Alonso González de Berruguete was a Castilian sculptor and painter whose father was Pedro Berruguete. Between approximately 1508 and 1516 he worked in Rome and in Florence beside Michelangelo, who influenced in Berruguete’s artistic education. A group of artworks that belong to a very precocious Mannerism have been attributed to him during that time.
When Alonso Berruguete went back in 1517 he worked as a painter in the Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor’s Court. He realized different sculptures and paintings but he did not get to be in favour of the Emperor and after 1526 he was once and for all removed from the Court. From then on, he mainly did sculptures in Valladolid.
The Alonso Berruguete’s first Altarpieces, which are the one in the Monasterio de la Mejorada (Olmedo, 1523) and the one in the Monasterio de San Benito (Valladolid) made some time later, confirmed him as the most important sculptor of that century in Spain. His artistic personality fits perfectly the aesthetic coordinates of Mannerism. Within these coordinates he shows his passionate temperament and his tendency to the theatrical formal solutions and to the exasperated movements.
His production often weakened because of hasty bills and because of the collaboration of the assistants of the studio, who sometimes were the responsible for the whole execution. Among his more important artworks we can include the Altarpiece at the Irish College (Salamanca, 1529), the Epiphany in the Santiago Church (Valladolid, 1537), half of the relieves from the choir and the Transfiguration Group made of alabaster placed at the archbishop’s throne of the Toledo Cathedral (1539), the Altarpiece of The Visitation in the Santa Ursula Church and the marble tomb at the cathedral of the Tavera Hospital in Toledo.
