The Portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, is a marble sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, dated around 1531-1534 and part of the decoration of the New Sacristy in San Lorenzo in Florence.
The work, inserted in a niche, shows the young seated duke, dressed like an ancient Roman general and in a thoughtful attitude, as Vasari already noted, according to a precise Renaissance typology called “melanconico”, with alchemical implications. His position has also been read as a reference to the “contemplative life” of the Neoplatonic doctrine.
Other saw in the work political values (the “meditation of the tyrant”), autobiographical cues (artist's meditation), or even references to the humoral theory.
The features of Lorenzo's face, known by numerous paintings, were ennobled in an abstract manner, referring to the imperial art, creating an ideal and heroic elaboration of his figure. The lorica adheres to the body and marks its musculature. The shoes he wears are depicted on the shin but the feet are bare.
The right hand placed on the thigh and turned out is used by the artist to symbolize the abandonment of the body in sleep or death, is an iconographic topos of a melancholy mood. While the index of the other hand on the mouth follows the reason for silence. In the same left hand he holds a handkerchief or a small bag of uncertain meaning. The helmet with the leonine mask, taken from Etruscan art, has been read as a symbol of fortress and creates a shadow that recalls the god Saturn, protector of melancholy.
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