The Arno

The precise ornamental function of much Mannerist sculpture explains, above all in the cultivated and sophisticated milieu of Medici Florence, the vaguely archaeological flavour and the slender, skin-deep classicism of Ammannati's sculpture, especially in statuary intended for public places. Erudite pedantry, no longer justified by humanist enthusiasm, leads him to design his river on the pattern of the Roman deities, posing it with deliberate simplicity, without seeking the multiple viewpoints that within a few decades would become the most stimulating goal of the new artists, for whom the Renaissance heritage and the lesson of Michelangelo would take on a historically well-defined value: and hence with a far wider margin for an unprejudiced interpretation, one that would take greater account of other cultural experiences.