Della Valle was born in
Florence. Initially apprenticed with
Giovanni Battista Foggini in
Florence alongside
Giovanni Battista Maini, he, and later Maini, moved to Rome to work with
Camillo Rusconi. In 1725, della Valle won a contest of the
Academy of St Luke together with
Pietro Bracci, and was later to become the director or
Principe of that group. In Rome, he worked with Bracci on
Nicola Salvi's
Trevi Fountain, where he completed the allegorical statues of
Health and
Abundance. Della Valle masterpiece is his
Annunciation relief (1750) for the church of
Sant'Ignazio in Rome, a much more restrained and flatter relief than that of
Bernardino Cametti's elaborate 1729 treatment of the same theme now at the
Basilica of Superga. This reflected a
Neoclassical influence beginning to affect Late Baroque Roman sculpture, moving away from the theatrical to a more sober elocution of the subject. Another contrast can be found in
Pierre Legros the Younger's handling of the relief depicting
St Aloysious Gonzaga in Glory (1698), which stands across from Della Valle's Annunciation in Sant'Ignazio. In 1750, he completed a funerary monument to
Manuel Pereira de Sampaio, Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See, in the Church of
Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi. He also completed the statue of
Temperance (1734) in the Corsini Chapel at
San Giovanni in Laterano. The statue recalls
Francois Duquesnoy's pioneering early baroque, yet soberly classic,
Santa Susanna. In this chapel, della Valle, working with Maini, shows the influence of the Florentine
Massimiliano Soldani Benzi. In style, della Valle was allied to the rising group of French sculptors in Rome including
Michelangelo Slodtz. He also completed the monument for
Innocent XII (1746) and a
Santa Teresa of Avila (1754) for
St Peter's Basilica. He died in Rome and was buried at Santa Susanna. == Works ==