Italian sculptor, son of Leone Leoni. He has long been overshadowed by his father, although he was an accomplished sculptor who produced an impressive body of work. This is partly due to their close working relationship, which continued until Leone's death. Pompeo was trained by Leone, assisted him with the commissions from Charles V and Mary, Queen of Hungary, and accompanied these works to Spain in 1556 on the retirement of Charles V. Soon after his arrival in Spain, Pompeo entered the service of the regent, Joanna of Austria. He produced several medalsGLOSSARYThe medal came to artistic maturity within a remarkably short time of its introduction in 15th century Italy. This was partly because ancient Roman coins, which were beginning to be reverently collected, suggested (on a smaller scale) its form: profile portrait bust on the obverse, a different design on the reverse, an inscription running round the rim. Like the finest Imperial coins, the medal's purpose was commemorative. Without monetary value, and of non-precious metal (bronze or lead), it was a way of circulating a likeness to a chosen few; it anticipated the use of miniatures and was indeed frequently worn round the neck. And while the reverse could record a historical event or make a propaganda point related to its subject's career, more commonly it bore a design that purported to convey the 'essence', as it were, of the person portrayed on the other side. Given the admiration for the men and artefacts of ancient Rome, the stress on individual character, the desire for fame and the penchant for summing up temperament in symbols and images, it is easy to understand how quickly the fashion for commissioning medals spread. Its pioneer executant was Pisanello. The precedents before he began to cast medals in 1438-39 had been few and excessively coin-like. Within 10 years he had established the form the medal was to retain until the influence was registered of the reverseless, hollow-cast and wafer-thin medals of the 1560s and 70s made by Bombarda (Andrea Cambi). Pisanello's approach was first echoed by the Veronese Matteo de' Pasti (d. 1467-688). It was, perhaps oddly, not until the works from 1485 of Niccolò Fiorentino (Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, 1430-1514) that Florence produced a medallist of the highest calibre. Other specialists in the medium included Sperandio (Sperandio Savelli, c. 1425-1504), L'Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, c. 1460-1528), Caradosso (Cristoforo Caradosso Foppa, 1452-1526/27). The work of these men, and of the many, often anonymous, who reflected them, is still coveted because it avoided the two medallistic errors: making a medal look like either an enlarged piece of money or a small sculptured plaque. in 1557, but in 1558 work came to a halt when he was sentenced by the InquisitionGLOSSARYMedieval ecclesiastical institution for hunting down heretics and criminals; from 1231 papal Inquisitors (mainly Dominicans and Franciscans) were appointed. Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) and the collection of decrees published in 1234 made the Inquisition a papal institution ("Sanctum Officium"), and it was later extended to include other offenses such as magic, witchcraft and fortune-telling. to a year's confinement in a monasteryGLOSSARYthe complex of buildings used by a community of monks. Among the main elements of the complex are the church, cloister, chapter house (used by the governing body), refectory (dining room) and dormitory (sleeping quarters). because of his unorthodox opinions. In 1564 he helped to complete his father's bronzes, and in 1570 he designed a series of colossal, fictive bronzeGLOSSARYAn alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina. statues for the triumphal arches erected to celebrate the entry into Madrid of Anne of Austria, Philip II's new wife.
During the 1570s Pompeo received important commissions for marbleGLOSSARYloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. sepulchral effigies: the kneeling figure of Joanna of Austria (1574) for her tomb in the convent of Las Descalzas Reales, Madrid; the sensitive and naturalistic portraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). of the Inquisitor General, Cardinal Diego de Espinosa (1577), in the church of Martín Muñoz de las Posadas, Segovia; and the elaborate Italianate tomb of Fernando de Valdés (1576) at the collegiate church, Salas.
However, all private work stopped in 1579 with the commission from Philip II for 15 bronze statues for the colossal retable of the Capilla Mayor at the Escorial, near Madrid. Pompeo travelled to Milan in 1582 to collaborate on the project with his father. He returned in 1589 and installed the statues in 1591.
Pompeo's last great project was the commission from Philip II for the kneeling effigies of himself, Charles V and eight other members of the Habsburg family that now flank the high altar of the Capilla Mayor. These over life-size, gilt-bronze figures of extraordinary quality and detail kneel in perpetual veneration towards the Sacrament TabernacleGLOSSARYa small canopied recess or container in which the Eucharist or a holy relic is kept. on the altar, pious expressions of Habsburg eucharistic devotion and dynastic supremacyGLOSSARYHistorically, the supremacy of the English king over the English Church, i.e. the king not the Pope is acknowledged as the supreme head of the Church of England. Established legally by the Act of Supremacy in 1534..
Like his father, Pompeo was a goldsmith, a medalist, and also an avid art collector. He assembled an impressive number of works, including notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci (the Atlantic Codex, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; Ambrosiana; another at Royal Library, Windsor Castle).
