Rossellino, Bernardo di Matteo Ghambarelli

Rossellino, Bernardo di Matteo Ghambarelli called (c.1409–1464). Florentine sculptor and architect. He completed the façade of the Fraternità di Santa Maria della Misericordia, Arezzo (1433–5), designed the Spinelli cloister at Santa Croce, Florence (1448–52), and supervised the completion of Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (1448–62), including the façade. His masterpiece was the town-centre of Pienza (from 1459), the first Renaissance ideal city, which he realized for Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius II (1458–64). It consists of the piazza containing the Cathedral, Palazzo Piccolomini, Palazzo Vescovile, and Palazzo del Pretorio, and other palazzi and houses. The palazzi on either side of the duomo are set at angles to its main axis, like stage wings, and the Palazzo Piccolomini has elevational treatments derived from that of the Palazzo Rucellai, although the three-storey garden façade has tiers of porticoes from which views of the countryside may be had, a concept clearly derived from Pliny's description of his villa in Tuscany. Some scholars hold that it was Rossellino who designed the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai in its final form, and indeed it is almost exactly contemporary with the Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza, but others suggest Alberti may have contributed to the design of the works there.

Bibliography

Carli (1966);
Heydenreich (1996);
C. Mack (1980, 1987);
P. Murray (1969);
Schulz (1977);
Jane Turner (1996);
Tönnesmann (1990);
Tyszkiewicz (1928);
D. Watkin (1986);
ZfK, vi (1937), 105–46