Medal: Pope Marcellus II

Giovanni Antonio Rossi

model 1555 (possibly cast 17th or 18th century) · Bronze (Copper alloy with brown patina). · Robert Lehman Collection

The obverse shows a portrait of Pope Marcellus II; on the reverse is a depiction of Ecclesia, represented as a seated woman reading the Gospels and holding a rudder. Marcellus II (Marcello Cervini, 1501 – 1555), was pope for only twenty-two days in 1555. The woman on the reverse as Prudence or a personification of the Church ruling the world with the rudder and reading the Gospels. This is a dull cast after a worn original, possibly from the seventeenth or eighteenth century.

Artist

Giovanni Antonio Rossi

Date

model 1555 (possibly cast 17th or 18th century)

Medium

Bronze (Copper alloy with brown patina).

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975