GORO DI SER NEROCCIO DI GORO - b. 1386 Siena, d. ~1444 Siena

Italian goldsmith and sculptor. Son of a notary, Goro was a successful goldsmith in Siena in the first half of the fifteenth century. He produced goblets, crosses and reliquaries still strongly connected with the style of the fourteenth-century goldsmiths. The highest moment of his career coincided with the construction of the baptismal font of Siena, for which he cast in bronze, between 1428 and 1431, a Fortitude of the style of Donatello.

The first mention of his goldsmith’s work dates back to 1414, when he received the commission of two silver trumpets for the Signoria. In 1427, at the baptism of his son Francesco, Jacopo della Quercia presides as godfather. In 1428 Goro obtained the commission, with Vanni di Francesco, of twelve silver basins for the Consistory. The same year, the Opera del Duomo entrusted him with the execution of the statue of the Fortitude, in gilded bronze, for the font of the Baptistry; Goro delivered the figure in August 1431.

He is last mentioned in 1442 when his son Neroccio collected a payment on behalf of his father, by 1444 he was probably dead. His sons Neroccio, Francesco, Giovanni and Gabriello, and the nephew Goro, son of Giovanni, were also goldsmiths.

Fortitude

The baptismal font in the Baptistery of Siena was designed by Jacopo della Quercia. It is the result of a cooperation of the best contemporary sculptors. The polygonal basin is Gothic from which a high Renaissance construction emerges. On the top there is the statue of St John made by Quercia. The bronze reliefs and the statues in the niches are the works of Quercia, Donatello, Ghiberti and Goro.