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Updated: June 5, 2025
On the 6th of March, Bernardo Prosperi wrote to tell Isabella that our Madonna had been conducted by the jester Mariolo over Beatrice's "guardaroba," and had seen all the splendid gowns, pelisses, and mantles which had been made for her during the last two years, about eighty-four in all, "besides many more," adds the writer, "which your sister the duchess has in Milan."
Giuliano sent them as presents to the Magnificent Lorenzo, who expressed vast delight at the gift, and never tired of praising the action of this most liberal of craftsmen, who had refused gold and silver for the sake of art, a thing which few would have done. That Cupid is now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo.
In addition to these works, that garden was full of torsi of men and women, which were a school not only for Mariotto, but for all the sculptors and painters of his time. A good part of these are now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo, and others, such as the two torsi of Marsyas, the heads over the windows, and those of the Emperors over the doors, are still in the same place.
In the guardaroba of Signor Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, there is a very beautiful head of marble by the hand of the same man, and it is believed that it was given to the ancestors of the said Duke by the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, at the time when he was staying at that Court, which was full of most cultured gentlemen.
The same man made the head of the wife of the said Cosimo de' Medici in bronze, and this head is preserved in the guardaroba of the Lord Duke Cosimo, wherein there are many other works in bronze and marble by the hand of Donato; among others, a Madonna with the Child in her arms, sunk in the marble in flat-relief, which is the most beautiful work that it is possible to see, and the rather as it is surrounded by a border of scenes done in miniature by Fra Bartolommeo, which are admirable, as it will be told in the proper place.
But, since the works and pictures that issued from Ridolfo's shop were without number, and even more so the portraits from life, I shall say only that a portrait was made by him of Signor Cosimo de' Medici when he was very young, which was a most beautiful work, and very true to life; which picture is still preserved in the guardaroba of his Excellency.
His art-possessions he left to his pupils, namely, Bertoldo, a sculptor of Florence, who imitated him closely enough, as may be seen from a very beautiful battle between men on horseback, wrought in bronze, which is now in the guardaroba of the Lord Duke Cosimo; Nanni d'Antonio di Banco, who died before him; and Rossellino, Desiderio, and Vellano da Padova.
Gronau thinks it may be identical with the Venus "shortly described in a book of the Guardaroba of Grand Duke Cosimo II in the year 1621." The Portrait of Bishop Beccadelli was painted in July 1552, and is signed by Titian. It was bought, with the other Venetian pictures, by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici in 1654.
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