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Giovanni Bologna (Giambologna or Fean Boulogne), Flemish-born Italian sculptor. He was the greatest sculptor of the age of Mannerism and for about two centuries after his death his reputation was second only to that of Michelangelo.

In about 1550 he went to Italy to study and spent 2 years in Rome. On the way back he stopped in Florence and was based there for the rest of his life. The work that made his name, however, was for Bologna - the Fountain of Neptune (1563-66), with its impressive nude figure of Neptune which he had designed for a similar fountain in Florence (Ammanati defeated him in the competition). Even before working on the fountain in Bologna, however, Giambologna had begun in Florence the first of a series of celebrated marble groups that in their mastery of complex twisting poses mark one of the high-points of Mannerist art: Samson Slaying a Philistine (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, c. 1561-62); Florence Triumphant over Pisa (Bargello, Florence, completed 1575); The Rape of a Sabine (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. 1581-82); Hercules and the Centaur (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, 1594-1600).

I was thrilled to see such great and historic works of art.