Lot 42: [ ITALIAN MEDALS ]

MATTEO DE' PASTI (active 1441-1468) Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (1417-1468), Lord of Rimini and Fano from 1432, bronze medal, SIGISMONDVS PANDVLFVS DE MALATESTIS S RO ECLESIE C GENERALIS, bust left wearing cuirass and surcoat, rev., Fortitude seated facing in a meadow, the sides of the seat formed by foreparts of elephants, holding a broken column; below, M CCCC XLVI, 81.5mm (Hill 179; Armand I, 20, 10; Pollard 26 = Kress 61 var.; Bargello 43-44 var.; Johnson/Martini 370; Pasini, P.G., 'Matteo de' Pasti: Problems of Style and Chronology', StHist 21, 1987, esp. fig. 1), slight wear on the high points of the reverse, an extremely fine contemporary cast with dark green patina

Provenance: The Estate of John R. Gaines, Morton & Eden, 8 December 2005, lot 2. As Pasini has observed, despite the date of 1446, the Malatesta medals with Fortitude reverses date from the period 1449-1451. In October 1450 twenty-two such medals were placed on the backs of the marble elephants in the Chapel of San Sigismondo in the Malatesta Temple. Other Malatesta medals have been excavated from the walls of various buildings in Rimini and were presumably placed there for the explicit purpose of perpetuating the fame of Sigismondo for posterity. Pasini also explores the relationship between Matteo de' Pasti's portrait of Sigismondo and Piero della Francesca's fresco of the same subject painted in 1451. In the case of this and the following medals, the date of 1446 is thought to refer to the year in which Sigismondo consolidated his political power, dedicated his castle and won Isotta as his mistress.