Luca Fancelli (c. 1430 – c. 1502) was an Italian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Biography

Fancelli was born in Settignano, a fraction of

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

. Much of his life and work is an enigma; what is known for sure is that he trained as a stonecutter and mason and studied under Brunelleschi.

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work ''Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ideol ...

, the 16th-century Florentine artist and biographer of the artists, is responsible for many doubts pertaining to the authenticity of works attributed to Fancelli. While Fancelli likely designed the Palazzo Pitti, the Florentine residence of the Medici's friend, and supposed rival, Luca Pitti; Vasari attributes the design to Brunelleschi, who had died several years before work began. The palazzo is not in Brunelleschi's style, and considered by many to be by a lesser hand. Fancelli has also been credited also with the design of the tribune of SS. Annunziata in Florence, but this too is disputed. In 1450 Fancelli moved to

Mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...

, where he was employed in the court of Marquis Ludovico III. Mantua under the Gonzagas was artistic center, employing Pisanello, Mantegna,

Perugino Pietro Perugino ( ; ; born Pietro Vannucci or Pietro Vanucci; – 1523), an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance. Raphael became his most famous ...

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, who was responsible for som ...

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, Catholic priest, priest, linguistics, linguist, philosopher, and cryptography, cryptographer; he epitomised the natu ...

, Giulio Romano, and Rubens. At Mantua, Fancelli became clerk of works and supervisory architect for the churches of San Sebastiano (1460), and Sant'Andrea (1472) while the plans for both churches were drawn by Alberti himself, Fancelli's input was large, especially at the church of Sant'Andrea, which was begun only shortly before Alberti's death. The Marquess of Mantua Federico I began work on a new royal palace in the city, and Fancelli received the commission to design a complex of rooms for new palace centred on its clock tower, this wing known as the ''Domus Nova'' ("New House"). Fancelli worked on from 1478 to 1484, but the palace itself remained incomplete until the 17th century. The final years of Fancelli's life are characteristically enigmatic; he disappears from all written references from 1494.

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fancelli, Luca 1430s births 15th-century deaths 15th-century Italian architects Architects from Florence Italian Renaissance architects