Biography

Jacopo Tatti was born in Florence and apprenticed to the sculptor Andrea Sansovino, whose name he adopted. He studied antique sculpture in Rome, from 1506-1, and periodically returned to the capital before the Sack in 1527. Following this he fled to Venice where he settled permanently. Over the next four decades Sansovino played a central role in shaping sculpture and architecture in the city. He won powerful friends and patrons, among then Titian and Pietro Aretino, and was appointed to the post of chief architect to the Procurators of San Marco. In that capacity he designed and supervised the construction of many of the city’s most celebrated landmarks. Several of the best sculptors in the second half of the sixteenth century trained in Sansovino’s busy shop.