Agnolo Bronzino

Background

Agnolo Bronzino was born on November 17, 1503 in Florence, Tuscany to a poor family. He was the son of a butcher.

Education

Agnolo Bronzino started his art education at the age of eleven as a pupil of Raffaellino del Garbo, a Florentine Renaissance painter. Garbo offered the young Bronzino only a rudimentary art education. At the age of twelve, Bronzino undertook an apprenticeship in Florence with Jacopo Carucci, better known as Pontormo, who had a great influence his art.

Career

When the Plague broke out in Florence in 1522, Pontormo took Agnolo Bronzino to the Certosa di Galuzzo Monastery where they worked on a series of Frescoes together. This was an influential time for him, as he began to gain a reputation working for the Duke or Urbino.

Bronzino fled to Urbino after the Siege of Florence in 1530, having been invited by the Duke of Urbino to paint a nude Cupid on a spandrel of a vault of the Imperiale. Soon after he arrived, Pontormo wrote letter after letter asking Bronzino to come back. A prince at Urbine was so impressed with Bronzino's painting that he commissioned him to paint his portrait.

As Bronzino gained increasing recognition for his portraits, the nobility in Florence became more intrigued by the artist. The Medici Court hired Bronzino as court painter in 1539. He became the official portraitist for the Medici and soon went to work painting the portraits of the ruling family members. He had many students as he worked as court painter for the Medici, which he did until his death.

He was engaged in a variety of commissions, including decorations for the wedding of the duke to Eleonora of Toledo (1539) as well as a Florentine chapel in her honour (1540 – 1545). Frescoes he painted there include Moses Striking the Rock, The Gathering of Manna, and St. John the Evangelist. He also created mythological paintings such as The Allegory of Luxury (also called Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time; circa 1544 – 1545).

Achievements

• Agnolo Bronzino was best known as a portraitist. He was court painter to Duke Cosimo I de Medici for most of his career. His work influenced the course of European court portraiture for a century. His allegorical paintings influenced younger Mannerist painters with their distorted poses, exaggerated expressions, and emphasis on movement.
  
  Agnolo was the co-founder of the Academy of the Art of Drawing (the Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno) in 1563. Other founders include Giorgio Vasari and Bartolommeo Ammannati, also prominent figures in the late Italian Mannerism movement. The school was funded by the Medici.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • St. Mark

    1525

  • Portrait of Nano Morgante

    1552

  • Portrait of a gentleman

    1552

  • Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune

    1552

  • Portrait of Guidubaldo della Rovere

    1532

  • Adoration of the Cross with the Brazen Serpent

    1544

  • Study for a "Resurrection"

    1552

  • Stigmatization of St. Francis

    1544

  • Bronzino - Eleonora di Toledo col figlio Giovanni

    1545

  • Portrait of Laudomia de' Medici

    1555

  • Deposition from the Cross

    1545

  • Portrait of Laura Battiferri

    1552

  • Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

    1545

  • Portrait of a young man with book

    1538

  • Pietro de' Medici

    1560

  • Scenes of allegories of the cardinal virtues

    1544

  • Portrait of Maria de' Medici

    1553

  • Galatea and Pygmalion

    1530

  • Portrait of Pope Clement VII

    1566

  • Holy Family

    1528

  • Eleonora da Toledo

    1562

  • Noli me tangere

    1532

  • Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

    1545

  • Portrait of Lorenzo Lenzi

    1528

  • Moses strikes water from the wall rocks

    1544

  • The Crossing of the Red Sea

    1555

  • Allegory of Happiness

    1564

  • Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici as Orpheus

    1538

  • Portrait of Ferdinando de' Medici

    1560

  • Allegorical Portrait of Dante

    1530

  • Portrait of Piero di Lorenzo de Medici

  • Noli me tangere

    1561

  • Martyrdom of St. Lawrence

    1569

  • Portrait of Giovanni de' Medici

    1545

  • Portrait of a Sculptor

    1550

  • Ugolino Martelli

    1535

  • Portrait of Stefano IV Colonna

    1546

  • Holy Family with St. Anne and the infant St. John the Baptist

    1550

  • Piero de Medici il Gottoso

    1560

  • Cosimo de' Medici

    1505

  • Pope Leo X

    1560

  • Portrait of Nano Morgante

    1552

  • Christ in Limbo

    1552

  • Portrait of Signor Panciatichi Bartolomeo

    1540

  • Portrait of Bia de' Medici

    1542

  • Venus, Cupido and Satyr

    1553

  • Portrait of a girl with book

    1545

  • Portrait of a Lady with a Puppy

    1534

  • Garcia de' Medici

    1560

  • Lucrezia Panciatichi

    1540

  • The Holy Family

    1545

  • Eleonora da Toledo

    1560

  • Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

  • Altarpiece

    1540

  • Scenes of allegories of the cardinal virtues

    1544

  • Portrait of Francesco I de' Medici

    1551

  • Alessandro de' Medici

    1560

  • Portrait of Eleonora da Toledo

    1555

  • Venus, Cupid and Envy

    1549

  • Portrait of the Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici

  • Portrait of Francesco I de' Medici

    1551

  • The Ailing Eleonora da Toledo

    1556

  • Adoration of the Shepherds

    1540

  • Eleonora da Toledo

    1543

  • Portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent

    1560

  • An Allegory with Venus and Cupid

    1542

  • Pietro de' Medici

  • Deposition from the Cross

    1565

  • Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

    1545

  • Saint John the Baptist

    1553

  • Unknown Lady

  • Portrait of a lady in green

    1532

  • St. Matthew

    1525

  • The Israelites crossing the Red Sea

    1542

  • Lucrezia di Cosimo

    1560

  • Portrait of young woman with her son

    1545

  • Christ on the Cross

    1545

  • A portrait of Giuliano di Piero de' Medici

  • Portrait of Lucrezia de' Medici

    1560

  • Don Garcia de' Medici

    1550

  • The Panciatichi Holy Family

    1540

  • Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

    1550

  • Portrait of a young man

    1531

  • The Dead Christ with the Virgin and St. Mary Magdalene

    1530

Membership

• 

  Accademia delle Arti del Disegno , Italy

  1563

Connections

teacher:

Raffaellino del Garbo

teacher:

Jacopo Pontormo

pupil:

Alessandro Allori

References

• Bronzino Eschewing a chronological approach, the author examines the paintings according to genre, focusing above all on Bronzino's portraits and religiouslittle-known paintings, and in particular on the ltitle-known altarpieces and private devotional pictures.
  2002
• Maniera: Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence Brimming with numerous illustrations and essays, this lavish book brings together the best in Mannerist art from the city of Florence, where the movement was born.
  2016
• The Drawings of Bronzino This important and beautiful publication brings together for the first time nearly all of the sixty drawings attributed to this leading draftsman of the 16th century.
  2010
• Bronzino In this lucid and carefully researched study, Charles McCorquodale succeeds in presenting this difficult artist and his relationship to contemporary art in Florence in a manner that simultaneously unravels and dispels many of the misunderstandings of Bronzino’s oeuvre.
  2006