sentences:  His art is beautifully crafted and stunningly realistic in its psychological portrayals, and he was sought after by some of the most powerful men of his age.As Andrew Graham-Dixon points out, Mazzoni 'deserves to be ranked alongside any of his better-known contemporaries.The traditions of the highly realised terracotta sculpture [...] played a crucial role in shaping the imagination of pious Italians in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries' His lagging fame, relative to the sculptors of Rome and Florence, in part can be assigned to distance from the artistic centers of Florence, Venice and Rome.