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(3) Giovanni da Maiano II [John de la Mayn; Delamayne; Demayanns; Demyans; Dermyans; Mane]
(b Florence, 1486–7; d c. 1542–3). Sculptor, son of (2) Benedetto da Maiano. It has erroneously been thought by some that he was the son of Giovanni da Maiano I. In 1507 he received a third of the inheritance his father had left him. On 4 August 1509 he rented, as a sculpture workshop, Benedetto da Maiano’s (and subsequently Rustici’s) old bottega on Via Castellacio in Florence. This was intended to continue for three years; however, on 8 January 1510 he withdrew without reason. He may at this point have accompanied Pietro Torrigiani northward. Alternatively, he may have been recruited by Torrigiani in 1519, together with the sculptor Benedetto da Rovezzano, when Torrigiani contracted with other Florentine sculptors, including Antonio Toto del Nunziata (Darr, 1980), to travel to England with him to assist on the altar of King Henry VII (frags, London, Westminster Abbey, Henry VII’s Chapel) and the projected monumental tomb of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the latter commissioned to Torrigiani in January 1519 but never completed. Giovanni was certainly in England by 18 June 1521, when he wrote a letter to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey requesting payment for eight life-size painted and gilded terracotta roundels of Roman Caesars that he had made for the Cardinal for the exterior of Hampton Court near London (in situ; see Higgins). These are among the first evidence of Italian Renaissance style directly incorporated in English architecture. Additional busts of Caesars in roundels made of the same London yellow clay and red brick, and by the same hand, survive at The Vyne, Hants, in Hanworth and elsewhere. Presumably they originally formed a series (possibly of twelve Caesars) that decorated three of the Hampton Court gateways (made 1530–32). In the same letter Giovanni demanded payment from Wolsey for three Histories (i.e. Labours) of Hercules (untraced) that were probably also of painted and gilded terracotta. Also installed in a gateway of Hampton Court is a large terracotta relief bearing Wolsey’s coat of arms, flanked by two standing putti, formerly bearing Wolsey’s monogram and dated 1525, which may be by Giovanni or, more likely, initiated by Torrigiani and completed by Giovanni, possibly in conjunction with Benedetto da Rovezzano.
Part of the Maiano, da family
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