Portrait of Giuliano da Sangallo, Architect
about 1485, Piero di Cosimo
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By the mid-1470s, Giuliano was the leading architect in Florence. He designed several major buildings for Lorenzo de’ Medici. Here he is depicted behind a parapet, covered in a striped cloth upon which rest the tools of his trade, the pen and compasses.
This recently restored portrait is one of a pair, which are the only surviving certain portraits by the late 15th-century Florentine artist, Piero di Cosimo. Paired portraits more usually depicted married couples, but this is a rare example of an intergenerational male portrait pair.
The other panel shows Francesco Giamberti, Guilano's father who was also an architect, as well as a musician in the employ of Cosimo de’ Medici. Music and architecture were regarded as closely connected disciplines, since they both depended upon an understanding of harmony and mathematical proportion.
Giuliano’s portrait was initially conceived as an independent work and did not at first include these instruments. Giuliano commissioned the second portrait only after his father’s death and added it to his own.
The pen and compasses were also added to Giuliano’s image when the portrait of his father was painted. Technical examination reveals that Piero repainted the striped fabric so that it appears to run continuously through both portraits.
By joining the portraits together in this way, it appears that Giuliano was emphasising his own intellectual heritage and thus enhancing his status as an architect.
