Jacopo della Quercia

Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438), one of the earliest Italian Renaissance sculptors. The son of a sculptor and goldsmith, Jacopo probably took his name from the town of Quercia Grossa, near Siena, Italy.

His earliest known sculpture, the tomb (1406) of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca Cathedral, is entirely renaissance in conception and execution. It is in the form of a Roman sarcophagus, with winged cherubs bearing heavy garlands carved in extremely high relief around the sides. The serene effigy of Ilaria lies on the lid, swathed in superbly carved folds of drapery, her face radiant with peace. Jacopo is best remembered for his fountain for the public square of Siena, the Fonte Gaia (1419; now in Palazzo Pubblico, Siena), which has been replaced by a copy. A bronze relief, Zacharias in the Temple, for the font of the baptistery of Siena Cathedral was completed in 1430.

Jacopo’s 15 biblical marble relief panels (begun 1425) in the portal of the Church of San Petronio, Bologna, were left incomplete at his death, but the Genesis scenes he sculpted for the portal are among his most striking creations, in the bold simplicity of their compositions, the sure handling of anatomy, and their effect of monumentality. These panels, and Jacopo’s other works, were a direct inspiration to Michelangelo and other masters of the High Renaissance.