Lot 127: Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, called Niccolò Fiorentino (1430-1514) Giovanna Albizzi Tornabuoni, bronze medal, 74.5mm., an attractive...

Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, called Niccolò Fiorentino (1430-1514)
Giovanna Albizzi Tornabuoni, bronze medal, 74.5mm., an attractive but late cast, slightly porous surfaces, particularly on the reverse, warm light brown patina

Obverse: bust of Giovanna Tornabuoni in profile to right, her hair in curls covering her cheek and in braids at the back, wearing low-cut bodice and necklace with large quatrefoil jewel and pendant pearl, VXOR LAVRENTII DETORNABONIS IOANNA ALBIZA

Reverse: Giovanna as Venus in the guise of a Spartan huntress wearing high winged cap, girdled tunic and boots, standing facing, her head turned up to the right, a quiver at her side, holding up an arrow in her right hand, and a bow in her left, VIRGINIS OS HABITVM QVE GERENS et VIRGINIS ARMA

The medal was probably made to celebrate the marriage of Giovanna Albizzi to Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486. The pearl necklace, with a large natural pearl as a pendant, a symbol of the Virgin, was a traditional wedding gift.
The 'Martial Venus' is taken from the Aeneid, book I, when Venus, disguised as a huntress, meets Aeneas on the road to Carthage. 'She had a maiden's countenance and a maiden's guise, and carried a maiden's weapons….she carried a bow as a huntress would, and let her hair stream out into the wind, her tunic's flowing folds caught up and tied, and her knees bare'. She explains to a confused Aeneas 'it is the usual habit of Carthaginian maids to carry a quiver, and to wear these high-laced hunting boots of dark red'. On the medal she personifies both carnal love and chastity, a popular theme in Florentine art and literature at this time.
Giovanna died in childbirth in 1488 and is immortalized in Ghirlandaio's frescos of the Life of the Virgin in the Capella Maggiore in Santa Maria Novella, Florence. The Virgin is given the likeness of Giovanna, and Ghirlandaio took the likeness from the medal.
References
Armand I, 89, 21; Bargello I, 254; Currency of Fame 46; Hill 1022; Johnson-Martini 200