Civitale, Matteo (b Lucca, 5 June 1436; d Lucca, 12 Oct 1501)

Italian sculptor, painter, architect and engineer. He is generally considered the most important Tuscan marble sculptor working outside Florence during the second half of the 15th century; he is also documented as a painter, although no works have been attributed to him. Civitali’s training and early years are undocumented, but it is likely that he worked in Antonio Rossellino’s Florentine workshop during the 1460s. He is first mentioned in 1468, when he appraised Rossellino’s tomb of Filippo Lazzari in Pistoia Cathedral. Stylistically Civitali’s sculpture is related to the work of Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, the Rossellino brothers, Mino da Fiesole and Benedetto da Maiano. Civitali’s amalgam of sources is quite complex, yet his sculptures maintain an equilibrium more common to works of the early 15th century. He possessed a certain originality as a designer, and his sculpture demonstrates that he was a technician of considerable accomplishment.