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Tasso, Giovanni Battista del
woodworker (intarsiatore) and architect; b. 1500; d. May 8, 1555.
Battista belonged to a famous family of wood carvers which flourished during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy. He was a protégé of Pier-Francesco Riccio, majordomo of Duke Cosmo I dei' Medici, and was much employed in the improvement of the Palazzo Vecchio. There is a ceiling by him in the second story of the palazzo on the side toward the Uffizi. The curious door which he built for the church of S. Romolo is preserved by Ruggieri. His most important work is the loggia of the Mercato Nuovo of Florence, which was begun by the order of Duke Cosmo I, Aug. 26, 1547.
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