among them are those in the Sassetti chapel, Sta. Trinità
(scenes from the life of St. Francis; c. 1485) and in the
choir of Sta. Maria Novella (scenes from the lives of the
Virgin and St. John the Baptist; c. 1490), which were again
remarkable for their control of prosaic naturalism. Best
known of his other paintings is Old Man and his Grandson
(1480), which combines genuine tenderness with uncom-
promising reality. Ghirlandaio’s son, Ridolfo Bigordi
(1483–1561), distinguished himself as a portrait painter.
Giambologna (Jean Boulogne, Giovanni (da) Bologna)
(1529–1608) Flemish-born sculptor
Giambologna was born at Douai and trained under the
Flemish sculptor Jacques DUBROEUCQon the roodloft for
Ste. Waldetrude, Mons (now Belgium). In about 1550 he
traveled to Rome to study classical and Renaissance sculp-
ture and met MICHELANGELO. He was encouraged to settle
in Florence and by 1558 was in the pay of the Medici. He
grafted an understanding of Michelangelo’s style onto his
fresh knowledge of classical Hellenistic sculpture, which
had recently been excavated in Rome.
Giambologna developed Michelangelo’s earlier ideas
for sculptures with two or three figures in a series of mar-
ble masterpieces that span his career: Samson slaying a
Philistine (1560–62; Victoria and Albert Museum, Lon-
don); Florence triumphant over Pisa (1565–80; Bargello,
Florence); The Rape of a Sabine (1579–83; Loggia dei
Lanzi, Florence); Hercules slaying a Centaur (1594–99;
also Loggia dei Lanzi). For the garden of Duke Francesco
I de’ Medici’s favorite villa at Pratolino on the outskirts of
Florence he created (c. 1580) a gigantic statue of the per-
sonification of the Apennines, an old man with a stalac-
tite-like beard crouching on a rocky outcrop above a pool
in the present-day Parco Demidoff (see Plate IV). Such
displays of virtuosity made him the most influential and
sought-after sculptor in the whole of Europe for half a
century (1560–1610).
Giambologna also excelled in modeling sculpture to
be cast in bronze, a medium Michelangelo had abhorred;
he must have been encouraged by the success of Cellini’s
Perseus, unveiled just as he arrived in Florence (1554).
His own first success was a fountain of Neptune in
Bologna (1563–67), where he also invented his most en-
duringly successful, and widely reproduced, composition
in bronze, a flying Mercury (examples at different scales in
Bologna, Florence, Naples, Paris, and Vienna). Exploiting
the potential of metal for statues with widely flung limbs
and accessories, he produced a series of Labours of Her-
cules and other aggressively masculine subjects; his stat-
uettes of females are composed differently, with their bent
limbs wound round their bodies in a fascinating sequence
of angles and sensuous curves.
Giambologna revitalized, mainly for religious themes,
the Florentine tradition of narrative reliefs in bronze. But
his greatest contribution to the development of sculpture
was the EQUESTRIAN MONUMENT of Duke Cosimo I
(1587–93; Piazza della Signoria, Florence); this gave a
fresh impetus to a tradition, which was then followed
throughout the capitals of Europe. His own studio pro-
duced other similar equestrian portraits of the reigning
Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici (Piazza SS. Annunziata,
Florence), of King Henry IV of France (Paris, destroyed in
the French Revolution), and of King Philip III of Spain.
These were imitated in London by Hubert Le Sueur’s
statue of King Charles I (1630; Trafalgar Square).
The spread of Giambologna’s elegant, courtly style
was ensured by the wide distribution of his bronze stat-
uettes and the number of his pupils who went to work all
over Europe. Giambologna’s career links that of Michelan-
gelo, whom he imitated, to that of Bernini, founder of the
Baroque in Rome.
Further reading: Charles Avery, Giambologna: The
Complete Sculpture (Oxford, U.K.: Phaidon Christie’s,
1987; repr. Phaidon, 1994); Mary W. Gibbons, Gi-
ambologna: Narrator of the Catholic Reformation (Berkeley,
Calif. and London: University of California Press, 1995).giant order See COLOSSAL ORDERGibbons, Orlando (1583–1625) English composer
He sang in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, from
1596/98 before becoming a student at the university. In
about 1603 he became a member and probably organist of
the Chapel Royal. In 1623 he was appointed organist of
Westminster Abbey, and in 1625 is recorded as also being
senior organist at the Chapel Royal and a musician in the
king’s private music. He died in Canterbury while await-
ing with Charles I’s retinue the arrival of Charles’s bride,
Henrietta Maria. Gibbons wrote many keyboard pieces
and a number of consort works, but is most famous for his
church music, all for the Anglican rite. In his verse an-
thems soloists and chorus alternate in an expressive treat-
ment of the text; many of these works may be
accompanied by either viols or organ.Giberti, Gian Matteo (1495–1543) Italian churchman
Giberti, who was illegitimate, was born in Genoa and as a
young man he attracted the patronage of Cardinal Giulio
de’ Medici. When his patron became Pope Clement VII
(1523) Giberti virtually ran the papal Curia and strongly
encouraged the pope in his anti-imperial diplomacy. In
1524 he was appointed bishop of Verona, and after the
sack of Rome (1527) he settled in his diocese and under-
took far-reaching reforms, aimed at raising the quality of
the Church’s pastoral life and the efficacy of its ministry.
His methods were studied with attention by Cardinal
(later St) CHARLES BORROMEO. Under Pope Paul III Giberti
continued to be a trusted papal adviser, and his work is
seen as preparing the way for the Council of TRENT. He221122 GGiiaammbboollooggnnaa