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Auction: 390 - Renaissance Plaquettes and Commemorative Medals featuring the Neil A. Goodman Collection - e-Auction
Lot: 96

GIAN CRISTOFORO ROMANO (ca. 1465-1512)
Isabella d'Aragona (1474-1524), Duchess Consort of Milan (1489-1494), Duchess Regnant of Bari 1500. Medal, Naples ca. 1507. Bronze, 47.3mm. ISABELLA ARAGONIA DVX MLI, bust right, a veil covering her hair, rev. CASTITATI.VIRTVTIQ.INVICTAE ("Chastity and Virtue Invincible"), Nearly nude woman seated right, drapery covering her thighs, holding a palm frond and a wand with a snake entwined around it, a palm tree with bunches of dates before her.
Born in Naples, to the future king Alfonso II and Ippolita Maria Sforza, Isabella's life would be marked by the political crises surrounding the Italian Wars. In 1489, she married her first cousin Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan (who she had been promised to since the age of one). She would bear him four children, only two surviving past childhood. The marriage, though, proved disastrous and she received little support in Milan. After her sickly husband died in 1494, she remained in Milan until 1499 leading an elegant lifestyle albeit at times under guard and not at the best of terms with the new ruler Il Moro. After Louis XII of France took Milan, Isabella petitioned him to name her son Francesco Maria Sforza as Duke of Bari. Seeing how popular the boy was with the Milanese, Louis instead sent him to France, placing him in a monastery. Isabella never saw her son again.
With her two daughters in tow, she went to Naples. After her uncle Federico King of Naples was attacked by Louis XII, Pope Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia, and betrayed by his cousin King Ferdinand II of Aragon, he ceded his rights to the Neapolitan throne. With Federico's defeat, Isabella and her family found themselves imprisoned on the island of Ischia, where her eight-year daughter Ippolita Maria died. After negotiations with representatives of Spain, Isabella, Dowager Duchess of Milan obtained the titles of suo jure Duchess of Bari, Princess of Rossano and Lady of Ostuni - titles Louis XII had denied her son. She would rule Bari until her death.
Hill 223; Pollard NGA 119. The medal is only one of three made by Romano - the other two being portrayals of Isabella d'Este and Pope Julius II. Sculptor, medalist, singer, poet and art advisor to Isabella d'Este - a true Renaissance man, Romano appears in Baldassare Castiglione's "Book of the Courtier", where he eloquently defends the art of Sculpture against the claims of Painting. Pierced at 6:15. A Very Fine early or contemporary cast. Ex Numismatik Lanz (Munich), December 12, 2011, lot 814; Ex Sotheby's Sale, May 23-24, 1988, lot 13; Bachstitz, by private treaty, 1934.
From the Neil A. Goodman Collection

Sold for
$2,700

Starting price
$1400