Skip to Main Content

Members' Research Report Archive

Andrea Sansovino and the Question of Modernism in Sixteenth-Century Italian Art

Lara Langer, Research Associate, 2016–2017

langer-2016-2017

Andrea Sansovino, Effigy of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, 1505 – 1507, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Author photograph

My research centers on the art of the Tuscan sculptor Andrea Sansovino, mainly his twin tombs for cardinals Asciano Sforza and Girolamo Basso della Rovere in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. Expanding on my dissertation, I explore Sansovino’s critical role as a developer of modernity in sculpture in the early sixteenth century. On the notion of modernity, I recently completed an article on Sansovino, Michelangelo, and the question of the maniera moderna in funerary design. I presented a paper on the two cardinals’ effigies at the 2017 Renaissance Society of America conference and organized and cochaired two panels addressing the effigy in early modern Italian funerary art.

Raphael, Sculpture, and the Chigi Pyramid Tombs
Lara Langer
, Research Associate, 2017–2018