Luca della Robbia

Timeline

1. c. 1400–1430Florence · FlorenceLuca grew up in Florence, possibly trained as a goldsmith, and came into contact with Ghiberti's workshop tradition of Gothic drapery. Documentary evidence for his early works before the 1431 cathedral Cantoria commission is scant, but he already combined the clarity of classical relief with the volumetric quality of Florentine new sculpture.
2. 1431–1439Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) · FlorenceFrom 1431 to 1438 he made the Cantoria (now in the cathedral museum) for the cathedral, interpreting the Psalms through reliefs of singing and music-making children, with an architectural frame close to Brunelleschi's vocabulary. From 1437 to 1439 he carved five reliefs of the liberal arts at the base of Giotto's Campanile, showing a dialogue with Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia.
3. 1441–1464Florence · FlorenceA niche at the Peretola shrine in 1441 already combined marble and tin-glazed terracotta. Though not the sole inventor of glazed terracotta, Luca perfected it as a material for monumental sculpture, setting white-glazed figures against a uniform blue ground. Between 1446 and 1451 he completed the glazed reliefs of the Resurrection and Ascension for the cathedral and directed the bronze doors of the sacristy (1446–1464); workshop products entered churches and city streets widely.
4. 1454–1482Florence · FlorenceFrom 1454 to 1457 he completed the tomb of Bishop Benozzo Federighi in Santa Trinita, combining marble with glazed-terracotta surface patterns, regarded as one of his most solemn works. Thereafter the workshop continued to supply Madonnas and architectural decoration, and his nephew Andrea inherited the technique. Luca died in Florence on 10 February 1482.