In 1558, an enormous block of marble intended for the central statue of a new public fountain arrived in Florence. Duke Cosimo de’ Medici had a sculptor in mind for the project, but other artists persuaded him that they should compete for the commission. This ‘competition’ transformed Florence into a city-wide demonstration of modeling skills as these rival sculptors, old and young, constructed full-sized plaster models in workshops and porticoes throughout the city. The agency of this group of artists distinguishes this tournament from the guild competitions of the previous century, even as the sculptors of Renaissance Florence would never again directly compete for a major commission.

Anne E. Proctor serves as Associate Dean for the School of Humanities, Arts, and Education and serves on the RWU Education Advisory Board. She holds an M.Ed. in Arts in Education from Harvard University (2001), an M.A. in Art History from Syracuse University (2007), and a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin (2013, dissertation: “Vincenzo Danti at the Medici Court: Constructing Professional Identity in Late Renaissance Florence”). Proctor’s research focuses on sculpture, collaborative commissions, court spaces, and the professional status of artists in late Renaissance Italy. Her scholarship addresses what it meant to be a local artist and a court artist during the sixteenth century, an era when many sculptors traveled between courts within Italy and across Europe and moved within dynamic professional networks. Recent work includes papers on the foundation of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence and the role of the architect, painter, and author Giorgio Vasari at the court of duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. She is currently working on a book project that examines the careers of sculptors who served the Medici court in Florence in the third quarter of the sixteenth century.