Filippo della Valle (26 December 1698 – 29 April 1768) was an Italian late-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

or early Neoclassic sculptor, active mostly in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Biography

Della Valle was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

. Initially apprenticed with

Giovanni Battista Foggini Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Foggini (25 April 1652 – 12 April 1725) was an Italian sculptor active in Florence, renowned mainly for small bronze statuary. Biography Born in Florence, the young Foggini was sent to Rome by the Medici Gra ...

alongside

Giovanni Battista Maini Giovanni Battista Maini (6 February 1690 – 29 July 1752) was an Italian sculptor of the Late-Baroque period, active mainly in Rome. He was born in Cassano Magnago in Lombardy, and died in Rome. He may have had contacts with Foggini in Florence ...

, he, and later Maini, moved to Rome to work with Camillo Rusconi. In 1725, della Valle won a contest of the

Academy of St Luke The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fi ...

together with

Pietro Bracci Pietro Bracci (1700–1773) was an Italian sculptor working in the Late Baroque manner. Biography He was born in Rome and became a student of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari and Camillo Rusconi. His most familiar works are the colossal ''Oceanus' ...

, and was later to become the director or ''Principe'' of that group. In Rome, he worked with Bracci on

Nicola Salvi Nicola Salvi or Niccolò Salvi (6 August 1697 (Rome) – 8 February 1751 (Rome)) was an Italian architect; among his few projects completed is the famous Trevi fountain in Rome, Italy. Biography Admitted to the Roman Academy of Arcadia in 1717 ...

Trevi Fountain The Trevi Fountain ( it, Fontana di Trevi) is an 18th-century fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Giuseppe Pannini and several others. Standing high and wide, it is the lar ...

, where he completed the allegorical statues of ''Health'' and ''Abundance''. Della Valle masterpiece is his ''Annunciation'' relief (1750) for the church of

Sant'Ignazio la, Ecclesia Sancti Ignatii a Loyola in Campo Martio , image = Sant'Ignazio Church, Rome.jpg , imagesize = 300px , caption = Façade of Sant'Ignazio , mapframe =yes , mapframe-caption ...

in Rome, a much more restrained and flatter relief than that of Bernardino Cametti's elaborate 1729 treatment of the same theme now at the Basilica of Superga. This reflected a Neoclassical influence beginning to affect Late Baroque Roman sculpture, moving away from the theatrical to a more sober elocution of the subject. Another contrast can be found in Pierre Legros the Younger's handling of the relief depicting ''St Aloysious Gonzaga in Glory'' (1698), which stands across from Della Valle's Annunciation in Sant'Ignazio.Boucher, page 170. In 1750, he completed a funerary monument to

Manuel Pereira de Sampaio Manuel Pereira de Sampaio (Lagos; 1692 - Rome; February 1750) was a Portuguese nobleman and diplomat, who served as King John V of Portugal's ambassador to the Holy See. He is remembered notably for having secured the styling of ''Most Faithful M ...

, Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See, in the Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi. He also completed the statue of ''Temperance'' (1734) in the Corsini Chapel at

San Giovanni in Laterano The Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Lateran ( it, Arcibasilica del Santissimo Salvatore e dei Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano), also known as the Papa ...

. The statue recalls Francois Duquesnoy's pioneering early baroque, yet soberly classic, Santa Susanna. In this chapel, della Valle, working with Maini, shows the influence of the Florentine Massimiliano Soldani Benzi. In style, della Valle was allied to the rising group of French sculptors in Rome including

Michelangelo Slodtz Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

. He also completed the monument for

Innocent XII Pope Innocent XII ( la, Innocentius XII; it, Innocenzo XII; 13 March 1615 – 27 September 1700), born Antonio Pignatelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 July 1691 to his death in September 1700. He ...

(1746) and a ''Santa Teresa of Avila'' (1754) for

St Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal en ...

. He died in Rome and was buried at Santa Susanna.

Works

Sources

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Web Gallery of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valle, Filippo della 1698 births 1768 deaths Sculptors from Florence 18th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors Artists from Rome 18th-century Italian male artists