Antonio Lombardo was born into the Lombardo (or, Lombardi) family in Venice about 1458. The Lombardo family consisted of Italian artists and some were considered the leading venetian sculptors of their period. Antonio was the son of Pietro, and brother to Tullio. Pietro settled in Venice about 1467, arriving from Lombardy. He was an architect as well as a sculptor and his work in the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (1481-89) often is called the choicest jewel of Renaissance work in Venice.

It was under his father's thumb that Antonio received his education, and he and his brother worked on that church with their father. The Lombardo family often worked together to sculpt church and cemetery decorations and tombs. While Pietro worked in marble, Antonio often worked in bronze, and his output included secular and mythological pieces as well as the sacred objects the family was called upon for commission.

According to the National Gallery of Art:

Tullio and his younger brother Antonio worked with their father Pietro Lombardo in the family firm, a leading force in architecture and sculpture in Renaissance Venice. Their prestigious commissions included tombs for doges, the ceremonial heads of the Venetian state. Tullio apparently designed one of the greatest such monuments, begun about 1489, for Doge Andrea Vendramin. Its triumphal arch is adorned with relief sculpture and statues including warriors in Roman armor. Their faces convey a mood of romantic melancholy that became essential to Tullio’s antiquarian style.

While Antonio spent his life's work on his sculpture, his father is the one that is most well known. However, Antonio's mythological figures on the reliefs for Elfonso d'Este have been celebrated over the centuries.

Antonio died in Ferrara, where he worked as a marble master for Duke Alfonso I.

Image: c.1516 Antonio Lombardo - Venus Anadyomène