BERTOLDO DI GIOVANNI

The obverse of the medal portrays Antonio Gratiadei (Graziadei), Franciscan abbot, theologian and Imperial Envoy (died 1491).

The inscription around the circumference : ANTONIVS GRATIA DEI CESAREVS ORATOR; around bottom circumference: MORTALIVM CVRA.

The reverse depicts the Triumphal Car with Mercury and the Muses.

Originally installed over a fireplace in the Palazzo Medici, the bronze Battle relief is a reduced copy of an antique Roman battle sarcophagus in the Campo Santo, Pisa, and is often cited as a watershed in the history of antique revival. The sarcophagus has a hole in its centre, and in his version Bertoldo modelled this section afresh. Set amid the tumultuous scene of fighting nudes and horsemen is a rider wearing a winged helmet but wielding a club and girt by a lionskin, emblems that identify him as Hercules. The two Victories flanking the action are linear and elongated. The figures, freely adapted from the Pisan sarcophagus and others, have bony but well-formed physiognomies with angular gestures and small, regular facial features set in somewhat myopic expressions.

Bertoldo was the disciple of Donatello and the Medici court artist of the late 15th century. He specialized in small bronze sculptures, medals, plaques and reliefs. He also served as curator of the Medici collection of antiquities in their palace and gardens. His role as the reputed teacher of the precocious Michelangelo has tended to eclipse awareness of his art.

The “Battle” is based partly on a damaged sarcophagus of the second century AD in the Pisan Camposanto, but it is no mere copy. It tested his imaginative and technical skills because he had to recreate the missing figures and translate the forms into bronze. In the process, he compressed it and heightened the relief so much that the figures appear almost freestanding, saving it from being an academic exercise.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 12 minutes):

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber: The Battle, suite

This is Bertoldo’s most famous statuette representing the Greek hero Bellerophon attempting to tame Pegasus before slaying the Chimera. Bellerophon symbolizes courage and Pegasus immortality. The pose is unusual for the myth, coming from a common ancient type, the horse-tamer.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Jean-Baptiste Lully: Bell�rophon, Air

On the obverse of the medal, Bertoldo portrays the fifty-three-old Frederick III (1415-1493) as an old man with a deep line beside his mouth, with long, flowing hair, and wrapped in winter garb. Only the inscription identifies the subject as an imperial ruler.

At the end of 1468, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III arrived in Rome seeking support from Pope Paul II for his conflict against the Turks. On the reverse, a crowded composition celebrates this event. Bertoldo was probably in Rome at the time as a member of the entourage of Filippo de’ Medici (1426-1474), archbishop of Pisa, of whom Bertoldo also produced a medal.

Two substantial commissions that can be associated with Bertoldo are the glazed terracotta frieze on the fa�ade of the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano and a group of 12 stucco reliefs in the courtyard of the Florentine palazzo of Bartolomeo Scala, Chancellor of the Florentine Republic. Bertoldo’s role in both may have been confined to supplying small-scale models. The Poggio a Caiano frieze was executed in the workshop of Andrea della Robbia. Bertoldo’s style is especially detectable in details,. The programme of the whole is couched in terms of the divisions of Time but also alludes to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s role in ushering in a Golden Age.

The low-relief style and format - white figures with golden-yellow accents against a blue ground - as well as specific motifs reveal Bertoldo’s familiarity with the Medici collection of antique cameos. The frieze must owe much to Giuliano da Sangallo, the architect responsible for the villa, who had returned from Rome full of ideas about the role of the relief in Classical buildings.

Two substantial commissions that can be associated with Bertoldo are the glazed terracotta frieze on the fa�ade of the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano and a group of 12 stucco reliefs in the courtyard of the Florentine palazzo of Bartolomeo Scala, Chancellor of the Florentine Republic. Bertoldo’s role in both may have been confined to supplying small-scale models. The Poggio a Caiano frieze was executed in the workshop of Andrea della Robbia. Bertoldo’s style is especially detectable in details,. The programme of the whole is couched in terms of the divisions of Time but also alludes to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s role in ushering in a Golden Age.

The low-relief style and format - white figures with golden-yellow accents against a blue ground - as well as specific motifs reveal Bertoldo’s familiarity with the Medici collection of antique cameos. The frieze must owe much to Giuliano da Sangallo, the architect responsible for the villa, who had returned from Rome full of ideas about the role of the relief in Classical buildings.

Two substantial commissions that can be associated with Bertoldo are the glazed terracotta frieze on the fa�ade of the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano and a group of 12 stucco reliefs in the courtyard of the Florentine palazzo of Bartolomeo Scala, Chancellor of the Florentine Republic. Bertoldo’s role in both may have been confined to supplying small-scale models. The Poggio a Caiano frieze was executed in the workshop of Andrea della Robbia. Bertoldo’s style is especially detectable in details,. The programme of the whole is couched in terms of the divisions of Time but also alludes to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s role in ushering in a Golden Age.

The low-relief style and format - white figures with golden-yellow accents against a blue ground - as well as specific motifs reveal Bertoldo’s familiarity with the Medici collection of antique cameos. The frieze must owe much to Giuliano da Sangallo, the architect responsible for the villa, who had returned from Rome full of ideas about the role of the relief in Classical buildings.

Bertoldo’s most significant contribution to Renaissance art was to the development of the bronze statuette. Earlier sculptors, including Filarete and perhaps Donatello, as well as Antonio Pollaiuolo and Bellano, experimented with statuettes, often in imitation of the bronzes of Classical antiquity, but more of Bertoldo’s statuettes survive than of any other early master, and there are further descriptions of other lost statuettes. The rustic Hercules on Horseback belongs to his earliest statuettes.

Bertoldo di Giovanni formed the link in Florence between his master Donatello and his pupil Michelangelo. A friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent, whose gems he preserved, and well-known for his small-scale works, Bertoldo drew his inspiration from the antique. His Hercules with the Apple of the Hesperides has the tranquil pose and monumentality of a classical marble.

The obverse of the medal portrays Antonio Gratiadei (died 1491), the reverse depicts the Triumphal Car with Mercury and the Muses.

The obverse of the medal shows the portrait of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, while the reverse depicts The Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment.

Bertoldo was an exploiter of the techniques developed by Donatello. His figurine Orpheus, shown playing a lira da braccio, illustrates the type of bronze created for the Medici circle. It is an unfinished cast with serious cracks, but Bertoldo treated it to a wealth of varied tooling before he abandoned it.

This famous medal commemorates Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici after the Pazzi conspiration in 1478. The obverse depicts Lorenzo, who escaped, and the reverse in a mirror image portrays Giuliano who was killed in the Duomo during mass on 26 April.

Both sides feature eccentrically floating, bust-length portraits (associated with portraits by Botticelli); each is framed by Brunelleschi’s temporary wooden choir enclosing the high altar (within which priests celebrated mass, unaware of the intrigue). Its narrative content is unprecedented in a medal. The vignette below Giuliano depicts his assasination with journalistic exactitude, while the scene under Lorenzo portrays him warding off his attackers and fleeing.

Filippo de’ Medici, a distant relation of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was Archbishop of Pisa from 1462 until his death in 1474. The portrait is the most sensitive among those by Bertoldo, an intimate of Lorenzo.

Bertoldo’s medals are characterized by low relief, a certain awkwardness of proportions in relation to the circular field on the obverse, a fine individualisation of portraiture, and the animation of the reverse with crowds of tiny, agitated figures, often with fanciful references to classical allegorical or mythological subjects.

Inscription inscribed on ribbon: VIRTUTE SUPERA [“Overcome by means of virtue”]; in margin, at bottom within a tasseled cord from an archbishop’s hat: PHVLIPPVS DE MEDICIS ARCHIEPISCHOPVS PISANVS.

The reverse shows The Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment.

Mehmed II, commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror, was an Ottoman Sultan who ruled from August 1444 to September 1446, and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.

The inscription around circumference: MAVMHET ASIE AC TRAPESVNZIS MAGNEQVE GRETIEIMPERAT.

The reverse of the medal depicts Triumphal Car with Greece, Trebizond, and Asia.

This statuette representing a muscular, naked man with a thick beard was probably made for Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.

The beautiful reverse has been said, surprisingly but accurately, to have influenced Michelangelo’s preliminary designs for his fresco in the Sistine Chapel.

Inscription at bottom: ET· IN · CARNE · MEA · VIDEBO / DEVM · SALVATOREM / MEVM [“And in my flesh I will see God”].

Inscription center left: GRETIE TRAPESVNTY ASIE; lower centre: OPVS / BERTOLDI / FLORENTIN[i] / SCVLTOR / IS.

The obverse of the medal portrays Mehmed II, Sultan of the Turks.

The inscription across bottom: VOLENTEM DVCVNT / NOLENTEM TRAHVNT.

The obverse of the medal portrays Antonio Gratiadei (died 1491).