But the sensibility to loveliness so delicate, and the power to render it in marble with so ethereal a touch upon the rigid stone, belong to the sculptor, and win for him our worship.
The list of fifteenth-century sculptors is almost ended; and already, on the threshold of the sixteenth, stands the mighty form of Michael Angelo.
Andrea Contucci da Sansavino and his pupil Jacopo Tatti, called also Sansovino, after his master, must, however, next be mentioned as continuing the Florentine tradition without subservience to the style of Buonarroti.

Andrea da Sansavino was a sculptor in whom for the first time the faults of the mid-Renaissance period are glaringly apparent.

He persistently sacrificed simplicity of composition to decorative ostentation, and tranquillity of feeling to theatrical effect.

The truth of this will be acknowledged by all who have studied the tombs of the cardinals in S.Maria del Popolo already mentioned,[115] and the bas-reliefs upon the Santa Casa at Loreto.

In technical workmanship Andrea proved himself an able craftsman, modelling marble with the plasticity of wax, and lavishing patterns of the most refined invention.