Lodovico Capponi

Lodovico Capponi was a page at the court of Duke Cosimo I in Florence, in his late teens when Bronzino painted him. The story attached to him is about a marriage. He wanted Maddalena Vettori, whom the duke had earmarked for a relative of his own, and after some three years of refusals Cosimo gave way and then ordered the wedding held at once. In the portrait Capponi holds a small medal with a woman's head on it, one finger laid across the face so that only the word sorte, fate, is left showing. The Frick's curators connect that to the marriage and also say plainly that nobody knows when the picture was painted or for what occasion. Black and white were the Capponi family colours.