Giambologna
The sculptor who made marble twist.
Giambologna was born in Flanders but worked in Florence. His figura serpentinata, a figure twisting in a spiral, is meant to be seen from every side.
Giambologna's real name was Jean de Boulogne, and he was born in 1529 in Douai, which then lay in Flanders and today belongs to France. He trained with a sculptor in Mons. Around 1550 he travelled to Rome to study ancient sculpture and the work of Michelangelo. According to a later story, he showed Michelangelo a model and was advised to learn to model before trying to finish it, but this is an anecdote.
On his way home he stopped in Florence. There he found a patron and stayed for the rest of his life. He became court sculptor to the Medici family. An important early commission was the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna, made in 1563–66. He also made a bronze Flying Mercury, balanced on the tip of one toe, now in the Bargello in Florence.
His best-known work is the marble Rape of the Sabine Women, completed in 1583 and placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. Three figures twist upwards in a spiral: a young man lifts a woman while an older man crouches beneath them. There is no main viewpoint; you have to walk around the statue to experience it. This is known as the figura serpentinata, the serpentine figure. According to an early source, Giambologna was chiefly interested in solving an artistic problem, and the title was given only afterwards. Towards the end of his life he made an equestrian statue of Cosimo I for the Piazza della Signoria.
Giambologna ran a large workshop. Small bronze statuettes after his models were sent by the Medici as diplomatic gifts to princes all over Europe, which made his style known everywhere. Among his pupils were Pietro Tacca and Adriaen de Vries. Giambologna died in Florence in 1608.
After Michelangelo's death he was the leading sculptor in Italy. His spiralling figures and movement in space point forward to the Baroque and Bernini.