Giambologna (Giovanni da Bologna, Jean Boulogne), Flemish-born Italian sculptor. He was the greatest sculptor of the age of Mannerism and for about two centuries after his death his reputation was second only to that of Michelangelo.

In about 1550 he went to Italy to study and spent 2 years in Rome. On the way back he stopped in Florence and was based there for the rest of his life. The work that made his name, however, was for Bologna - the Fountain of Neptune (1563-66), with its impressive nude figure of Neptune which he had designed for a similar fountain in Florence (Ammanati defeated him in the competition). Even before working on the fountain in Bologna, however, Giambologna had begun in Florence the first of a series of celebrated marble groups that in their mastery of complex twisting poses mark one of the high-points of Mannerist art: Samson Slaying a Philistine (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, c. 1561-62); Florence Triumphant over Pisa (Bargello, Florence, completed 1575); The Rape of a Sabine (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. 1581-82); Hercules and the Centaur (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, 1594-1600).

Hercules and the Centaur

The proto-Baroque tendencies of the late style of the Mannerist Giambologna are strongly apparent in this work. His movement away from the grace and elegance of the mannerist style and into the realism of the Early Baroque is complete in this group.

This marble group Hercules and Nessus was unveiled by Giambologna in 1600 at the Canto de' Carnesecchi in Florence. It was moved in 1842 from its original site to the Loggia dei Lanzi.

The Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I is a bronze equestrian statue by Giambologna, erected in 1594 in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Giambologna who dominated Florentine sculpture in the late 1500s, explored the subject of horses in models for small bronzes around 1580-1589, which proved popular and continued to be cast long after his death. About 1581, he first contemplated sculpting a colossal horse derived from the famous ancient equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio, Rome, and this plan gradually resulted in the equestrian monument of Cosimo I de’ Medidi erected in 1594 in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence [3].

Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I