Portrait medal of Giovanni Giovano Pontano

Adriano Fiorentino (Adriano di Giovanni de' Maestri)

model last quarter 15th century (cast 16th century) · Bronze (Copper alloy with brown patina and remnants of black lacquer or wax). · Robert Lehman Collection

Giovanni Gioviano Pontano was a humanist and prolific writer in Latin. He was also an educator at the royal house of Aragon in Naples, where he served as tutor to Ferdinand II and secretary to his mother, Ippolita Sforza. Pontano later turned against his Aragonese patrons in writings endorsing their enemy, Louis XII of France. The medal's reverse shows the personifcation of Urania holding a lyre and a starry globe, an allusion to a poem by Pontano.

Artist

Adriano Fiorentino (Adriano di Giovanni de' Maestri)

Date

model last quarter 15th century (cast 16th century)

Medium

Bronze (Copper alloy with brown patina and remnants of black lacquer or wax).

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975