Resumen de Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano and Antonio de Sangallo and Baccio da Montelupo: workshop-specific construction techniques of Florentine Renaissance crucifixes
A significant number of Florentine wooden crucifixes still survive from the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century. Among the Florentine workshop of that period, those of Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano and Antonio da Sangallo, and Baccio da Montelupo are considered to have been the most productive, making wooden crucifixes in different sizes. While life-size wooden sculptures were traditionally carved from entire tree trunks and were frequently hollowed out to prevent cracking, different construction techniques were introduced in these workshops. Over the last few years about a dozen crucifixes by, or attributes to, the workshops of Maiano, the Sangallo family and Baccio da Montelupo have been examined at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure as part of a collaboration between the polychrome wooden sculpture department and department for physical analysis, in order to understand their construction techniques. X-radiographs were made of all of the sculptures, mostly with the crucifixes "in situ", and the results show that without this type of imaging it would not be possible to understand the method of construction fully. It is now possible to distinguish several different techniques that were typically used in the different artists' workshops. While Benedetto da Maiano held onto traditional techniques adapted to the needs of sculpture in the round, using thoroughly hollowed out trunks of presumably fresh wood, the Sangallo and the Baccio da Montelupo workshops used an innovative technique, replacing these trunks by a block composed of individual sections of dry (aged) wood in sizes that were readly available. Baccio da Montelupo also combined the joined block technique with hollowing out. Although this was not necessary, the joined block technique made it extremely easy to hollow out the figures by taking the main components (sections) apart.
