Italian sculptor, born and died at Venice. His first known work is the imposing mausoleum of the doge Andrea Vendramini, now in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo; in this he had the cooperation of Tullio Lombardo, but the finest parts are Leopardi’s. Some of the figures have been taken away, and two in the Berlin museum are considered to be certainly his work. He was exiled on a charge of fraud in 1487, and recalled in 1490 by the senate to finish Verrocchio’s colossal statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni. He worked between 1503 and 1505 on the tomb of Cardinal Zeno at St. Mark’s, which was finished in 1515 by Pietro Lombardo; and in 1505 he designed and cast the bronze sockets for the three flagstaffs in the square of St. Mark’s, the antique character of the decorations suggesting some Greek model.
