Ritratto di giovane uomo

When Botticelli painted this young man around 1480, he did something quietly bold: he turned the face fully toward us. Italian portraits of the time almost always showed a sitter in strict profile, like a head on a coin. A full frontal view, mapping out the whole face, was mostly reserved for images of Christ meant for private prayer. Here it goes instead to an ordinary young Florentine in a red cap, his fair curls escaping at the edges, his brown eyes meeting yours head-on. The idea owed something to Netherlandish portraits then reaching Italy, where painters had long faced their sitters directly. Who this young man actually was, no one has ever managed to establish.