The terracotta bust of a young 'Deacon saint' in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence – believed to be by Donatello from the 18th century until 1957-1958, and then almost unanimously attributed to the later activity of Desiderio da Settignano (ca. 1455-1460) – has always posed, and still does, an iconographical dilemma. It is in fact not immediately recognizable either as a 'Saint Lawrence' (i.e. the traditional identification, with which it certainly deserved to be received in the Old Sacristy at the beginning of the 16th century at the latest), or as a 'Saint Leonard' (an alternative mentioned in some of the Sacristy's old inventories and reproposed by canon Domenico Moreni in 1817), but rather as the portrait of a man of Church contemporary to the sculptor.
In 1462 Desiderio was paid for a “head” of Prince James of Portugal, cardinal deacon of Sant'Eustachio, who had died in Florence in 1459 at the age of twenty-five and was buried in the celebrated chapel named after him in the basilica of San Miniato al Monte. The payment of two fiorini larghi made to the sculptor corresponds to the value that in 1459 had been assigned to a lost terracotta bust of the 'Redeemer' by his hand.
This paper shows that the “head” of James of Portugal has all the requisites for being the bust of the Old Sacristy, easily becoming a 'Saint Lawrence' on its entry into that church, which has thus conserved it as such until present times.
Index
Francesco Aceto
Between Giotto and Simone Martini. A rare painted portal with 'Stories of the Passion' in Naples cathedral and its topographical and liturgical context
read abstract » pp. 13-22
read abstract » pp. 13-22
Victor M. Schmidt
A proposal for Ambrogio Lorenzetti's panel paintings from the church of San Procolo in Florence
read abstract » pp. 23-30
read abstract » pp. 23-30
Keith Christiansen
The architecture in a Bohemian panel of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
read abstract » pp. 31-35
read abstract » pp. 31-35
Gabriele Fattorini
On the 'Annunciation' of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum by Jacopo della Quercia
read abstract » pp. 36-46
read abstract » pp. 36-46
Francesco Caglioti
Desiderio da Settignano the portraitist: “una testa del Chardinale di Portoghallo”, or the 'Saint Lawrence' in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence
read abstract » pp. 47-59
read abstract » pp. 47-59
Alessandro Angelini
Francesco di Giorgio in Urbino and the iconography of the 'Flagellation'
read abstract » pp. 60-68
read abstract » pp. 60-68
Gianluca Amato
Benedetto da Maiano: two proposals for the catalogue of terracottas
read abstract » pp. 69-77
read abstract » pp. 69-77
Antonio Mazzotta
Evidence pointing to the identity of the 'Master of the Sforza Altarpiece'
read abstract » pp. 78-85
read abstract » pp. 78-85
Roberto Bartalini
Raphael and Sodoma in the Stanza della Segnatura. New findings
read abstract » pp. 86-95
read abstract » pp. 86-95
Rosanna De Gennaro
About the little-known opisthographic marble altarpiece of the abbey of Montevergine
read abstract » pp. 122-131
read abstract » pp. 122-131
Elisabetta Cioni
Notes on the 17th-century reliquary of the right arm of Saint John the Baptist of Siena cathedral
read abstract » pp. 132-142
read abstract » pp. 132-142
Gennaro Toscano
The popularity of Dante in France in the early 19th century. Aubin-Louis Millin and ms. XIII.C.4 of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples
read abstract » pp. 148-159
read abstract » pp. 148-159
Laura Cavazzini
Alceo Dossena and the forgery of Gothic sculpture between Lombardy and Tuscany
read abstract » pp. 168-176
read abstract » pp. 168-176
Luca Quattrocchi
Italian art for National Socialism. Antonio Maraini and the Ausstellung Italienischer Kunst von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart exhibition in Berlin in 1937
read abstract » pp. 177-186
read abstract » pp. 177-186
Marco M. Mascolo
Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Renaissance sculpture and the problems of connoisseurship
read abstract » pp. 187-194
read abstract » pp. 187-194