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Giovanni Maria Mosca or Giovanni Padovano (1495/99 – after 1573) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and medallist, active between 1515 and 1573, initially in the Veneto and after 1529 in Poland, where his first name was rendered Jan.[1]
Giovanni Maria Mosca or Giovanni Padovano (1495/99 – after 1573) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and medallist, active between 1515 and 1573, initially in the Veneto and after 1529 in Poland, where his first name was rendered Jan.[1]
Born in Padua (which now has a street named after him), the first surviving mention of Mosca dates to 1507, when he began six years as apprentice to the Paduan sculptor Giovanni Minello and then to the goldsmith Bartolomeo Mantello. His first surviving work, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist' (1516; Padua Cathedral), dates to this period. His artistic training continued in the studio of Tullio Lombardo and Antonio Lombardo, both sons of the equally famous architect and sculptor Pietro Lombardo.[2]
He was active in Veneto, where he produced important works in both Padua and Venice and collaborated with Guido Lizzaro, Bartolomeo di Francesco Bergamasco and Pietro Paolo Stella. He arrived in Kraków around 1529 after being summoned to Sigismund I's court. He had probably attracted by the commission for the royal tomb but probably arriving too late to contribute to that work, which was instead produced by the Florentine Bartolomeo Berrecci. His first commission in Poland was four medals showing the royal family. He gathered around himself the most important sculptural workshop in Poland, mainly specialising in tomb monuments.[2]
