Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence

This book accompanies an exhibition of the same name held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art upon the completion of conservation of Jacopo Pontormo's famous portrait of Duke Alessandro de'Medici. Centering on Pontormo's painting and Agnolo Bronzino's equally renowned depiction of another Medici duke, Cosimo I, the exhibition gathers from American and European collections nearly fifty sixteenth-century works that demonstrate the ways in which these artists changed the Renaissance portrait during a tumultuous period in Florence's history.
In his catalogue entries, Carl Brandon Strehlke surveys the history and multifaceted significance of the Medici portraits and other paintings, drawings, coins, medals, books, and prints in the exhibition, offering a wealth of insights into these works and the Florentine men and women they portray.
This fully illustrated volume also features Elizabeth Cropper's "Pontormo and Bronzino in Philadelphia: A Double Portrait," which explores the rich cultural and artistic background of these artists' portraiture. An essay by Mark S. Tucker, Irma Passeri, Ken Sutherland, and Beth A. Price discusses findings from the recent conservation of Pontormo's portrait of Alessandro. A genealogy of the Medici family, a glossary, and a bibliography complete this publication.

Carl Brandon Strehlke is Adjunct Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.