103331 | ITALY & FRANCE. Cecilia Gonzaga of Mantova bronze Medal.

103331  |  ITALY & FRANCE. Cecilia Gonzaga of Mantova bronze Medal. Dated 1447, though a modern restrike issued late 19th/early 20th centuries. "Innocence and Unicorn in a Moonlight Landscape" (85mm, 265.71 g, 12h). After Antonio di Puccio Pisano (Pisanello) [circa 1380/95-1450/5], and struck at the Paris mint.

 

CICILIA VIRGO FILIA IOHANNIS FRANCISCI PRIMI MARCHIONIS MANTVE, garlanded and draped bust left // Seminude maiden and shaggy unicorn each kneeling left; crescent above hilly landscape in background; to right, column bearing legend in seven lines: OPVS / PISAN / I PICT / ORIS / M / CCCC / XLVII. Edge: «cornucopia» BRONZE and some mottled staining.

 

Cf. Pollard 20 = Kress 17 (for original); cf. Scher Coll. 9 = Michael Hall Coll., part I, 7 (same); cf. Jones, The Art of the Medal, p. 22 & fig. 46 (same). Gem Mint State. Tan-brown surfaces, with a pleasing matte aspect and some alluring brilliance. A tremendous modern reissue of undoubtedly one of the most iconic Renaissance medals ever produced—a type that, when offered for sale or presented in literature, tends to figure prominently in the cover or full page art, as was the case for the Michael Hall specimen—now in the Scher Collection on display among the Frick Collection. In particular, said Hall/Scher specimen realized a total price of £64,900 ($98,096 after the buyer's fee) when it last sold at auction in May 2010.

 

Pollard, in Renaissance Medals, writes that "...Cecilia Gonzaga (1426-1451) was the daughter of Gianfrancesco I, marquess of Mantua. Beautiful and gifted, she was one of the most brilliant of Vitorino da Feltre's pupils. She refused to marry the disreputable Oddantonio da Montefeltro, son and heir of the first count of Urbino. Oddantonio was murdered in 1444. In this, with the support of Vittorino da Feltre, she defied her father, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, and took refuge in a convent. After her father's death in 1444 she became a nun, entering the convent of Santa Paola in Mantua in February 1445. The medal presumably was commissioned by her brother Lodovico, but the occasion is not known. The portrait is entirely secular in character, although by the medal's date Cecilia had been withdrawn from the world for two years. This is the only instance in which Pisanello translates his own conventional format for a painted portrait into the medal roundel. It is composed in the same way as his panel of Ginevra d'Este, now in the Louvre, Paris. The medal effigy may be based on lost preparatory drawings by Pisanello that had been intended for a painted portrait. Cecilia is depicted wearing a balzo augmented with a small mazzocchio (false hair in the shape of a corn cob). The forehead is shaven, in the contemporary fashion. If Cecilia was forbidden by the rules of the convent to pose for a portrait medal, Pisanello would have been forced to use drawings prepared before February 1445. The carriage of the figure in the medal is more self confident than that of Ginevra d'Este. The reverse is a gracious and charming conceit in honor of Cecilia. The unicorn was a symbol of chastity, a creature reputedly tamed only by the touch of a virgin. The figure of the unicorn is based on Pisanello's drawing of a goat. A contemporary drawing by Stefano da Verona, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, illustrates the reverse type. The crescent moon shown in the field was a classic symbol of purity." About the artist of this medal, see chapter 2 in Mark Jones's classic, The Art of the Medal, for an entire chapter dedicated to this exceptionally important and influential artist.

 

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Upload: 1 December 2025.