BEMBO, Bonifazio
(active in Brescia and Cremona 1444-1477)

Portrait of Francesco Sforza

c. 1460
Tempera on canvas, 49 x 31 cm
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

The customary fifteenth-century scheme for portraiture used here is much closer to Pisanello's interpretation of the form than to Piero della Francesca's or Pollaiolo's versions. Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan from 1450 to 1466, is portrayed with a certain surface realism, but the main intent is to show him as a polite and princely figure rather than a heroic one, which is perfectly in tune with the painter's archaic International Gothic taste. The seignorial profile has the incisive quality of a classic medallion or cameo.