This will be my last post until 2023, and so I take the opportunity to wish all visitors to this blog a happy and peaceful Christmas.

And I leave you with this discovery I made today – another image of Fioretta Gorini the mother of Pope Clement VII and mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici.

On the left is Fioretta as painted by Leonardo da Vinci; on the right, Fioretta as painted by Giorgio Vasari and modelled on Leonardo’s version.

More to be revealed in the New Year!