Michelangelo's "Brutus" and the Classicizing Portrait Bust in Sixteenth-Century Italy

Abstract

Michelangelo's Brutus is usually considered the source and catalyst of the subsequent diffusion of the ciassicizing portrait bust in Italy. Yet there already existed a tradition in northern Italy, particularly in Padua and Venice, of making all'antica busts. The author argues that the Roman bust was revived in Padua by an interrelated group of antiquarians for reasons far removed from the desire to ape Michelangelo. Moreover, the traditional dating of the Brutus to 1539-40 is shown to be highly suspect. Although it is not known when Michelangelo began the work, its current appearance dates from the mid-1550s at the earliest, long after the classicizing bust had appeared in Florence and Venice.