Michelozzi (or Michelozzo)

Michelozzi (Or Michelozzo)

a celebrated Florentine sculptor and architect, was born in 1396. He was a pupil of Donatello, and the greater part of the sepulchral monument erected for pope Giovanni Coscia, in the church of San Giovanni at Florence, by Donatello, is in reality the work of Michelozzi. In the same church is a beautiful statue of Faith, which was executed by Michelozzi as a companion to the two statues of Hope and Charity by his master. Over the sacristy and the rooms of the superintendents, which are opposite to San Giovanni, Michelozzi executed a full relief of San Giovanni, which was afterwards removed, and is now in the Florentine Gallery, in the corridor of bronzes. As an architect, Michelozzi had deservedly a high reputation. He built, among many other fine buildings, the library of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, a house of the Black Monks of Santa Giustina. In 1437 he commenced the construction of the convent of San Marco, which was finished, at a cost of 36,000 ducats, in 1452. Michelozzi also constructed for Cosmo de' Medici the noviciate of Santa Croce, which, for beauty of form and decoration, will compare favorably with any work of this master. The convent of the Barefooted Monks of St. Francis, the church and convent of the monks of San Girolamo, and many other works of purely secular character, are by this distinguished man. He died in 1470, and was buried in his own tomb, in the church of Sali Marco, in Florence. See Vasari, Lives of the Painters, transl. by Mrs. Foster (Lond. 1850, 5 volumes, 8vo), 1:494; Quatremere de Quincy, Vies des Architectes illustres.