Luca della Robbia

Florentine Luca della Robbia (1400–82) was the greatest of the famous family of sculptors, the inventor of the coloured tin glaze for terracottas that we associate with the della Robbias.

Luca was also a first-rate relief sculptor. He helped Lorenzo Ghiberti sculpt on the doors of the Baptistry, and under the watchful eye of Filippo Brunelleschi he created his first and most delightful compostion, the Cantoria or singing gallery for the cathedral (today in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, 1431-38), alongside the Cantoria by Donatello, commissioned two years later. Both were actually used as organ pulpits, but dismantled in the 17th century for a Medici wedding