Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staff

Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staff

Niccolò della Casa

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cosimo is presented as an imperial Roman figure, wearing antique armor that bears the ram of Augustus at the waist and on the helmet and the eagle of Camillus on the torso. Also adorning the armor are symbols of contemporary Florence such as Hercules, whose labors are depicted on the leg plates and whose lion pelt forms the standard, and the heraldic lion known as the Marzocco, found at the waist and topping the standard. This conflation of Medici, civic, and imperial imagery cements Cosimo’s image as absolute ruler of Florence.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staffPortrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staffPortrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staffPortrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staffPortrait of Cosimo de' Medici in full armor, his left hand resting on a staff

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.