Cosimo de Medici

Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano), Italian, Monticelli 1503–1572, Florence Laura Battiferri, ca. 1560.
The Met’s Medici Portraits Examine Renaissance Culture & Politics
When we think of visages that defined Renaissance art between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we're drawn to depictions of mythological and biblical figures and unnamed dames. Yet these…
rendered with dark metal, this sculpture shows Morgante in the heroic nude, expertly riding a dragon as if directly out of a mythological tale.Giambologna, The Dwarf Morgante Riding on a Dragon, 18th Century. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. r
Morgante: Depictions of a Renaissance Jester Turned Duke
Bartolo—known better as Morgante—was the sharp and quick-witted “buffoon” of Cosimo I’s court (1537 to 1569). In 1555, Cosimo I granted Morgante a ducal privilege in which he is defined as “our most…