(b Colonnata, Carrara, c. 1509; d Padua, 1572). Italian sculptor. His family lived in the mountains of Carrara and was connected with the marble trade. Vasari placed him among the pupils of Sansovino before the Sack of Rome in 1527, and when his master moved to Venice, Cattaneo followed. His earliest surviving independent work is a statuette of St Jerome, made in competition with a St Lawrence (both Venice, S Salvatore) by Giacomo Fantoni in 1530. It is an accomplished semi-nude figure in the style of Sansovino, a style that Cattaneo sustained throughout his career. During the 1530s Cattaneo was briefly involved in the stucco ceiling decoration of the chapel of St Anthony in the Santo in Padua, and he also collaborated with Fantoni on Serlio’s high altar for the church of the Madonna di Galliera in Bologna. Vasari (v, p. 91) credited him with a relief portrait of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, but this has not survived. Probably his first major surviving commission was for the marble statue of a Sun God (Venice, Pal. Pesaro, courtyard) for the Venetian mint, which Sansovino was rebuilding between 1537 and the mid-1540s. The statue probably dates from the later stages of this work. According to Vasari, it was one of three statues proposed by Cattaneo: a second, representing the Moon, would symbolize silver, while a third, unspecified, work would stand for copper. Only one statue was made, but the account illustrates Cattaneo’s literary approach to his art, stimulated by his parallel interest in poetry. The Sun God is unconventional in its imagery, depicting a youthful male nude seated on a globe supported by mounds of gold. The figure’s morphology recalls the work of Sansovino and Bartolomeo Ammanati, whose monument to Marco Mantova Benavides (finished 1546; Padua, Eremitani) evidently impressed Cattaneo.

• Cattaneo, Danese
  • Campagna, Girolamo, §3: Works after c 1600
  • Venice, §II, 3(ii): Art life and organization, 1454–1599: Sculpture
  • attributions
    • Grimani: (5) Vettor Grimani
  • collaboration
    • Fantoni, Giacomo
    • Lombardo, §II: (5) Girolamo Lombardo
    • Minio, Tiziano
    • Salò, da
  • groups and movements
    • Italy, §IV, 3(iii)(c):Mannerist sculpture, c 1530–c 1600: Venice
  • patrons and collectors
    • Campagna, Girolamo, §1: Training and early work, to c 1580
    • Terracotta, §II, 2(i)(a): History and uses in the Western world: Sculpture
  • teachers
    • Sansovino: (1) Jacopo Sansovino, §1(iii)(b): Venice, after 1527: Sculpture
  • works
    • Bust, §III: Renaissance and Baroque
    • Tomb, §VI, 2(ii): Western world, before c 1600: Wall tombs
    • Venice, §IV, 7(ii): Libreria Marciana: Decoration