Stefano Maderno

Stefano Maderno (''c.'' 1576 – 17 September 1636) was one of the greatest Roman sculptors of the early 17th century."Stefano Maderno (1576 - 1636)", The National Gallery
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Biography

Information about Maderno's life is scarce and often contradictory. He was long supposed to have been a brother of the contemporary architect Carlo Maderno, and therefore to having been born at Capolago, in what is now Ticino: his death certificate, however, gave his place of birth as Palestrina (Donati 1945) and he signed a bas-relief in the Cappella Paolina in Santa Maria Maggiore as a Roman: STEPHANVS MADERNVS ROMANVS F ("Stefano Maderno of Rome made his).

Maderno began by copying the antique and made several highly esteemed models in bronze. He is best known for the seemingly unposed, naturalistic recumbent marble of ''Santa Cecilia'' in the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (1599–1600), which immediately established his reputation.Handley, Marie Louise. "Stefano Maderno." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 30 November 2022

Elected to the Accademia di San Luca in 1607, Maderno became the pre-eminent sculptor of his generation, on the cusp between Mannerism and Baroque, rivalled in his prime only by Camillo Mariani, though he was eclipsed in his later years by the rapidly rising star of Bernini. His patron, Count Gaspare Rivaldi, having sought to reward him by procuring for him a sinecure at the excise offices of the Gabelle di Ripetta, the sculptor dutifully devoted his time to his new duties and neglected his art.

Works

The ʻʻSanta Ceciliaʻʻ was a counter-statement to the current dry and hectic complications of Mannerism, to which it confronted a simple sweeping outline and a stark pose. This is not a sanitized hagiographical representation of a saint, but the graphic representation of an uncorrupted corpse, claimed to be positioned just as it had been found. The saint's tomb had been opened in 1599, and Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato commissioned Maderno, very young at the time, to recreate the martyr's body in marble. Compare this statue with the passionately theatrical representations of Saint Theresa and Ludovica Albertoni by Bernini, and the Santa Rosa de Lima by Melchiorre Caffà.

He also provided a marble ''Prudence'' for the tomb of Michele Bonelli, known as the Cardinale Alessandrino, in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and provided two bas-reliefs for Paul V's Cappella Paolina at Santa Maria Maggiore (1608–1615); probably the figure of St. Peter for the façade of the Quirinal Palace; a statue of St. Charles Borromeo in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso; decorative figures of putti in the Sistine Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore, angels of the Madonna di Loreto and Santa Maria sopra Minerva and the reclining figures of ''Peace'' and ''Justice'' for the high altar at Santa Maria della Pace.

Of the few sculptures outside of Italy, Cincinnati has a small bronze (c. 1622–25) portraying ''Hercules and Antaeus'', wherein Hercules has to lift Antaeus off the ground to kill hi

Finally there are several '' Bozzetto, bozzetti''— terracotta sketches, in Maderno's case highly finished ones— at the Hermitage, which came from the collection of Abate Filippo Farsetti in Venice, who possessed several of Maderno's terracottas, a form in which Maderno specialized. Tsar Paul I of Russia began acquiring Farsetti's collection in 1800, and the transfer to Saint Petersburg was completed in 1805 by Tsar Alexander Ibr>
One of the Hermitage terracottas is a suggested restoration of the Laocoön, the correct restoration of which was a classic puzzle for 16th- and 17th-century ''virtuosi''— another a variation on the Farnese Hercules, and yet another a remarkable ''Pietà'' (c. 1605), where Nicodemus holds the dead Christ in his lap, a conscious response to Michelangelo's ''Pietà''


Further terracottas are in the collection at the Ca' d'Oro, Venice.

File:Roma-sanlorenzoindamaso3.jpg, ''St. Carlo Borromeo'' (right), Church of San Lorenzo in Damaso, Rome, Italy.
File:Stefano maderno, nicodemo tiene cristo in pietà, roma, 1605.JPG, ''Pietà'' (c. 1605), Bode-Museum, Berlin, Germany.
File:Stefano maderno, ercole e anteo, 1622 ca..JPG, ''Hercules and Antaeus'' (c. 1622), terra-cotta, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Great Britain.
File:Stefano Maderno - Hercules and Antaeus - Walters 54665.jpg, ''Hercules and Antaeus'' (c. 1622-25), bronze, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
File:Stefano maderno, ercole.JPG, ''Hercules'', terra-cotta, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

References

Sources

*A. Donati, ''Stefano Maderno, scultore (1576-1636)'', Bellinzona, 1945.

External links

Patricia Wengraf Ltd., ''Apollo flaying Marsyas''
A newly rediscovered terracotta reworking the theme of the Hermitage ''Marsyas''.
''Grove Dictionary of Art''

Further reading

*S.F. Ostrow in ''The dictionary of art'', Macmillan 1996, vol. 20, pp. 46–48
*Rudolf Wittkower, ''Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maderno, Stefano
1576 births
1636 deaths
People from the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital
16th-century Italian sculptors
Italian male sculptors
17th-century Italian sculptors