Matteo Civitali

Who was Matteo Civitali?

Matteo Civitali was an Italian sculptor and architect, painter and engineer from Lucca. He was a leading artistic personality of the Early Renaissance in Lucca, where he was born and where most of his work remains. He was trained in Florence, where Antonio Rossellino and Mino da Fiesole influenced his mature style. He is known to have sculpted statues of Adam, Eve, Abraham, Saints Zacchariah and Elizabeth, and others for the chapel of San Giovanni Battista in Genoa Cathedral. He is mentioned with the name of Matteo Civitali by Vasari in his biography of Jacopo della Quercia, and appears to have taken up the art of sculpture at the age of 40 years, after years of practicing as a "barber".

His free-standing chapel, the "tempietto", built in 1484 to enshrine the Holy Face of Lucca, stands in the left nave of the Cathedral of San Martino, Lucca. The Duomo contains also a virtual anthology of Matteo's sculpture, since he worked at the San Romano Altar, and also sculpted the statue of St Sebastian in the back of the Holy Face Shrine, and two monumental graves in the right transept.

Matteo Civitali died on 12 October 1501.