MOCHI, Orazio
Italian sculptor. He was long thought to have been the father of Francesco Mochi. This misconception lingers, even in many modern publications, and is doubtless due to the fact that he did indeed have a sculptor son called Francesco Mochi (1603-1649), but - like his brother Stefano Mochi - he was a minor figure, and his work is virtually unknown.
Mochi trained in the early 1590s with the Mannerist sculptor Giovanni Battista Caccini and later in that decade collaborated with him in Pisa on a set of bronze doors for the Porta Regia of the cathedral. Mochi’s contribution included the large bronze panel of the Incarnation of the Virgin (c. 1598-99) and portions of the decorative frieze.
After 1604 he worked in Florence, modelling small decorative sculptures in the grand-ducal workshop, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. His best-known pieces are the exquisite inlaid stone relief of Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici Praying (c. 1610; Palazzo Pitti, Florence) and the small witty bronze of Saccomazzone Players (c. 1621), which the sculptor Romolo Ferrucci (c. 1550-1621) later enlarged to life-size for the Boboli Gardens.
Mochi’s works typically blend hints of Baroque naturalism with a Mannerist precocity that well suited the tastes of his patron. Like many of his contemporaries, he worked in a style that hovered between the late Mannerism of his teacher Caccini and the early Baroque brio of Francesco Mochi.
