Bronzino’s Portrait of Antonio Lapi: A Hypothetical Identification with Considerations of Chronology and Costume in Bronzino’s Male Portraits

Abstract

AGNOLO BRONZINO (1503–72) was the most celebrated portrait painter in Florence of his generation, yet very few contemporary sources document and discuss this aspect of his work. In his discussion of the artists of the newly founded Accademia del Disegno, Giorgio Vasari praises Bronzino’s portraits as “all very natural, executed with incredible diligence, and finished so well, that nothing more could be desired” and as “so natural that they seem truly alive, and nothing is wanting in them save breath.” To modern eyes, however, Bronzino’s highly polished and sophisticated portraits hardly seem natural and lifelike. One critic has