Jacopo Ligozzi

Bio

Jacopo Ligozzi moved to Florence from Verona in 1577 to be appointed as court painter to Francesco I de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was to receive a lavish retainer on a par with Giambologna, the most famous sculptor of the time. Little is known about his early life. He belonged to a family of artists and draughtsmen patronised by the Habsburg Imperial Family, who also executed commissions for the prince-bishop of Trento. Jacopo became a specialist painter of plants and animals, which he managed to reproduce in so vivid a fashion they seemed quite almost life like. During his first ten years in Florence his time was principally devoted to this activity, but also included some of the interior decorations of the Tribuna degli Uffizi for which he also supplied in 1587 small groups of paintings. These included the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Female Strangler still in the Florentine Public collections.