Portrait of the Dwarf Nano Morgante

Bronzino painted this around 1552 as a portrait you are meant to walk around. On one side stands Morgante, the celebrated dwarf at the Florentine court of Duke Cosimo de' Medici, shown as a bird-catcher setting a snare with an owl as bait. Turn to the back, painted just as carefully, and you meet the same man from behind, his catch now in hand. Very few paintings of this period were finished on both faces, and today it hangs free in a room of the Pitti Palace so visitors can still circle it. Court dwarfs were kept for amusement, yet Bronzino gives Morgante the solid, unhurried presence of a real man at his work. A recent restoration brought to light two small swallowtail butterflies placed over his groin, unnoticed for generations.