The Italian artist Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570) executed sculpture and architecture in Venice whose quality and extent create much of the effect of the city today.

Trained in Florence and active in Rome and Florence in the crucial early decades of the 16th century, Jacopo Sansovino became the man of destiny for Venetian architecture and trained so many young sculptors that Giorgio Vasari credited him with virtually running an academy. In his 40 years of service as principal architect to the city of Venice, Sansovino profited by his early Florentine training in his skillful use of sculpture to enrich and animate buildings distinguished by a breadth, grandeur, and structural harmony surely based on his close study and understanding of ancient and current Roman architecture.

Jacopo Tatti was born in Florence, the son of Antonio Tatti. In 1502 Jacopo entered the workshop of the sculptor and architect Andrea Sansovino and adopted his...