Maria de’ Medici (c.1555)

Allori, Alessandro (1535-1607)

Maria de’ Medici
c.1555
Oil on poplar, 116 x 90 cm
Kunsthistorisches MuseumVienna

Since the early Renaissance the foremost artists and workshops in Florence had worked for the Medici. In 1570, Cosimo I became Grand-Duke of Tuscany, elevating this family of former bankers to the august circle of Europe’s foremost dynasties. This portrait probably depicts one of Cosimo’s daughters and may have been sent to Vienna in the course of negotiating one of the many marriages between the Medici and the Habsburgs. (KHM)

See also:

• Medici, Maria di Cosimo I de’ (1540-1557)