Giovanni Marliano da Nola

Sculptor and architect, b., it is said, of a leather merchant named Giuseppe, at Nola, near Naples, 1488; d. 1558 (?). He studied under Agnolo Aniello Fiore and then went to Rome, being attracted by the fame of Michelangelo, whose work he studied closely. On his return to Naples he was employed in churches, palaces, and piazze . Among his works may be mentioned the monument of Galeazzo Pandono in S. Domenico (1514); the tombs of the three youths Jacopo, Ascanio and Sigismondo (who died of poison) in their family church of S. Severino (1516); various sculptures in the church of Monte Oliveto (1524), notably a fine group of the Mother and Child with infant St. John and, in the choir, tombs of Alphonsus II and Guerrero Origlia; in the church of S. Chiara, the simple and touching recumbent figure of the girl Antonia Gandino (1530). Outside of Italy the noble monument of the Spanish Duke of Cardona (about 1532) in the Franciscan church of Belpuch is among the best known. The decorations made by Nola for the reception of Emperor Charles V in Naples (1535) are still to be seen on the Porta Capuana . In 1537 he carved a beautiful standing Madonna and two Saints for the church of S. Domenico Maggiore. In 1553 the Spanish viceroy, Peter of Toledo, caused him to erect the mausoleum to himself and his wife in the church of S. Giacomo degli Spagnuoli. Further works of Nola's, also in Naples, are the Pieta and tomb of a child, Andrea Cicara, in the church of S. Severino; a Madonna della Misericordia in S. Pietro ad Aram; an altar-piece at S. Aniello, representing the Mother and Child seated on a crescent moon; and a fine set of wooden bas-reliefs depicting the life of Christ, in the sacristy of the Annunziata. Nola is one of the most justly lauded representatives of a rather poor school of Renaissance sculpture in Naples.