Raphael, Cellini, and a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti brings together 24 Renaissance works - mostly drawn from Altoviti's own personal collection. This exhibition opens a window on the life, business, and collecting habits of one of the Renaissance's most important - though historically overlooked - patrons.
The exhibition begins with an early Portrait of Bindo Altoviti by Raphael (National Gallery of Art, Washington, ca. 1512), painted shortly after Altoviti inherited his father's bank. Raphael portrays Altoviti as an ideal, graceful Florentine youth. The portrait exemplifies Raphael's mature style and is a beautiful depiction of Altoviti in his early career.
Objects and decorative arts representative of Bindo Altoviti's life are also exhibited - including one of the first examples of a marriage service, a ceramic plate showing the joint arms of the Altoviti and Soderini families (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, ca. 1524). This piece commemorates Altoviti's marriage into the prominent Soderini family in 1511, when he married Fiammetta Soderini, the grand-niece of Piero Soderini, the ruler of Republican Florence. An opponent of the Medici family, Piero Soderini commissioned Michelangelo's David for the city of Florence.
Other objects in the exhibition include additional paintings, sculpture, bronze medals, manuscripts and drawings based on works in Altoviti's collection by such Renaissance artists as Girolamo da Carpi, Pirro Ligorio, Domenico Poggini, Francesco Salviati, Jacopo Sansovino and Giorgio Vasari. These works reveal much about Altoviti's artistic patronage, tastes, personality and intellectual and religious beliefs.
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