Portrait of a Young Man

Around 1525 Pontormo was in his early thirties and already the strangest talent in Florence, twisting the calm of High Renaissance portraiture into something restless and cool. The young man in black here has sometimes been identified as Alessandro de' Medici, who would soon become the first Medici duke of the city. The panel is one of a group of Florentine pictures that only reached Lucca in the 19th century, handed over by Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany to make up for art the city had lost. It hangs now in the Palazzo Mansi, a merchant's townhouse.