Pollajuolo, Antonio

Pollajuolo, Antonio a noted Italian artist of the Florentine school of painters and sculptors, flourished in the second half of the 15th century. He was the pupil of Lorenzo Ghiberti, and assisted this master in the celebrated gates of the Baptistery of San Giovanni. Antonio is said to have been the first artist who studied the dead subject for the purposes of design. In 1484 he was invited to Rome by pope Innocent VIII, to elaborate a monument of the then but just expired Sixtus IV, which is now in the chapel of the Sacrament of St. Peter's, where is also the monument of Innocent VIII, which he afterwards elaborated. His brother PIETRO was likewise an artist of some celebrity. The two brothers wrought many great productions jointly. Their best is the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, painted in 1475, and was for some time in the church De Servi at Florence. It is now in the National Gallery at London, and it is engraved in the Etruria Pittriae of Lastri. It is a fine work, without being refilled or in the least idealistic. See Mrs. Clement, Handbook of Painters, etc., p. 462; Spooner, Biog. Hist. of the Fine Arts, s.v.