Guglielmo Fiammingo

Who was Guglielmo Fiammingo?

Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode, known in Italy as Guglielmo Fiammingo, was a sixteenth-century sculptor of Dutch origin who served as a pupil of Benvenuto Cellini in Florence. On his return to Delft in the Netherlands in 1567-68, it has been suggested that he may have trained the young Adriaen de Vries and encouraged him to go to Florence.

Willem, as he still was, is documented at the court of François I by his late teens, which provides the most reasonable place for him to have met Benvenuto Cellini, who left the French court and returned to Florence in 1545. He is documented in the Florentine workshop of Cellini in 1549-50; he was among the sculptors who worked on the marble base for Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa in Florence. In Rome a surviving letter of Guglielmo's records Cellini's distaste and contempt for restoring antique Roman sculpture. In about 1549 Guglielmo restored an antique fragmentary torso as a Ganymede for Cosimo I de' Medici.

In Rome he worked under the direction of Guglielmo della Porta, restoring antiquities for the Cortile del Belvedere and other Vatican projects. On his return to Florence in 1562, Guglielmo reminded Cosimo of his former work on the Ganymede, The work in question, executed under Cellini's direction and commonly attributed to him, shows uncommonly refined cutting; Anthony Radcliffe remarked "it must be asked to what extent the beautiful statue now in the Bargello is the product of the technical skill of Willem van Tetrode".