Lot 188: [ ITALIAN MEDALS ]

DOMENICO DI POLO DE' VETRI (after 1480- c. 1547) Alessandro de' Medici (1513-1537), struck silver medal, ALEXANDER MED FLORENTIAE P, bare head right, rev., five line inscription: SOLATIA LVCTVS EXIGVA INGEN-TIS (The meagre consolation of great mourning) within an oak wreath, 35.8mm (Toderi/Vannel 1386, this piece; Attwood 775; Armand I, 150, 18 [as Cellini]; Bargello 326), a contemporary striking, a few minor marks in the obverse field but extremely fine and well toned

Provenance: Astarte VIII, 11 October 2001, lot 32; The Estate of John R. Gaines, Morton & Eden, 21 April 2005, lot 20. The outstanding portrait of Alessandro on this very rare medal has in the past been attributed to Cellini. In his autobiography, Cellini records being commissioned to make a medal of Alessandro, stating that the wax model for the obverse was accepted by the Duke in 1535. Cellini completed the die in Rome later that year. In the absence of instructions from the Duke for the reverse type, Cellini began work on his own design but the die was apparently never completed. Plon (Benvenuto Cellini, Paris, 1883) argued that the present medal was struck from Cellini's portrait die, together with a reverse die engraved by him when he heard of Alessandro's assassination by Lorenzino de' Medici in 1537. Attwood has pointed out that this argument falters when one considers that the obverse die is linked to a beardless portrait die of Alessandro's successor Cosimo de' Medici, in a medal struck in 1537 (Attwood 776). Stylistically both are by the same hand but Cellini could not have been responsible because at that time he was absent from Florence, visiting Rome, Padua and France. Discounting Cellini as the medallist, Domenico de' Vetri is the most likely candidate.