Andrea Bolgi
| Andrea Bolgi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1605 Carrara |
| Died | 1656 (aged 50–51) Naples |
| Education | Florence |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work | St Helena, St. Peter's Basilica |
| Movement | Baroque |
| Patron(s) |
Pope Urban VIII Pope Innocent X Giovan Camillo Cacace |
Andrea Bolgi (22 June 1605–1656) was an Italian sculptor responsible for several statues in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Towards the end of his life he moved to Naples, where he sculpted portrait busts. He died in Naples during a plague epidemic.
Bolgi was born in the marble-working city of Carrara. His training was in Florence, which was a conservative center in the seventeenth century.
In 1626, along with Francesco Baratta, he was sent to Rome, where he joined the studio of sculptors who employed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and were influenced by Bernini's Baroque style. From 1626, before the expansion of Bernini's atélier, Bolgi supplanted Giuliano Finelli (1601–1653) as the "only man of consequence" in Bernini's studio, Rudolph Wittkower observed, in attributing to Bolgi the Bust of Thomas Baker begun by Bernini, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Bolgi created his Saint Helena (1629–1639) for one of the niches at the crossing of St. Peter's Basilica, one of the choice commissions of his generation, for which he had doubtless been promoted by Bernini in preference to Finelli. Bolgi laboured for a decade on the figure that epitomised his career and, in some degree, his detraction: Wittkower remarked on its "classicizing coolness, its boring precision", and its position directly across from Bernini's masterful Saint Longinus invited unflattering comparisons.
Between 1647 and 1650 all the spandrel spaces above the arches of the nave of St. Peters were filled with stucco figures. Their execution was divided among sculptors with connections with Bernini, who seems to have exercised loose control over the compositions. In the first bay on the left, the spandrel figures of The Church and Divine Justice were given to Bolgi, who was paid for them in September 1647 and in March 1648. Pope Innocent X was dissatisfied with Bolgi's figures, which were taken down, adjusted to everyone's satisfaction, and reinstalled
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