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| Baccio Bandinelli Self-portrait 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Self-portrait c. 1530-35 engraving British Museum |
Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560) was a successful Renaissance artist who founded academies in Rome and in Florence (as depicted in the two engravings immediately below). Through these, he helped to establish the tradition of drawing "academic" nudes from models or casts as a fundamental aspect of professional training. His own early training came from his father, a Florentine goldsmith who owned drawings by Leonardo and other artistic wonders of the age. Bandinelli revered, imitated, and competed with Michelangelo, but never approached the latter's eminence. In fact, Baccio Bandinelli was widely documented in his own day as an arrogant social climber, more interested in a flashy reputation than solid achievements. Apparently he made the mistake of putting Machiavelli's principles into practice without sufficiently concealing them. All the same, by the standards of any less remarkable time and place, his mind and hand demonstrated enormous fertility and deftness.
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| Baccio Bandinelli Bandinelli Academy, Rome 1531 engraving British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Bandinelli Academy, Florence ca. 1545-50 engraving British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Figure study, after Michelangelo 1530s drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Reclining figure 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Reclining figure 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Reclining figure 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Sheet of studies 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Sheet of studies 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Figures reading 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Two figures ca. 1525 drawing Getty |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Three bound prisoners 1520s drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Figure studies 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Five men 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Recumbent man 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Baccio Bandinelli Draped male figure 1540s drawing British Museum |
I am grateful to the British Museum for making the majority of these images available.