Biography
Jacopo della Quercia takes his name from Quercia Grossa (now Quercegrossa), a place near Siena, where he was born in 1374. He received his early training from his father, Piero d'Angelo, a woodcarver and goldsmith. Jacopo della Quercia, a Sienese, must have seen the works of Nicola Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio on the pulpit in the cathedral of Siena and this must have influenced him. His first work may have been at the age of sixteen, an equestrian wooden statue for the funeral of Azzo Ubaldini. He left with his father to Lucca, owing to party strife and disturbances.
In Pisa, della Quercia likely studied the huge collection of Roman sculptures and sarcophagi in the Camposanto. These and later influences made him a transitional figure in the history of European art; his work shows a pronounced midcareer shift from the Gothic style to that of the Italian Renaissance. As in the case of Ghiberti, this development probably results from exposure to his contemporary, Donatello.
Della Quercia's earliest work (though this attribution is sometimes contested) appears in the Lucca cathedral: Man of Sorrows (Altar of the Sacrament) and a relief on the tomb of St. Aniello. In 1401 he entered a competition to design the bronze doors for Florence's Baptistery, but lost to Ghiberti. The unsuccessful entry's whereabouts are unknown.
In 1403 he sculpted the marble Virgin and Child for the Ferrara cathedral. Another (possible) work from his period in Ferrara is the statuette of St. Maurelius (both on in display in the Museo del Duomo).
Back again in Lucca in 1406, he received the commission from the city's ruler, Paolo Guinigi, to begin work at the tomb of his second wife Ilaria del Carretto in the Lucca cathedral. The richly dressed woman rests on top of the sarcophagus, delicately portrayed in a Gothic fashion, with her dog, symbol of conjugate fidelity, at her feet. But his use of several nude putti at the flanks of the tomb clearly shows the classical influence of the Roman sarcophagi at Camposanto (Pisa). This is a first, a harbinger of the incipient Renaissance.
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