Sulla giovinezza di Andrea di Pietro Ferrucci: Jacopo d'Andrea del Mazza e il monumento di Marco Albertoni in Santa Maria del Popolo a Roma

The working partnership between Andrea di Pietro Ferrucci and Jacopo d'Andrea del Mazza, although well-known, has not as yet been exhaustively researched. In the last decade of the 15th century the two artists executed three works of considerable importance in the history of Renaissance sculpture: the eucharistic altar of the Gondi family for the cathedral in Fiesole, the Martini-Salviati altar for the church of San Girolamo in Fiesole (now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London), and the baptismal font in the counter-facade of Pistoia cathedral. Although Jacopo's name rarely appears in documents of the main Florentine sites and seems to disappear from the scene at the beginning of the 16th century, documents reveal that Jacopo was active early on in the workshop of Francesco Ferrucci and that he worked together with Giuliano da Sangallo. In attributing to Jacopo d'Andrea the tomb of Marco Albertoni in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, new light is shed on his joint activity. An analysis of the monument reveals Jacopo's style and enables us to identify his role in the works made in partnership with Andrea Ferrucci. At the same time it makes it possible to group together a number of works by Jacopo, including a lost marble frame with the Orsini coat-of-arms and the 'peduccio' of the Silk Guild at the Bargello in Florence. The Albertoni tomb is an important example of interaction between Florentine and Roman sculpture during the second half of the 15th century. It also gives us a glimpse of the beginnings of the partnership: around 1487, when Jacopo was working on the tomb, Andrea must have been in Rome on his return from Naples to improve his skills as a sculptor.