Nanni di Bartolo

Nanni di Bartolo, also known as "il Rosso" ("the redhead"), was a Florentine sculptor of the Early Renaissance, a slightly younger contemporary of Donatello.

[2] He is not to be confused with the slightly older, and more prominent, Florentine sculptor Nanni di Banco, and is often called "Rosso" in art history to avoid this.

[7] For at least the next fifteen years he seems to have worked in Venice and the Venetian parts of north Italy, both spreading Florentine style, but also accommodating it to the local lingering taste for International Gothic elements.

[12] They were placed very high, and so were seen from a distance, at a sharp angle, factors which needed allowing for in the compositions, and made "fine detail virtually useless for visual effect".

[15] A number of the largest commissions in Venetian-controlled cities with which he was probably involved are wall tombs with large frames, some including significant paintings in the whole ensemble.

The most striking of these is the Brenzoni Monument in the church of San Fermo Maggiore, Verona, which includes a Resurrection group of Christ, four sleeping soldiers, three angels, and two putti who hold back large canopy curtains in marble, a Venetian style in wall tombs, that here gives the scene something of the effect of a tableau vivant.

[18] Rosso is mentioned in the inscription: QVEM GENUIT RUSSI FLORENTIA TUSCA IOHANNIS/ ISTUD SCULPSIT OPUS INGENIOSA MANUS:[19] ("The ingenious hand of Giovanni the redhead, a child of Tuscan Florence, carved this work.