File:Italian medals (1904) (14576548190).jpg

Identifier: italiamedal00fabri (find matches)
Title: Italian medals
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Fabriczy, Cornelius von, 1839-1910
Subjects: Medals Medals, Renaissance Renaissance
Publisher: London : Duckworth
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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lorentiaon the reverse reveal anything of the conspicuous manner inwhich in his statues he strove to imitate the antique ; but apartfrom this the latter theory is opposed by chronological con-siderations. Since Cosimo died on August ist, 1464, andonly received the title P(ater) P(atriae) accorded him onthe medal after his death, i.e. on March i6th, 1465(Friedlander incorrectly gives March i6th, 1464), it followsthat the medal cannot have been produced previous to thisdate. On the other hand, the accurate reproduction of itin a miniature in the title of a Codex of the Laurentiana,dedicated to Piero Medici, shows that it must have existedas early as 1469, the year of Pieros death. We know,however, that Michelozzo was absent in Milan, Ragusa, andSchio from 1462 onwards, and it appears improbable thateven had they waited until the return of the master (in 1466at the earliest) the Medici would have entrusted the commis-sion to a man of seventy, when Florence already possessed 116 Plate XXI
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BERTOLDO, ANONYMOUS FLORENTINES /■<■/■ /). 116 Florentine Medals a series of approved medallists (see below).^ As regards themedal itself, however, we cannot better characterise its artisticvalue than in Goethes words: The work is quite extra-ordinarily masterly and bold ; at the first glance, it is true,the portrait seems sketchy and hastily designed ; on closerinspection, however, it is wonderfully ingenious, full of mean-ing, and complete in every part. The circumstance that the miniature just mentioned, as wellas a second work by the same author and written by the samehand, also reproduces two medals of the two sons of Cosimothe Elder, Piero and Giovanni, of which some examples arepreserved (PI. XXII., 4), gives us occasion to say a fewwords on the subject. The inscription, *P(atris) P(atriae)F(ilius), which appears on both, shows that they were castafter the death of Cosimo, and that therefore the medal ofGiovanni, who died a year before his father, was not modelledfrom

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