Bust of Filippo Strozzi
Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497) · c. 1475
Filippo Strozzi, banker and one of the richest men in Florence, presents himself in the sober dress of a citizen, his hair cropped, his gaze level, his mouth firmly closed. Benedetto da Maiano models the face with unforgiving precision, from the heavy jaw to the small folds beside the eyes, and cuts the cloak into broad, calm planes that give the bust the stability of a block. This is the portrait of a man who wants to be remembered as prudent and powerful, not handsome. Hidden in a cavity under the bust, two carved scrolls record that Benedetto made it and that Filippo was the son of Matteo Strozzi.
Strozzi paid the sculptor fifteen gold florins on the fifteenth of June 1475, a documented date that makes this one of the best-recorded portraits of the Florentine Renaissance. He was then rebuilding his fortune after years of exile and would soon begin the enormous Palazzo Strozzi. The bust stayed with his descendants for four centuries, until the Louvre bought it in 1878 from Prince Pietro Strozzi. A terracotta version by the same sculptor, kept in Berlin, shows how Benedetto prepared the marble.
Did You Know? The sculptor signed the bust in a hidden cavity underneath, where only those who lifted it would ever find his name.
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