BERTOLDO DI GIOVANNI
(b. ca. 1420, d. 1491, Poggio a Caiano)

Portrait medal of Filippo de' Medici, Archbishop of Pisa (obverse)

1468-69
Bronze, diameter 56 mm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Filippo de' Medici, a distant relation of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was Archbishop of Pisa from 1462 until his death in 1474. The portrait is the most sensitive among those by Bertoldo, an intimate of Lorenzo.

Bertoldo's medals are characterized by low relief, a certain awkwardness of proportions in relation to the circular field on the obverse, a fine individualisation of portraiture, and the animation of the reverse with crowds of tiny, agitated figures, often with fanciful references to classical allegorical or mythological subjects.

Inscription inscribed on ribbon: VIRTUTE SUPERA ["Overcome by means of virtue"]; in margin, at bottom within a tasseled cord from an archbishop's hat: PHVLIPPVS DE MEDICIS ARCHIEPISCHOPVS PISANVS.

The reverse shows The Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment.