The first comprehensive study of an important Italian Renaissance
bronze-caster by a leading authority.
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 16th-century Venice for whom he cast major bronzes.
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 this comprehensive,
well-illustrated, book on Il Bresciano, a new and major bronzistà in
the great tradition of north Italy.
