Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

By 1560 Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence, had reason to be painted differently. Siena, Florence's old rival, had fallen to a siege in 1555, and the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 confirmed it as his. His court painter, Agnolo Bronzino, had earlier shown him in gleaming armour. The new likeness from that year puts the armour away. Cosimo, now about 40, wears silk and fur worked with gold and holds an embroidered handkerchief. Copies of the image travelled to other courts as diplomatic gifts, and this panel, made some time after 1560, is among the finest known. It was long listed as the work of Cristofano Allori. Scholars now lean toward his father Alessandro, Bronzino's closest collaborator, though the name remains a proposal. It is first recorded in the Borghese inventory of 1833 and is currently kept in the gallery's storerooms.