Ritratto di un musicista

Around 1518 Florence was full of young painters trained in Andrea del Sarto's workshop, and this portrait of a man holding a sheet of music was for a long time taken to be del Sarto's own work. It passed through the collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici under that name, the sitter listed as the singer Francesco dell'Ajolle. Only later did scholars give it back to del Sarto's pupil Pontormo, then in his early twenties and already drifting toward the restless, off-balance style that would mark his generation. Which musician he actually was is no longer certain, and the sheet of music that once gave him a name settles nothing.