Corbinelli Altar

The outstanding achievement of Sansovino's early period is the Corbinelli Altar, a commission he received soon after the chapel was granted to the family in 1485.

From the beginning relief played a greater part in the work of Andrea Sansovino than in that of any other sculptor of his time. The Corbinelli altar was planned primarily in relief; it included a lunette relief of the Coronation of the Virgin, two tondi of the Annunciation, a relief predella and an antependium relief with the Lamentation over the Dead Christ.

The triumphal arch motif of the altar is closely related to that in Benedetto da Maiano's contemporary Annunciation altar (Sant'Anna dei Lombardi, Naples) but with much bolder reference to the Arch of Constantine in Rome. In the Corbinelli Altar, Sansovino demonstrated his great versatility as a sculptor, employing a variety of styles and figure types in the carving of the reliefs and sculpture in the round. This work established him as the successor to the 15th-century masters Donatello and Desiderio da Settignano.