Jacopo Sansovino

Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570), born Jacopo Tatti in Florence, took the name of his master Andrea Sansovino and became the defining architect of Venetian Renaissance classicism. A sculptor in Florence and Rome, where Raphael judged his wax copy of the Laocoön the best, he fled to Venice after the Sack of Rome in 1527.

From 1529, as chief architect to the Procurators of St Mark, he reshaped the area around St Mark's Square, building the Biblioteca Marciana, his masterpiece, the Zecca mint and the Loggetta of the Campanile; in the library he combined classical architecture with Venetian decorative tastes. He died in Venice in 1570.