Galeazzo Maria Forza, Duke of Milan, by Piero Pollaiuolo c1471, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
This portrait is of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the fifth Duke of Milan. It was painted c1471 by Piero Pollaiuolo (also known as Piero Benci) and one which Giorgio Vasari sourced as a reference for the duke’s profile featured in his marriage picture of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici (see previous post).
Vasari also utilised the portrait to connect with the figure of Giuliano de’ Medici depicted in Botticelli’s Primavera painting, and incorporated some of the Florentine’s features to create the dwarf figure standing beside the groom in the marriage scene.
Vasari colour-matched the Galeazzo portrait to the dwarf’s clothes, red and green, and both men hold leather gloves in their right hand.
Vasari’s dwarf wears boots and stands with a hand on hip, as does Botticelli’s figure of Giuliano. Both men look up, Giuliano at the cloud formation, the dwarf at the wool collar worn by the bridegroom intended to imitate the passing cloud, but also shaped to represent a sheep’s head and its horn.
This was intended to echo a reference Botticelli made to John the Baptist in the Primavera painting. Vasari instead selected a biblical verse in which the Baptist points out Jesus as he ‘passed’ by at the river Jordan and says, “Look, there is the Lamb of God” (John 1 : 36).
The raising of the Eucharist (the Lamb of God) during Mass was the signal for the assassins to attack Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici in Florence’s Duomo where Giuliano died from his wounds.
The passing cloud in Primavera is a reference to the Passover but in Vasari’s painting he translates this as a passing from one side to another, a crossover – for example, the figure of Galeazzo transitioning from the men’s section to the women’s.
There are other examples of change-over in Vasari’s painting and more narratives connected to the dwarf which I shall explain at another time.
Note also Galeazzo’s pointed forefinger (and his gloves), and its match to Giuliano’s pointed forefinger. Vasari links this feature by shaping the dwarf’s gloves to represent a serpent’s head to connect with the serpent features on the caduceus raised by Giuliano in the Primavera painting.
One of Leonardo da Vinci’s most renowned paintings, Saint John the Baptist, is about to make an international trip from its home at the Musée du Louvre in Paris to the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Saint John the Baptist, Leonardo da Vinci, Louvre, Paris
The 16th-century painting will be loaned to the Abu Dhabi museum for a period of two years to celebrate the institution’s fifth anniversary. Details at this link.
Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
In my previous post I pointed out connections to the figure of Mars and his “harpe” with St Martin of Tours and the sword he used to cut his cloak in half to cover a half-naked beggar.
However, a sculpture of this scene displayed above eye level on the facade of Lucca Cathedral, and which inspired Botticelli to reference it in the Primavera painting, gives the impression that Martin is about to decapitate the beggar.
Botticelli adopts this illusion to link the figure and his sword to the Three Graces group. Remember, too, that the figure of Mars also represents Giuliano de’ Medici who was assassinated in Florence Cathedral in 1478.
Adjacent to the Duomo is the famous Baptistery of St John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets who was beheaded on the orders of Herod Antipas.
At one time, before the turn of the 15th century, a sculpture of the Three Graces, or Virtues, representing, Faith, Hope and Love, stood above one of the three doors that opened into the Florence Baptistery. So in this scenario, Botticelli’s Three Graces can be understood as symbolic of the Sacrament of Baptism and their diaphanous gowns as the flow of cleansing water associated with the sacrament.
The decapitation theme – suggested by Botticelli’s observation of St Martin’s sword at the beggar’s neck, linked to the beheading of John the Baptist, and the fact that Giuliano de Medici’s head was also cleaved – is portrayed in very small detail below the edge of the sword’s sheath as a head on a plate.
This feature – a head on a plate – is also a link to the East door of the Baptistery, bordered in parts with a series of encircled busts, one of which is Lorenzo Ghiberti the sculptor who designed the door. Ghiberti had earlier designed and sculpted another of the Baptistery doors which became known as the ‘Gates of Paradise’. The commission was awarded as a result of a competition in which Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi were considered finalists. The judges were unable to decide on an outright winner and both men were invited to work together. However, Brunelleschi refused and took himself off to Rome before returning some years later when both men competed again for a commission to design and engineer the famous Duomo for Florence Cathedral. This time it was Brunelleschi who was favoured with the contract.
Botticelli references the Duomo – the Cathedral of St Mary of the Flower – with the figure representing the Virgin Mary beneath the dome shape formed by the branches of the trees and representing the two lungs of the Church, East and West, Byzantine and Latin.
Botticelli also extended the themes of water and severed heads to another Florentine sculptor to add to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Sculpture Garden: Andrea del Verrocchio, who was a painter and goldsmith as well.
There are four works attributed to Verrocchio that can be linked to this section of Primavera – (1) The Baptism of Christ, (2) the bronze figure of David with the Head of Goliath, (3) The terracotta bust of Giuliano de’ Medici, and (4) the equestrian bronze statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni.
Mentioned earlier was Herod Antipas who ordered the beheading of St John the Baptist. Sculpted in the rock formation in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ painting is a depiction of Herod the Great, the father of Herod Antipas. Observe that the water flowing alongside the sculpted head has turned red with the blood from the children Herod the Great ordered to be slain in his attempt to find and kill Jesus, the ‘new-born’ King.
Verrocchio’s bronze of David with the head of Goliath at his feet can be compared with the figure of Giuliano whose sword is adjacent to the severed head of the Baptist. However, David is depicted as wearing armour on his upper body while Giuliano isn’t, as was the case when he was attacked and assassinated in Florence Cathedral. But in Verrocchio’s terracotta bust of Giuliano de’ Medici he is shown wearing a breastplate that depicts the head of a screaming angel which, in fact, is a representation of Leonardo da Vinci, who is also shown as one of the kneeling angels in the Baptism of Christ painting, and was the model for Verrocchio’s David. The stone which David used to slay Goliath was one of five he picked out of a stream. The weapon he used to decapitate Goliath was the Philistine’s own sword.
Verrocchio’s equestrian bronze of the Italian condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni was commissioned by the Republic of Venice in 1483. Although he completed the wax model, Verrocchio died in 1488 before he could he could cast the work in bronze. This was undertaken by Alessandro Leopardi in 1496.
Botticelli has linked the military theme of Verrocchio’s equestrian sculpture with that of St Martin, who served in the Roman cavalry, and also to the equestrian statue of Mars (the Roman military god) that once stood on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence before it was swept away in the Arno River flood of 1333. Botticelli employs word-play in the Primavera, for instance, bridging Vecchio with Verrocchio.
The equestrian and water themes link back to the Three Graces which I touched on in a previous post.
• More on this and the Three Graces in my next post.
C A T C H L I G H T 
You must be logged in to post a comment.