Tiberio Titi
1573–1627 · Grand Duchy of Tuscany · Portrait painting, Mannerism, Florentine school
The story
In 1618 the Medici court sent a painter to Mantua to bring back a face. Tiberio Titi went to portray Eleonora Gonzaga, a young princess whose marriage into the Habsburg family was being arranged from Florence by the grand duchess, Maria Maddalena of Austria, a Habsburg herself.
Titi had come into the job with the furniture. His father was Santi di Tito, one of the busiest painters in Florence, and until the old man died in 1603 the son worked entirely inside his workshop. Tiberio then inherited it, finished what was left on the easels, including a Communion of the Apostles for the church of San Marco, and turned the shop toward portraits. A letter of 1610 recommends him as excellent and very fast, at a price to match.
In 1620 a Flemish portraitist, Justus Sustermans, arrived in Florence, and by 1623 the court's portrait commissions were his. Titi kept his standing in the city, serving as consul of the Accademia del Disegno, the painters' guild academy, in 1606, 1609 and 1620. He died in Florence in August 1627, of pleurisy, at 53.
