Marcello Sparzo
Considered by his contemporaries as one of the foremost plastic artists and sculptors of the period,[3][4][5][6][7] he was among the early users of marble plaster in monumental colossal works,[5][8][9] displaying an original stylistic language and refined execution skills.
[19] He collaborated, alongside the Flemish painter Bernard van Rantwyck, on the elaborate stucco decorations of the Palazzo Chigi alla Postierla, which have survived in eleven rooms to this day.
[4] Among his early Genoese works were those at Villa delle Peschiere, with Domenico Ponzello, Bernardo Castello, and Giovanni Carlone, where he sculpted statues, stuccoes, and the splendid bath in a style already praised by Giorgio Vasari during his visit.
[27] According to Federico Alizeri, the statue was of such quality as to deserve "a praise that is very difficult for anyone who sculpts or models: that is, giving the right appearance to the colossi according to the place that receives them and according to the point from which they are intended to be viewed".
[2][8][21] After his aforementioned return to the Certosa di Pavia between the 16th and 17th centuries,[5] in 1602 he worked at the Villa Imperiale Scassi, richly decorating the atrium and sculpting the statues in the niches, including those depicting Doge Tartaro in the staircase, considered particularly valuable.
[32][33] In 1606, he worked at Palazzo Lomellino on Strada Nuova,[3][10] creating masterful stuccoes for the facade and oval atrium, based on designs by Giovan Battista Castello.
[10] In the same year, he completed the rich works at the church of San Rocco di Granarolo, dated and personally signed by Sparzo, with decorations, statues, and various compositions.
[1][3] On January 23, 1614, he bought from the community, in the district of Valbona in Urbino, what had been the house of Federico Brandani, committing to pay it in two installments with the proceeds from the works at the church of San Francesco,[2] later reselling it two years later for six hundred scudi to the painter Antonio Viviani,[34][35] and is now the headquarters of the Accademia Raffaello.
[5][47] His colossus of Jupiter, for example, was attributed to Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli for two centuries[5][38][48] and the reattribution of the work occurred only in 1874 (Alizeri, initially also mistaken, corrected himself, giving it prominence in his publications).
[5][45][48] It was only in the 19th century, thanks also to the publications of Colucci, Lazzari, and Alizeri, and later to modern analysis, that Sparzo's extensive artistic work began to be gradually recognized as it was by the people of his era.
