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Auction: 8004 - An Important Collection of Renaissance Medals & Plaquettes
Lot: 122

Bertoldo di Giovanni (c.1420-1491) The Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478, bronze medal, 62mm. across, 63.6mm. top to bottom, a fine old cast, red-brown patina Obverse: bust of Lorenzo de´Medici nearly in profile to the right, above the choir of the Duomo, Florence, with conspirators attacking Lorenzo, LAVRENTIVS MEDICES above, SALVS PVBLICA below truncation Reverse: bust of Giuliano de´Medici nearly in profile to the left, above the choir of the Duomo, Florence, with conspirators killing Giuliano, IVLIANVS MEDICIS above, LVCTVS PVBLICVS below truncation This medal commemorates the famous Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478. The attack, perpetrated by the Pazzi family with the backing of Pope Sixtus IV, took place in the Duomo of Florence during High Mass on Sunday 26 April. The moment chosen for the assassins to strike was the consecration, the signal being the sounding of the consecration bell. Lorenzo was wounded but, protecting himself with his cloak over his arm, he managed to escape into the vestry. His brother Giuliano was killed. The hoped-for popular rising against the Medici did not materialise and the conspirators were quickly rounded up and hung, their bodies left dangling from the walls of the Loggia dei Lanzi for all to see. Those conspirators who escaped were hunted down and killed. The medals were cast from Bertoldo´s models by Andrea Guacialotti, as recorded in his letter to Lorenzo of 11th September 1478, which accompanied four specimens of the medal. The portraits of Lorenzo and Giuliano were taken from large paintings by Botticelli. Bertoldo, a pupil of Donatello, may have been an illegitimate son of Giovanni de´Medici, and it is probably his portrait that is the subject of Botticelli´s famous painting , now in the Uffizi, of a young man holding a medal of Cosimo de´Medici (see Ulrich Middeldorf, ´On the Dilettante sculptor´, Apollo, CVII, 1978, pp. 310-322). References Armand I, 59, 1; Bargello I, 223; Currency of Fame 41; Habich pl.34, 4; Hall 123; Hill 915; Hill-Pollard p. 73, pl. 13,1; Johnson-Martini 41-43; Kress 252; Middeldorf-Stiebral III Estimate £ 800-1,000

Sold for
£500