11 Facts About Giambologna

Giambologna, known as Jean de Boulogne, Jehan Boulongne and Giovanni da Bologna, was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small works in bronze and marble in a late Mannerist style.

Giambologna was born in Douai, Flanders, in 1529.

Giambologna was much influenced by Michelangelo, but developed his own Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion and more emphasis on refined surfaces, cool elegance, and beauty.

Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553.

Giambologna died in Florence at the age of 79; the Medici had never allowed him to leave Florence, as they rightly feared that either the Austrian or Spanish Habsburgs would entice him into permanent employment.

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Giambologna was interred in a chapel he designed himself in the Santissima Annunziata.

Giambologna became well known for a fine sense of action and movement, and a refined, differentiated surface finish.

Giambologna carved it without a subject in mind, and the name Abduction of a Sabine Woman was given after it was in place in the Loggia.

Giambologna created allegories strongly promoting Medicean political propaganda, such as Florence Triumphant over Pisa and, less overtly, Samson Slaying a Philistine, for Francesco de' Medici.

Giambologna provided as well as many sculptures for garden grottos and fountains in the Boboli Gardens of Florence and at Pratolino, and the bronze doors of the cathedral of Pisa.

Giambologna created the bronze sea-horses and some other sculptures for Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune, Florence.