Re-Envisioning the Ancients: Pontano, Ghirlandaio, and Exemplarity

Abstract

Ghirlandaio's 1483 Florentine frescoes depict a series of republican Roman heroes, in support of Lorenzo de' Medici's princely government. In a similar vein, Pontano's 1468 De principe proposes an unbroken line of heroic exemplars, in which the young prince Alfonso must play his part. Pontano's letter suggests that the past is visually accessible: by gazing upon written histories, the prince will be spurred to a bodily reproduction of ancient actions. Yet just as Ghirlandaio's frescoes invite new interpretations of written histories, so too Pontano's text offers nuances of meaning, codifying a princely behaviour that depends primarily on appearances, and exposing exemplarity as a dissimulatory pose whose main purpose is to retain power. Like Ghirlandaio's Cicero, whose ambiguous pose both suggests virtuous exemplarity and defies definition, Pontano's prince must cultivate a show of virtue combined with mystery, anticipating much sixteenth-century advice for courtiers.