# ROSSI, Giovanni Antonio de' [View the canonical artist record]() ## Artist - Lifespan: 1517–? - Profession: sculptor - School: Italian ## Biography Italian medallist and gem-engraver. Beginning his career in Milan, he moved to Venice in the early 1540s and to Rome in 1546, to work for the papal mint. On stylistic grounds a medal of Pope Julius III \(1550-55\) is attributed to de Rossi, but his first signed medal is of Pope Marcellus II \(1555\). From 1557 to 1560 de Rossi resided in Florence, and in 1557 he accepted a commission to carve a large cameo showing Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his Family \(Florence, Palazzo Pitti\), from a preliminary drawing \(Oxford, Christ Church\) attributed to Vasari; the cameo admirably displays de Rossi's technical brilliance. In 1560 he returned to Rome, and in 1561 he became warden of the papal mint, a position he retained until his death. In this post he produced not only papal medals but a medal of St Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan. ## Related artworks - [Cosimo I de' Medici and his Family]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()