Renaissance sculpture: new names, new personalities

CYCLE: Research in Progress
SPEAKER: Aldo Galli
DATE: Thursday, December 10, 6:00 PM

The weave of the intersection between artworks and documents, which forms the substance of our knowledge of art history, remains far too loose in many places. This is generally true for sculpture between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, traditionally less explored by scholars than the painting of the same period, and even more so as one moves away from Tuscany, which has always been the privileged area for research. There are names of sculptors that emerge from archival documents but whose works remain unknown; conversely, there are groups of sculptures attributable to the same hand based on style, yet whose author’s identity remains a mystery; and still others are signed but isolated works, not yet linked to further productions. This lecture will present several ongoing research cases that are bringing to light the names and personalities of forgotten sculptors, adding new pieces to the grand mosaic of Italian art history.

Aldo Galli is Full Professor of Early Modern Art History at the University of Trento. His research is primarily focused on the sculpture and painting of the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, resulting in numerous essays in journals and collective volumes, as well as several books (including Ghiberti and I Pollaiolo).
He has collaborated on many exhibitions, including: Mantegna (Paris, Louvre, 2008–2009); The Arts in Siena during the Early Renaissance (Siena, Santa Maria della Scala, 2010); The Ladies of the Pollaiolo (Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, 2014–2015); Renaissance Terracotta Sculpture, from Donatello to Riccio (Padua, Museo Diocesano, 2020); and Donatello: The Renaissance (Florence, Palazzo Strozzi and Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, 2022–2023). He is an editor for the journal Prospettiva and a member of the Scientific Board of the Fondazione Federico Zeri (University of Bologna).