LUCA DELLA ROBBIA (1399 or 140o-1482) was the son of a Florentine named Simone di Marco della Robbia. According to Vasari he was apprenticed to the silversmith Leonardo di Ser Giovanni; this, however, appears doubtful from the great age which it would give to Leonardo, and it is more probable that Luca was the pupil of Ghiberti. During the early part of his life Luca executed many important and exceedingly beautiful pieces of sculpture in marble and bronze. No sculptured work of the isth century ever surpassed the singing gallery which he made for the cathedral at Florence between 1431 and 1438, with its ten magnificent panels of singing angels and dancing boys. This splendid work is now in the Museo del Duomo, and there is a cast in the Victorian and Albert museum, London, which also possesses a study in gesso duro, apparently Luca's original sketch, for one of the panels.
In 1437 Luca received a commission from the signorina of Florence for five reliefs for the campanile, to complete the series begun by Giotto and Andrea Pisano. These panels, with repre sentative figures typifying grammar, logic, philosophy, music and science, are much in the earlier style of Giotto. In 1439 Luca in association with Donatello received an order for two marble altars for chapels in the cathedral. The reliefs from one of them—St. Peter's Deliverance from Prison and his Crucifixion —are now in the Bargello. A tabernacle made by Luca in 1442 is now at Peretola, near Florence, in the church of S. Maria. In 1437 Donatello received a commission to cast a bronze door for one of the sacristies of the cathedral; but, as he delayed to exe cute this order, the work was handed over to Luca in 1446, with Michelozzo and Maso di Bartolomeo as his assistants. Part of this wonderful door was cast in 1448, and the last two panels were finished by Luca in 1467. It is divided into ten square panels, with small heads in the style of Ghiberti projecting from the framing. The subjects are the Madonna and Child, the Baptist, the four Evangelists, and the four Latin Doctors, each with at tendant angels. The heads are full of life, and the treatment of the drapery in broad simple folds is worthy of a Greek sculp tor of the best period of Hellenic art.
The most important existing work in marble by Luca (executed in 1455-56) is the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, bishop of Fiesole, originally in the church of S. Pancrazio at Florence, but removed to S. Francesco di Paola in 1783 and in 1898 to the church of SS. Trinita in Florence. A very beautiful effigy of the bishop lies on a sarcophagus sculptured with graceful reliefs of angels hold ing a wreath which contains the inscription. Above are three quarter length figures of Christ between St. John and the Virgin. The whole is surrounded by a rectangular frame of tiles of ex quisite beauty, each painted in enamel pigments, with a bunch of flowers and fruit in brilliant realistic colours.
In the latter part of his life Luca was mainly occupied with the production of enamelled terra-cotta reliefs. The rationale of this process was to cover the clay relief with an enamel formed of the ingredients of glass (marzacotto), made white and opaque by oxide of tin. (See POTTERY AND PORCELAIN : Italian Majolica.) Though Luca was not the inventor of the process he extended its application to fine sculptured work in terra-cotta, so that it is known now as Della Robbia ware. The great majority of these reliefs which in Italy and elsewhere are ascribed to Luca are really the work of some of the younger members of the family or of the atelier which they founded. Among the earliest of the comparatively few which can with certainty be ascribed to Luca himself are medallions of the four Evangelists in the vault of Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel in S. Croce. These fine reliefs are coloured with various metallic oxides in different shades of blue, green, purple, yellow, and black. It has often been wrongly as serted that the polychromatic reliefs belong to Andrea or his sons, and that Luca's were all in pure white, or in white and blue. A relief in the Victoria and Albert museum furnishes a striking example that colours were used freely by Luca and is of especial value from its great size, and because its date is known. This is an enormous medallion containing the arms of Rene of Anjou and other heraldic devices; it is surrounded by a splendidly modelled and brilliantly coloured wreath of fruit and flowers, especially apples, lemons, oranges and fir cones. This medallion was set up on the facade of the Pazzi Palace to com memorate Rene's visit to Florence in 1442. Other reliefs by Luca, also in glazed terra-cotta, are those of the Ascension and Resur rection in the tympani of the doors of the sacristies in the cathe dral, executed in 1442 and 1446 and the tympanum reliefs of the Madonna between two Angels in the Via dell' Agnolo, a work of exquisite beauty, and another formerly over the door of S. Merino del Mercato Vecchio, but now removed to the Bargello. Among the few existing statues by Luca are two lovely enamelled figures of kneeling angels holding candlesticks, now in the canons' sacristy. A very fine work executed between 1449 and 1452 is the tympanum relief of the Madonna and four Monastic Saints over the door of S. Domenico at Urbino. He also made the four coloured medallions of the Virtues set in the vault over the tomb of the young cardinal-prince of Portugal in a side chapel of S. Miniato in Florence and various polychromatic medallions out side Or San Michele. The Victoria and Albert museum possesses 12 circular plaques of majolica ware painted in blue and white with the Occupations of the Months; these have been attributed to Luca but their origin is doubtful.
In 1471 Luca refused to serve as president of the Florentine Gild of Sculptors, on account of his age and infirmity. He died on Feb. 20, 1482. His chief pupil was his nephew Andrea, and Agostino di Duccio, who executed many pieces of sculpture at Rimini, and the marble reliefs of angels on the façade of S. Bernardino at Perugia, may have been the work of one of his assistants.