Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli

Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (* 1507 () in Florence; ? † August 31, 1563 ) was an Italian sculptor and architect of the Cinquecento.

After a three-year apprenticeship with Andrea di Piero Ferrucci Montorsoli worked as an assistant in Rome, Perugia and Volterra. Then he went to Florence around 1524 and became a pupil of Michelangelo. He joined the Servite Order in 1530 and put 1531 his vow. Montorsoli worked with Michelangelo on the Sagrestia Nuova ( New Sacristy ) of San Lorenzo, where he sculpted the statue of San Cosma ( 1536-1537 ). He restored the Vatican antique statues, like the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvedere, and built numerous tombs, such as the grave Mafferis Mauro ( 1537 ) in the Cathedral of Volterra and the grave Andrea Doria (1541 ) in the church of San Matteo in Genoa.

From 1543 to 1547 Montorsoli worked for Andrea Doria, the build in Messina a new palace and let embellish. Well in 1547 created Montorsoli for the garden of the palace a Triton Fountain. The city authorities of Messina Montorsoli appointed in the same year to the cathedral architect, and for the next ten years he worked in Messina. His first mission is to build a monumental fountain at the end of the new Camaro - water line on the Cathedral Square was ( Fountain of Orion ), for which even the San Lorenzo church was demolished, the Montorsoli ( destroyed in 1783 ) from 1552 elsewhere newly built. He also worked on the interior of the dome ( statues of the Apostles, 1550-1555 ), built the " Lighthouse " ( Torre della Lanterna, originally called Torre del Garofalo, 1555), and created the Neptune Fountain ( 1557), with which the measurement Inesen Emperor Charles V and his son Philip II honored.