Desiderio da Settignano

Desiderio da Settignano , c.1429-64, Florentine sculptor, a follower of Donatello . His exquisitely delicate marble carving is best seen in his church decorations, bas-reliefs, and busts of women and children. Two bas-reliefs in American collections, Young St. John the Baptist (National Gallery, Washington, D.C.) and Foulc Madonna and Child (Philadelphia Mus. of Art), are characteristic of his style and charm. Two of his Florentine works, the tomb of Carlo Marsuppini in the Church of Santa Croce and a tabernacle in the Balsilica of San Lorenzo, are among the most beautiful of early Renaissance monuments. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., has several examples of his work.

Desiderio da Settignano (b Settignano, nr. Florence, c.1430; bur. Florence, 16 Jan. 1464). Florentine sculptor, born into a family of stonemasons (the village from which he takes his name was renowned for this trade). Like most of his contemporaries Desiderio formed his style on Donatello's work of the 1430s. He learnt from him the practice of carving in very low relief, and the lively, thick-set figures of children on the master's Singing Gallery for Florence Cathedral (1433–9) provided models for Desiderio's various reliefs of the Madonna and Child. Desiderio's artistic personality, however, was more delicate than Donatello's, and for refinement of handling in marble he is unsurpassed by any Italian sculptor of his period, as is seen particularly in his portrait busts of women, good examples of which are in Florence (Bargello) and Washington (NG). He died young and his only important public work was the tomb of the Florentine humanist and statesman Gregorio Marsuppini (d 1453) in S. Croce. This is architecturally dependent on the tomb of Leonardo Bruni by Bernardo Rossellino (possibly Desiderio's teacher), executed for the same church about ten years earlier, but is sculpturally richer and more animated.