Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481)

Italian sculptor. He is best known for his marble low reliefs. Among his most important works are sculptures for the facade of the oratory of San Bernardino in Perugia, central Italy.

Agostino was born in Florence. His training is unknown, though his first dated work, four reliefs for Modena Cathedral (1442), suggest he may have studied in Padua. His style, incisive and calligraphic, may also have been inspired by the reliefs of Donatello.

In 1449 and 1454 Agostino appears in documents at Rimini, where he carved marble panels in the interior of the Tempio Malatestiano. His sculptures for the facade of the oratory of San Bernardino in Perugia, carved in 1457-62, are the reliefs Christ in Majesty, The Annunciation, and The Saints in Glory.

After an unsuccessful year in Bologna, Agostino returned to Florence in 1463, joined the guild of sculptors, and received (abortive) commissions for colossal statues on the cathedral (one of which was eventually carved by Michelangelo into his David). After carving several Madonna reliefs, one for the Medici (now in the Louvre, Paris), he returned to Perugia, where his talents were more full appreciated, and it was there that he died.