AFTER CRISTOFANO DI PAPI, CALLED DELL' ALTISSIMO

The present painting is a copy after Cristofano di Papi's compostion, which was itself a copy from the Giovio Series made for Cosimo I de'Medici. The Giovio Series was a curated collection of 484 portrais of great literary figures, rulers, and statesmen brought together by the biographer Paolo Giovio. Much of the original series is now lost, the remnants of this famous group are retained in the Pinacoteca Civica di Palazzo Volpi in Como and di Papi's copies are housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.