Aurelio, Girolamo e Ludovico Lombardi, fratelli scultori del Cinquecento

The PhD thesis, structured in eight chapters and three appendixes, focuses on Aurelio (1502/1504-1563), Girolamo (1506/1507-1584-1589) and Ludovico (about 1510 - 1575) Lombardi. These Venetian-Ferrarese sculptors, known mainly as Antonio Lombardo's sons, were some of the protagonists of the sixteenth century.My manuscript starts analyzing the fortune of the three masters in literature, from Vasari's Lives (1568) up to the most recent printed contributions. The remaining chapters, instead, investigate Lombardi’s entire career, through the various places where they worked. Although there was no total lack of studies on them, a complete catalogue was still missing: so the main purpose of the thesis is to read the single works in relation to the stylistic facts of the time and to define the artistic specimens of the three brothers. This has allowed new additions to Lombardi’s corpus, but also a more precise focus on works so far attributed to them.The second and third chapters are dedicated to the years of their training, spent in Ferrara and Venice: in these interventions the subject is also largely concentrated on the figurative influences in those cities. The fourth and fifth chapters, on the other hand, face the arrival of the three artists in the Marche region towards the end of the fourth decade of sixteenth century, first in Pesaro and then in Loreto, where they worked as official sculptors of the Santa Casa. The sixth chapter examines Ludovico’s activity in Rome, which can be dated between 1545 and 1550, and consists of bronze portrait-busts inspired by antiquities. The seventh and eighth chapters, finally, retrace the last years of the Lombardi’s production, from the bronze Eucharistic Tabernacle set up in the Milan Cathedral to the last, extraordinary works for the Basilica of Loreto.These essays, as partly anticipated, are followed by a list of illustrations, a documentary appendix, bibliography and images.