Giovanni Rubino, also known as “Dentone” (“Big Teeth”), is first documented in Padua on 29 January 1513, when he entered workshop of Giovanni d’Antonio Minello. He spent all his active life in this city, distinguishing himself for a classicist style at forefront of contemporary artistic production.
He is remembered for two important works: the Victorieshe sculpted over the central arch of the Loggia (covered exterior gallery) designed by Giovanni Maria Falconetto (1468-1535) for the architectural theorist and humanist Alvise Cornaro (1484-1566), and the Miracle of the Jealous Husband, a relief in the chapel of St. Antony in the saint’s Basilica, which was later completed by Silvio Corsini. In the relief, Rubino created a dynamic and dramatic composition, probably inspired by Titian’s fresco of the same subject in the assembly hall of the Confraternity of St. Anthony, on the Basilica’s square. Such animated style was very different from that of Tullio Lombardo, the leading North-Italian classicist sculptor who also sculpted reliefs for St Anthony’s chapel in the Basilica.
Apart from these two commissions, Rubino’s career is not very well documented. He presumably died between May 1529 and February 1530.
Reference:
Thomas Martin. “Rubino, Giovanni.” Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T074362.
Loggia Cornaro, Padua, designed by Giovanni Maria Falconetto in 1524.
Chapel of St Anthony, St Anthony’s Basilica, Padua.
Giovanni Rubino and Silvio Corsini, Miracle of the Jealous Husband, 1524-1535, Chapel of St Anthony, St Anthony’s Basilica, Padua.
Titian, Miracle of the Jealous Husband, 1511, Scuola di Sant’ Antonio, Padua.