Leonardo Sormani Explained

Leonardo Sormani (active ca 1550- ca 1590) was an Italian sculptor active in Rome during the Renaissance. Details of his life are not well known, and authors seemingly refer to him by different names: Giorgio Vasari spoke of a Lionardo Milanese; Giovanni Baglione wrote biographical details of a Lionardo da Serzana or Sarzana;[1] while by the 1670s Giovanni Vincenzo Verzellino and Raffaele Soprani tried to distinguish Vasari's Lionardo from a Leonardo Sormani, originally from Savona. These names, however, appear to refer to the same sculptor. Attributions however of individual works are difficult.[2]

Sarzana appears to have been a restorer as well as a sculptor. Works attributed to Sarzana include:

Notes and References

  1. Book: Baglione, Giovanni . 1641 . 1733 . Le Vite de' Pittori, Scultori, Architetti, ed Intagliatori dal Pontificato di Gregorio XII del 1572. fino a' tempi de Papa Urbano VIII. nel 1642. . Lives of the painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers during the papacies of Gregory XII in 1572 to Urban VIII in 1642 . Giovanni Battista Passari . 85 . Naples .
  2. https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/leonardo-sormani_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ Treccani Encyclopedia
  3. https://books.google.com/books?id=lCY_AQAAMAAJ Storia della scultura dal suo risorgimento in Italia
  4. Steven F. Ostrow, "The discourse of failure in seventeenth-century Rome: Prospero Bresciano's Moses," The Art Bulletin (June 2006).