Pisanello, a trained painter, combined his interest in classical coins with portraiture to produce a medium that is durable, portable, and easily reproducible: the portrait medal. He cast the first modern portrait medal around 1438 to commemorate Byzantine Emperor John VIII Paleologus’s participation in the Council of Ferrara (later moved to Florence to avoid the plague), which secured him political protection against the Ottoman Empire through the gesture of uniting the Roman Catholic Church with those of East. Pisanello’s highly influential work ignited the craze for portrait medals, and his masterful profile view of Paleologus’s face influenced future painters, sculptors, and medalists alike. This uniface example, cast in lead, is the earliest version of the medal in the Molinari Collection. The malleability of the lead, which allows sharper impressions, is also responsible for the extensive surface damage visible today.
Object Description
1 JOHN VIII PALAEOLOGUS, Emperor of Constantinople, 1425-48
Obv. Bust to right, wearing hat with tall crown and upturned brim. Around, [Greek inscription], John, King and Emperor of the Romans, Palaeologus
Without reverse
Lead, 105 mm.
Made at Ferrara, between 29 February 1438 and 10 January 1439, at the Council of the Two Churches. Besides those noted in Kress, other lead specimens are T. W. Greene sale, 31 October 1932, Sotheby, no. i; Coll. Michael Hall, Esq., New York (2 specimens . The Molinari Collection also contains a bronze late cast of this medal, with reverse (1966.106.24).
Bibl.: Corpus, no. 19; Arm. i, p. 7,20; Rosati, no. 3; Kress, no. 1; Morgenroth, nos. 1, 2; Habich, pl. 1,1; Supino, no. 14; Brescia I, p. 3, no. 16; Tresor Ital. I, pl. 5,1; Fabriczy, p. 31 (dated 1438); R. Weiss, Pisanello's Medallion of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, London, British Museum, 1966; J. A. Fasanelli, "Some Notes on Pisanello and the Council of Florence,
"Master Drawings 3 (1965)5 pp- 36-47 (suggesting that the medal was made at Florence between 6 July and 26 August 1439); M. Fossi Todorow, I Disegni del Pisanello e della sua Cerchia, Florence, 1966, nos. 57r, 58r, 33 (drawings by Pisanello relating to the reverse of this medal); J. BabeIon, "Un thème iconographique dans la peinture de la Renaissance. L'empereur Jean Paleologue et Ponce Pilate," in Actes du XIIe congrès international d'histoire de I'art, Brussels, 20-29 September 1930, pp. 544-52.