Siloé, Diego de

views updated Jun 11 2018

Siloé, Diego de (c.1490–1563). Spanish Renaissance architect and sculptor of Flemish descent. He travelled in Italy before returning to Burgos in 1519 where he designed a number of works including the symmetrical Escalera Dorada (Golden Staircase) in the Cathedral (1515–23) derived in part from Bramante's work at the Belvedere Court in the Vatican (begun 1505), although much encrusted in a plethora of grotesque ornament, probably influenced by the works of Michelangelo and Raphael. In 1528 he was called to Granada to complete the Church of San Jerónimo, and then to design the Cathedral in the Renaissance style, with its huge domed chancel, which, with ambulatory and chapels, suggests a centralized building (e.g. Santa Costanza, Rome), a martyrium, or a sepulchre, e.g. the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the ensemble cleverly joined to a five-aisled basilica. This brilliant design was to be influential. Other works by Siloé include the arcaded courtyard of the Colegio Fonseca, Salamanca (1529–34), and the plans for San Salvador, Ubeda (1536—built by Andrés de Vandelvira (fl. 1536–60) with a rotunda owing much to the precedent of Siloé's work at Granada Cathedral). He is regarded as a master of the Plateresque style.

Bibliography

Chueca Goitia (1953);
Kubler & and Soria (1959);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Rosenthal (1961);
Jane Turner (1996)

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