(b Settignano, 1534; d Pisa, 2–6 Sept 1583). Sculptor, nephew of (1) Battista Lorenzi. He was first apprenticed as a carver in his father’s workshop and then trained as a painter with Michele Tosini in Florence. By 1550, however, he was apprenticed to the sculptor Niccolò Tribolo. Stoldo’s first patron was Luca Martini (d 1561), a poet and writer, who was the administrator of Pisa under Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Martini housed Stoldo in Pisa c. 1555–62, during which time the sculptor also received commissions from S Maria della Spina for an Annunciation group and from Cosimo I for a marble stemma flanked by personifications of Religion and Justice for the palazzo of the Cavalieri di S Stefano. His most notable work for Martini is a marble relief of Cosimo I Receiving Tribute from the Towns of Tuscany (c. 1555; Holkham Hall, Norfolk). Once thought to be by Michelangelo, the relief was commissioned as a pendant to Pierino da Vinci’s Pisa restaurata (Rome, Pin. Vaticana; for illustration see PIERINO DA VINCI), which Stoldo completed after Pierino’s death. In 1565, he worked on the decorations for the wedding of Francesco I de’ Medici and Joanna of Austria, which gained him a series of important commissions in Florence, including the statue of Abraham (1565) for the chapel of S Luca in SS Annunziata, the bronze Neptune (1565–8; Florence, Boboli Gdns) for Cosimo I, and the bronze Amphitrite (or Galatea, 1573; Florence, Pal. Vecchio) for the studiolo of Francesco, commissioned by the Accademia del Disegno, of which Stoldo was now a member. In the autumn of 1573 he went to Milan to work on sculpture for S Maria presso S Celso, including statues of the Annunciation and reliefs of the Flight into Egypt and the Adoration of the Magi on the façade. Apparently due to differences with Annibale Fontana, with whom he shared the commission, Stoldo returned to Tuscany in 1582. At the time of his death he was working for Pisa Cathedral.

Part of the Lorenzi family

• Lorenzi, Stoldo (di Gino)
  • Pisa, §II: Art life
  • collaboration
    • Cellini, Benvenuto, §II: Working methods and technique
    • Fontana, Annibale, §2: 1570 and after
  • patrons and collectors
    • Coke: (2) Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester
  • works
    • Florence, §IV, 9(iii): Palazzo Pitti: Boboli Gardens
    • Italy, §IV, 3(iii)(a): Mannerist sculpture, c 1530–c 1600: Florence