Bronzino

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Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time
Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time
Adoration of the Shepherds
Adoration of the Shepherds

Agnolo di Cosimo (November 17, 1503 – November 23, 1572), usually known as Il Bronzino, or Agnolo Bronzino (mistaken attempts also have been made in the past to assert his name was Agnolo Tori and even Angelo (Agnolo) Allori), was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. The origin of his nickname, Bronzino is unknown, but could derive from his dark complexion, or from that he gave many of his portrait subjects. It has been claimed by some that he had dark skin as a symptom of Addison's disease, a condition which affects the adrenal glands and often causes excessive pigmentation of the skin.

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Bronzino was born in Florence. According to his friend Vasari, he was a pupil first of Raffaellino del Garbo, and then of Pontormo, who was the main influence on his style and to whom he was devoted. Pontormo introduced his portrait as a child into one of his series on Joseph in Egypt in the National Gallery, London.

Bronzino first received Medici patronage in 1539, when he was one of the many artists chosen to execute the elaborate decorations for the wedding of Cosimo I de' Medici to Eleonora di Toledo, the daughter of the Viceroy of Naples. It was not long before he became, and remained for most of his career, the official court painter of the Duke and his court. His portrait figures, static, elegant, and stylish, exemplars of unemotional haughtiness and assurance, influenced the course of European court portraiture for a century. These also exist in many workshop versions and copies. Bronzino also painted idealized portraits of the poets Dante and Petrarch. He took a prominent part in the activities of the Florentine Accademia del Disegno, of which he was a founding member in 1563. The painter Alessandro Allori was his favourite pupil, and Bronzino was living in the Allori family house at the time of his death in Florence in 1572 (Alessandro was also the father of Cristofano Allori).[1] He rarely left Florence.

Andrea Doria as Neptune.
Andrea Doria as Neptune.

His famous series of aloof portraits of Cosimo and Eleonora, and figures of their court such as Bartolomeo Panciatichi and his wife Lucrezia, are his best known works. His portrait of Genoese admiral Andrea Doria as Neptune is less typical but also very successful.

Bronzino was also a poet, and his most personal portraits are perhaps those of other literary figures such as Laura Battiferri, wife of sculptor/architect Bartolommeo Ammanati, (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, c. 1560).

In 1540/41, Bronzino began work on the fresco decoration of the Chapel of Eleanora da Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio. Elegant and classicizing, but quite mannered, these religious works are excellent illustrations of the mid-16th-century aesthetics of the Florentine court: highly-stylized and non-personal or emotive. The Passage of the Red Sea is typical of Bronzino's approach at this time, though it should not be claimed that Bronzino or the court was lacking in religious fervor on the basis of the preferred court fashion.

During two years spent in Rome (1546–1548) he carried out a series of religious paintings such as Resurrection of the Virgin Mary (1552), which appear to be suffering from the effects of a moral crisis: this was, after all, the period in which the atmosphere of Counter-Reformation austerity held full sway.

His religious paintings sometimes resulted in elegant posturing, as in The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1569), in which almost every one of the extraordinarily contorted poses can be traced back to Raphael or to Michelangelo, whom Bronzino idolized. When attempting to display strong emotion, his Mannerism becomes unconvincing, verging on Academic art. Bronzino's skill with the nude was better deployed in the celebrated Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, which conveys strong feelings of eroticism under the pretext of a moralizing allegory. His other major works include frescoes for the chapel, and the design of a series of tapestries on The Story of Joseph, for the Palazzo Vecchio.

Most of Bronzino's works are in Florence but other examples can be found in the National Gallery, London, and elsewhere.

A portrait of Bia de Medici

A portrait of Giuliano di Piero de' Medici

Deposition, now in Besancon

The Holy Family with St. John and St. Ann

Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi

The Israelites passing through the Red Sea

Portrait of a young man with book

Cosimo I de' Medici in Armour by Bronzino
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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

  1. ^ Cecil Gould, The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, National Gallery Catalogues, London 1975, ISBN 0947645225
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