Giovanni Marliano da Nola

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Giovanni Marliano da Nola was an Italian sculptor and architect, b., it is said, to a leather merchant named Giuseppe, in Nola, near Naples, 1488; d. possibly 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 San Domenico (1514); the tombs of the three youths Jacopo, Ascanio and Sigismondo (who died of poison) in their family church of San Severino (1516); various sculptures in the church of Monte Oliveto (1524), notably a 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 recumbent figure of the girl Antonia Gandino (1530).

Outside of Italy there is the monument of the Spanish Duke of Cardona (about 1532) in the Franciscan church of Belpuch. Decorations Nola made for the reception of Emperor Charles V in Naples (1535) are still to be seen on the Porta Capuana. In 1537 he carved a standing Madonna and two Saints for the church of San 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 San Severino; a Madonna della Misericordia in S. Pietro ad Aram; an altar-piece in 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 was one of the more praised representatives of the school of Renaissance sculpture in Naples.

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