among his other sculptural works are the gigantic Mars and Neptune outside the Doge's palace.