Baccio Bandinelli

Baccio Bandinelli (also called Bartolomeo Brandini; 12 November 1493 – shortly before 7 February 1560[1]), was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, draughtsman, and painter.

Among his earliest works was a Saint Jerome in wax, made for Giuliano de' Medici, identified as Bandinelli's by John Pope-Hennessy.

Giorgio Vasari, a former pupil in Bandinelli's workshop, claimed Bandinelli was driven by jealousy of Benvenuto Cellini and Michelangelo; and recounts that: (When) the cartoon of Michelangelo in the Council Hall ("Battle of Cascina" at Palazzo Vecchio)[4] was uncovered, and all the artists ran to copy it, and Baccio (most frequently) among (them),... having counterfeited the key of the chamber.

Some said he did it that he might have a piece of the cartoon always near him, and others that he wanted to prevent other youths from making use of it; others again say that he did it out of affection for Leonardo da Vinci, or from the hatred he bore to Michelangelo.

Vasari said of him "He did nothing but make bozzetti and finished little", and modern commentators have remarked on the vitality of Bandinelli's terracotta models contrasted with the finished marbles: "all the freshness of his first approach to a subject was lost in the laborious execution in marble... A brilliant draughtsman and excellent small-scale sculptor, he had a morbid fascination for colossi which he was ill-equipped to execute.

Bandinelli then returned to Florence and continued work on the statue, which was completed in 1534 and transported from the Opera del Duomo to its present marble pedestal.