Santi Buglioni

Santi Buglioni, by the name of Santi di Michele (25 December 1494 – 27 November 1576) was an important Renaissance Italian sculptor, the nephew and collaborator of Benedetto Buglioni.

He was born on December 25, 1494, and his mother Francesca Mori was a near relative of Lisabetta Mori, the wife of Benedetto Buglioni. Hence it was natural that Santi should have become in 1513 a ward and pupil of his distinguished relative.

The early artworks After Luca della Robbia had moved to France to escape the plague, the Buglioni family inherited from him the secrets of the new pottery glaze techniques. According to Giorgio Vasari, the Buglioni learnt della Robbia's secret through a woman who frequented his house.

In his early works he was the assistant and pupil of Benedetto Buglioni. The monuments at Badia Tedalda reveal him cooperating with Benedetto in the Madonna della Cintola (1521) and as an independent artist in the altarpiece of the Annunciation and Saints (1522). After the death of Benedetto Buglioni the young Santi began a career of more ambitious works.

He also participated in the decorations for Michelangelo's funeral with a portrait of the artist

Between 1549 and 1560, under the commission of Cosimo I de' Medici, he created in Florence the glazed terracotta pavements for the most important palaces at the thime: the Biblioteca Laurenziana, for various rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio and for the Pitti Palace Grottoes.

Santi Buglioni was the artist responsible for the execution of a Medici-Toledo coat of arms in terracotta for the inner guest quarters of the La Verna Convent.

Last years Buglioni, who had become blind in his late years, died in 1576 and was buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence. His wife Francesca di Dionigi di Simone, nine years younger, was his companion for nearly forty years. She died in 1566. His great-grandson was Vincenzo Viviani, a celebrated mathematician, pupil and biographer of Galileo Galilei.