ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA (1435-1525), the nephew and pupil of Luca was born Oct. 20, and died Aug. 4, 1525. He carried on the production of the enamelled reliefs on a larger scale and also extended its application to various architectural uses, such as friezes and to the making of lavabos, fountains and large retables. Though the finest reliefs from the workshop of Andrea were but little if at all inferior to those from the hand of Luca, some of those by pupils and assistants reached only a lower standard of merit. Only one work in marble by Andrea is known, an altar in S. Maria delle Grazie near Arezzo.
Andrea sometimes omitted the enamel on the face and hands (nude parts) of his figures, especially when he had treated the heads in a realistic manner; as in the noble tympanum relief of the meeting of St. Dominic and St. Francis in the loggia of the Florentine hospital of S. Paolo—a design suggested by a fresco of Fra Angelico's in the cloister of St. Mark's. One of the most remarkable works by Andrea is the series of medallions with re liefs of Infants in white on a blue ground set on the front of the foundling hospital at Florence. He produced a large number of reliefs of the Madonna and Child, varied with much invention and all of extreme beauty of pose and sweetness of expression. These are frequently framed with realistic yet decorative garlands of fruit and flowers painted with coloured enamels, while the main relief is left white. The hospital of S. Paolo, near S. Maria Novella, has also fine medallions with reliefs of saints, two of Christ Healing the Sick, and two fine portraits, under which are white plaques inscribed "DALL ANNO 1451 ALL ANNO 1495." Arezzo possesses a number of fine enamelled works by Andrea and his sons, a retable in the cathedral and in the chapel of the Campo Santo a fine relief of the Madonna and Child with four saints at the sides. In S. Maria in Grado is a very noble retable with angels holding a crown over a standing figure of the Madonna. Perhaps the finest collection of works of this class is at La Verna, not far from Arezzo. The three large retables with repre sentations of the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, and the Madonna giving her Girdle to St. Thomas are probably the work of Andrea himself, the others being by his sons. In 1489 Andrea made a beautiful relief of the Virgin and two Angels, now over the archive-room door in the Florentine Opera del Duomo. In the same year he modelled the fine tympanum relief over a door of Prato cathedral, with a half-length figure of the Madonna between St. Stephen and St. Lawrence, surrounded by a frame of angels' heads.
In 1491 he was still working at Prato, where many of his best reliefs still exist. A fine bust of S. Lino exists over the side door of the cathedral at Volterra, which is attributed to Andrea. Other late works of known date are a magnificent bust of the Protontary Almadiano, made in 151 o for the church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini at Viterbo, now preserved in the Palazzo Communale there, and a medallion of the Virgin in Glory, surrounded by angels, made in I Soy for Pistoia cathedral. One of the latest works attributed to Andrea, though apparently only a workshop production of 1515, is a relief representing the Adoration of the Magi, made for a little church, St. Maria, in Pian di Mugnone. near Florence. Portions of this work are still in the church, but some fragments of it are at Oxford.
Five of Andrea's seven sons worked with their father and after his death carried on the Robbia studio (see table).