Niccolo Todini and the Castel Sant'Angelo

By Domenico Poggini

Domenico Poggini (1520 - ca. 1590). Portrait Medal of Niccolo Todini of Ancona.

44.1 x 44.4 mm. 50.5 grams. Bronze. Pollard 392; Kress 345. Bearded bust right wearing armor with ruff collar, NICOL TODIN ANC ARCIS S ANG PREFECTVS around with D. P. on truncation / anepigraphic view of the castle with flags flying. Medal turn. A handsome early cast in mottled mahogany and tan, with darker contrasting toning at the peripheries. Quite thick, edge file marks are both circumferential and rim to rim, collector monogram stamped on edge at 2 o'clock relative to the obverse. Portrait is in pleasing high relief, some softness of detail among reverse design, periphery sharp and delicately chased. Attractive and well accomplished. The Castel Sant'Angelo was rebuilt by the Vatican as a fortress beginning in the 14th century. Todini, who was married to a niece of Pope Sixtus V, was Governor of the Castel Saint Angelo from 1585 until his death in 1591. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds what they deem Poggini's earliest signed and dated work, a marble statue of Bacchus that was cited in a 1560 inventory of the possessions of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574).

From the Santini Collection of Renaissance Medals. Earlier from the Jonathan H. Kagan Collection of Renaissance Medals.

Estimate: $3000.00 - $5000.00