Italian Renaissance Learning Resources

In collaboration with the National Gallery of Art

A New World of Learning

Medals: The Renaissance Calling Card

Matteo de’ Pasti<br /><i><dfn><p id=Medal of Guarino da Verona, (1374–1460), Humanist [Obverse]; Fountain Surmounted by a Nude Male Figure [Reverse]</i>, c. 1446<br />Bronze, diameter 9.4 cm (3 11/16 in.)<br />National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection<br />Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art” src=”http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/RP_133-300×150.jpg” width=”300″ height=”150″ /> Matteo de’ Pasti
Medal of Guarino da Verona, (1374–1460), Humanist [Obverse]; Fountain Surmounted by a Nude Male Figure [Reverse], c. 1446
Bronze, diameter 9.4 cm (3 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection
Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art

 A wide range of Renaissance people celebrated their learning using material derived from literary texts and visual sources, adapting it for personal use in ingenious ways. Alberti was not the only person to use the small but expressive medium of the Medal to put forward a statement of personal identity. The important scholar and teacher Guarino da Verona...'>Guarino Guarini (also known as Guarino da Verona), who operated private schools in Florence, Venice, Verona, and Ferrara that were attended by future princes, civil servants, and teachers, worked with Matteo de’ Pasti to prepare a Medal of himself that extolled the nature of learning (see fig. 133). Guarino, renowned for his knowledge of Greek and Latin, translated many important texts in both languages and on occasion would give learned advice to patrons of artistic projects (see “Attributed to Niccolò Fiorentino<br /><i><dfn><p id=Medal of Giovanna degli Albizzi, Wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni [Obverse]; The Three Graces [Reverse]</i>, c. 1486<br />Bronze, diameter 7.8 cm (3 1/16 in.)<br />National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection<br />Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art” src=”http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/RP_129-300×152.jpg” width=”300″ height=”152″ /> Attributed to Niccolò Fiorentino
Medal of Giovanna degli Albizzi, Wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni [Obverse]; The Three Graces [Reverse], c. 1486
Bronze, diameter 7.8 cm (3 1/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection
Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art

 A number of women were honored with Medals, many of which were ordered as part of the rituals of engagement and marriage. The Medal of Giovanna degli Albizzi was commissioned about 1486, most likely by her husband-to-be, the well-connected and prosperous Tornabuoni, Lorenzo...'>Lorenzo Tornabuoni, who was also a poet and literary scholar, to celebrate their forthcoming marriage. The portrait image on the Obverse shows her wearing a necklace of pearls, the traditional adornment of brides. The image chosen for the Reverse draws on the antique imagery of the Three Graces...'>Three Graces, interpreted here, as the inscription makes clear, in terms of the three key concepts attached to the Renaissance woman: CASTITAS, PVLCHRITVDO, and AMOR (Chastity, Beauty, and Love). The Three Graces are shown as three elegant nude women—types of the goddess Venus—entwined in a circular embrace that gives prominence to each.

<dfn><p id=Gian Cristoforo Romano<br /><i>Isabella d’Este, (1474–1539), Wife (1490) of Francesco Il Gonzaga of Mantua</i> [Obverse], 1507<br />Bronze, diameter 3.9 cm (1 9/16 in.)<br />National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection<br />Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art<br />Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art” src=”http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/RP_117-300×150.jpg” width=”300″ height=”150″ /> Gian Cristoforo Romano
Isabella d’Este, (1474–1539), Wife (1490) of Francesco Il Gonzaga of Mantua [Obverse], 1507
Bronze, diameter 3.9 cm (1 9/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection
Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art

In a few notable instances, women designed their own Medals. An extraordinary example is the Medal of Isabella d’Este, marchesa of Mantua, whose projection of an image of learning stands out in the patronage picture of Renaissance Italy. We know from her correspondence that she put a great deal of time and energy into the Medal that she commissioned in 1498. Her court artist, Gian Cristoforo Romano...'>Giancristoforo Romano , himself a man of learning, prepared the wax model from which it was cast and almost certainly helped design it. On the front side Isabella is shown in the elegantly dressed hairdo favored in Italy in the 1480s, her portrait encircled by her name and title. The back side, merging material from popular astrology and antique coins, presents a winged figure—presumably another reference to Isabella—holding a wand; she tames the snake at her feet, while a centaur, sign of the planet Sagittarius, gallops overhead. The imagery was intended to be complex and erudite and was acknowledged as such by its recipients. As interpreted by modern scholars, it adds up to a celebration of Isabella as the darling of the gods, with a brilliant destiny dictated by the stars. The marchesa called on advisers to select a complementary and original motto for the Reverse of the Medal. The final choice, after much discussion, was BENEMERENTIUM ERGO (for those who are well deserving), an undisguised reference to the patron. Isabella kept a particularly sumptuous version of the Medal, in gold and elaborately framed on the portrait side with the letters of her name spelled out in cut diamonds: ISABELA.