Algardi, Alessandro

Algardi, Alessandro an Italian sculptor, was born at Bologna about the year 1600. He was employed at Rome through the influence of Domenichino, and achieved a reputation as the first sculptor of his time by a statue of St. Philip Neri, in then sacristy of the Oratorian Church in that city, and a colossal group representing The Decapitation of St. Paul, in the Church of the Barnabites at Bologna. He executed the bronze statue of Innocent X, erected to commemorate the completion of the Capitol at Rome, the monument of Leo XI in St. Peter's, and a bass-relief representing Attila checked by St. Leo for one of the altars in the same church — the largest work of the kind in the world.