Ammanati, Bartolomeo

Ammanati, Bartolomeo (bärtōlōmĕ`ō äm-mänä`tē), 1511–92, Italian sculptor and architect. He studied under Bandinelli in Florence and assisted Jacopo Sansovino in his work on the Library of St. Mark's, Venice. Ammanati, whose style was greatly influenced by Michelangelo's Medici tombs, made a colossal statue of Hercules, at Padua. In Rome he collaborated with Vignola and Vasari in their work at the villa of Pope Julius III. His best work here was in the Ruspoli Palace and in the court of the Collegio Romano. Returning to Florence in 1557, he became architect to Cosimo de' Medici. He made the Santa Trinita bridge over the Arno and a number of fountains, among them the Neptune fountain for the Piazza della Signoria. He built the court facade of Pitti Palace, the Guigni Palace, and a cloister of Santo Spirito. Pious in his old age, he wrote a recantation of his secular work and destroyed some of it. The poet Laura Battiferri was his wife.