Giovanna Tornabuoni
Factual Information:
From: Florence, Italy
Period: 1488
Period: 1488
General Information:
This painting of a Florentine noble woman is very rare for any time before the Renaissance. The painting itself is done in profile, something usually done for portraits of this time. What makes this painting interesting is the fact that it is a portrait of a rather unimportant person for this time. Usually if there is a single painting of a figure, it is a ruler or someone important like a religious figure. This is not the case in the Renaissance when even the most low of the nobles is represented in a sure expression of humanistic values. The portrait shows a young lady called Giovanna Tornabuoni, dressed in fine clothes, sitting in front of a Latin inscription. This Latin inscription is a poem from a 1st century poet called Martial.
Why This Artwork?
This artwork was chosen to show the new types of painting and how even the less important people were being represented in the Italian Renaissance, unlike earlier times when only religious figures or important people were ever shown in a fashion similar to this.