Italian sculptor . His apprenticeship in Baccio Bandinelli's Florentine workshop probably began c. 1555. With his master's death in 1560, he was asked to complete the choir-screen of Florence Cathedral, begun by Bandinelli in 1547; he executed the bas-reliefs on the western side of the screen, completed in 1572 (in situ). Also in 1572, he sculpted a portrait bust of Cosimo I de' Medici, placed over the entrance to the Cathedral Works (Opera del Duomo), and began two column statues of Apostles for the cathedral: St James the Less (1576) and St Philip (1577), all in situ. From his many years of service to the Cathedral Works, Bandini came to be known as Giovanni dell'Opera. He achieved recognition early in his career. In 1563 he became a member of the newly established Accademia del Disegno in Florence and the following year was asked to create the personifications of Architecture and the Tiber for the catafalque of Michelangelo. Cosimo I was so impressed with these figures that he commissioned Bandini to execute the marble personification of Architecture for Michelangelo's tomb (Florence, Santa Croce). The figure was completed by 1568 but was installed only in 1574. From the late 1560s until his departure to Pesaro in 1582, Bandini was the foremost portrait sculptor in Florence, executing some 20 busts of antique subjects (all untraced) as well as ten busts of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. During the 1570s Bandini worked for Francesco I and his circle. The most important work of this period is his first commission in bronze, the statuette of Juno, created for the scrittorio of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio (1572-73; in situ). While Bandini was completing the Juno, he was commissioned to make a marble Hercules and the Hydra by Giovanni Niccolini (1544-1611), a diplomat for Francesco I. The statue (1578) was installed in the garden loggia of the Palazzo Niccolini around 1595 (in situ). In 1582 Bandini was called to Pesaro by Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, where he was appointed the first court sculptor of the duchy. A change in Bandini's style is evident in the marble Pietà (1583-85; Urbino, Cathedral, oratory of the Grotta), generally considered his masterpiece, which was probably influenced by Sebastiano del Piombo's Pietà (c.1513; Viterbo, Museo Civico) after Michelangelo's design, and also by the antique Niobe Group (Florence, Uffizi), especially the son of Niobe, excavated the year Bandini began the work. Bandini continued to work for the Duke of Urbino until 1595, when he was called to Pisa to collaborate on the bronze door of the cathedral. At this time he was also commissioned to execute a monumental statue of Grand Duke Ferdinand I for the Piazza Micheli, Livorno (in situ). //