MICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO Italian architect and sculptor, was a Florentine by birth, the son of a tailor. He was trained as a goldsmith and at the age of 24 entered the workshop of Ghiberti, whom he assisted on both doors of the Florentine Baptistry and with the statue of St. Mather's for Or San Michele. He assisted Donatello in bronze work such as the "St. Louis" for Or San Michele and the "Salome's Dance" in the Sienese Baptistery. In 1428 he signed the contract for the exterior pulpit of the cathedral at Prato of which the sculpture is by Donatello. His first independent work in sculpture was the tomb of Bartol. Aragazzi, parts of which are at Montepulciano, and of which the Victoria and Albert Museum has two fine figures of angels (1437). Michelozzo's great friend and patron was Cosimo de' Medici, whom he accompanied to Venice in 1433 during his short exile. While at Venice, Michelozzo built the library of San Giorgio Maggiore. The magnificent Palazzo Medici Riccardi at Florence was designed by him for Cosimo (1444) ; it is one of the noblest specimens of Italian 15th-century archi tecture. He built the library, convent and cloister of San Marco
in Florence (1437-1452). In 1446 he succeeded Brunneleschi as architect of the Duomo. In 1448 he executed the tabernacle at S. Miniato for Piero de' Medici. The beautiful silver statuette of the Baptist now in the Opera del Duomo is dated 1452. He re modelled the interior of the Palazzo Vecchio, especially the main court and the hall of The Two Hundred. At Milan he remodelled the Palace of the Medici, now Vismara, and built the Portinari Chapel at the church of S. Eustorgio. He was called to Ragusa in Dalmatia in 1464 and there designed the arcade of the Palazzo Rettorale. He also superintended the fortification on the island of Chios. He died in Florence in 1472 and is buried in San Marco.
See Hans Stegman, Michelozzo di Bartolommeo (Munich, 1888) ; Fritz Wolff, Michelozzo di Bartolommeo (Strassburg, 190o) ; C. von Fabriczy, Jahrbuch der Kgl. Preusz. Kss. XXV . (1904) ; W. Bode, Florentiner Bildhauer (1909) ; A. Schmarsow, Nuovi studi intorno a Michelozzo (Arch. stor. 1893).