Visual and Verbal Portraits of Cardinals in Fifteenth-Century Florence

Abstract

Although the city of Florence lacked a cardinal for most of the fifteenth century, the city was not lacking in cardinal portraits during the same period. This chapter examines two visual portraits of cardinals by Bicci di Lorenzo and Francesco di Antonio del Chierico alongside written portraits found in a diary by Bartolommeo di Michele del Corazza and the Lives of Vespasiano da Bisticci. The chapter argues that specific contexts can help explain the choices made by artists and authors to provide or shun idiosyncratic details in their works.