"oh! isto é tão contemporâneo"

BRONZINO
(Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano detto Bronzino)
RITRATTO FRONTALE E TERGALE DEL NANO MORGANTE
(1553 - Galleria degli Uffizi - Firenze)

After being daintily covered for almost 300 years
with vines and grapes that were added to obscure
his nakedness, Bronzino’s 16th-century depiction
of the famed dwarf Morgante, jester to the Medici court,
has been stripped by conservators to be displayed
in its full nude glory. Officials from Florence’s Uffizi
museum have unveiled the freshly restored work
and included it in the artist’s first-ever (shockingly)
retrospective in Italy, allowing visitors see what was
once hidden from the public, according to Discovery News.
Known as “The Portrait of the Dwarf Morgante,”
the painting is especially unusual in that it is
a double-sided work, providing views of the plump dwarf,
who was a member of the Medici court, from both
front and back. On the front side he is shown holding
an owl while standing in almost complete frontal-nudity,
his genitals covered only by a moth that happens by.
On the obverse, Bronzino depicted the mustachioed dwarf’s
exposed backside, with the little owl perched on his shoulder.

(According to historians, Morgante was the prized entertainer
of Cosimo I de’ Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany. Art historian
Giorgio Vasari noted that the dwarf was “clever, learned and
very kind, the favorite of our Duke.” Dwarves were typically
treated as property in the Florentine court and “suffered
humiliation and physical violence,” according to art historian
Sefy Hendler, though Cosimo took the unusual step of giving
his jester land and granting him the right to marry.)

(@ www.artinfo.com)