album;
drawing
- Museum number
- 1871,0812.831
- Description
-
Portrait of humanist Galeotto Marzio; seen in profile, looking left, wearing a crown made of wreath;
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1730-1755
- Dimensions
-
Height: 256 millimetres (sheet)
-
Width: 200 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See curatorial comment for 1871,0812.818
See also 1871,0812.830.
The inscription translates: ‘Galeotto Marzio, a very fine poet and a first rate mathematician, and an orator and good wrestler, he was from the year 1400. Giovio describes him in his ‘Illustrious Men’.
Galeotto Marzio, Martius or Martii, Galeottus Narniensis (ca. 1427-ca.1495) was born in the Umbrian town of Narni. Humanist, medical doctor, philosopher and astronomer. For his friendship with Ianus Pannonius, Marzio spent lengthy periods at the Hungarian court of king Matthias Corvinus (q.v.). In 1477 he was imprisoned by the Inquisition in Venice for his controversial writings and released thanks to the intercession of Lorenzo de’ Medici (q.v.) and Matthias Corvinus.
The inscription as recorded by Ghezzi seems translated from one of the medals representing Galeotto Marzio, although the information that he was a good athlete in the gymnasium (wrestler), comes from his biography by Paolo Giovio in his ‘Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita.[...]’ , Venice 1546, pp. 28-29. A medal with the head of the sitter as it appears on the present drawing, that is with the laurel on his head, was on the art market (see Raffaele Negrini, Asta Numismatica 45, lot 1641). The year 1400 indicated in the inscription is likely incorrect.
In his commentary to the Life of Andrea Mantegna by Giorgio Vasari, Gaetano Milanesi records a 1458 double portrait by the artist of Ianus Pannonius and Galeotto Marzio (Vasari (ed. Milanesi, 1878), vol. III, p. 438; see also Péter Farbaky, Dániel Pócs (ed.), ‘Mattia Corvino e Firenze: arte e umanesimo alla corte del re d’Ungheria’, Florence 2013, under no. 13, p. 62.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1871
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1871,0812.831