Giovanni Antonio Dosio (San Gimignano 1533 - 1610 Caserta) Italian, Genoese, circa 1565

R. Spinelli, 'I bust scolpiti e una novità', in Giovan Antonio Dosio da San Gimignano architteto e scultur fiorentino tra Roma, Firenze e Napoli, Florence 2011, pp. 205-209

Some wear, surface abrasions and chips throughout, particularly around edges, and abrasions to bottom edge of beard. Some remains of plaster beneath his beard (not visible from head-on view). Small repairs to chips on edges of hat on proper left side and area of central bow. Partially filled chip over proper right eye and plaster restoration to tip of nose. Small rust stain on proper left shoulder and some smaller spots on proper left side. Some restoration and filled breaks to socle.
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In 2011, the art historian Riccardo Spinelli published this newly discovered and powerful bust by the late Renaissance architect and sculptor Giovanni Antonio Dosio. Dosio created marble portraits and important funerary monuments throughout Italy for illustrious late Renaissance figures. The sitter has been identified as the Doge of the Republic of Genoa, Battista Cicala Zoaglio who reigned from 1561 to 1563; his distinctive physiognomy is unmistakable in a painting of Zoaglio by an unknown Genoese painter (Boccardo and Di Fabio, op. cit., p. 173, fig. 3) as well as in an illustrated chart of portraits of Genoese Doges (Boccardo and Di Fabio, op. cit., pp. 180-182, VI.1, fig. b).

Here, Dosio represents the Doge in a sober but relatively informal fashion with a buttoned shirt, the Senator’s traditional cap and a soft cloak draped over his shoulders, as opposed to the official costume indicating his rank: the crown, the ermine cloak and the sceptre. This would suggest that the sculptor was directly acquainted with his sitter, whose physical characteristics Dosio investigated thoroughly.

Dosio’s marble portraits, both full length and busts, demonstrate a similar handling of the stone and specifically the facial features, such as the expressive wrinkles and the deep-set eyes. However, Dosio’s work is also abstract to some degree and displays a linear quality that is characteristic of a draftsman. Compare the present bust with one on the monument dedicated to the Bishop of Chiusi, Baldo Farratino, executed in 1564 for the cathedral of Amelia, near Terni (Valone, op. cit., p. 530, figs. 1 and 2). Correspondingly, a Marble Head of an older man with a beard, now in the Ackland Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (72.32.1), carved around the same time as this bust of Zoaglio, exhibits a similar expressiveness and summary treatment of the beard. In the present portrait, Dosio imbues his sitter with profound sense of power and majesty while revealing the human qualities of this reflective and intellectual man.

Dosio counted the Farnese, the Gaddi and the Medici among his patrons. He worked primarily in Rome (1548–75) and Florence (1575–89), with some commissions that took him to Naples. The principal influence on his style in the early years came from his master Guglielmo della Porta for whom he worked in Rome after leaving the atelier of Raffaello da Montelupo. One of Dosio’s first important commissions was the tomb for his friend, the humanist poet Annibale Caro, in 1567, for S. Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome. Other commissions included sculptures and designs for tombs dedicated to Giovanni Pacini also in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso, dated to 1566-1568, the tomb of Antonio Massa da Gallese San Pietro in Montorio, dated to 1568-1569, and the one sculpted in 1574 for the Marquis Michele Antonio di Saluzzo in the church of Santa Maria dell' Aracoeli. Dosio also designed chapels for S. Maria Novella and S. Croce in Florence. From 1590 he worked in Naples, where the Viceroy bestowed on him the prestigious appointment of “royal architect." From 1600 he worked in Caserta for the Prince of Caserta Andrea Matteo Acquaviva D’Aragona until his death.  

RELATED LITERATURE
C. Valone, "Giovanni Antonio Dosio: The Roman Years" in The Art Bulletin, vol. 58, no. 4, December 1976, pp. 528-541
P. Boccardo and Di Fabio (eds.), EI Siglo de los Genoveses e una lunga storia di Arte e Splendori nel Palazzo dei Dogi, exhibition catalogue,Genoa, 1999-2000, Milan 1999