Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici

The man in this portrait had been dead for more than 100 years when it was painted. Giuliano de' Medici, younger brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was stabbed to death in Florence Cathedral in 1478 during the Pazzi conspiracy, an attempt to destroy the ruling family in a single morning. In 1585 Grand Duke Francesco I ordered a set of ancestral portraits to line the Uffizi, and Santi di Tito was among the painters given the work. Painting long after his subject's death, he had to build the face from older images and family memory. What resulted is an official image of a Medici the dynasty wished to keep in view, hung among his relatives.