Gallery owners donate rare terracotta Renaissance medal, dated 1581, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

Gallery owners donate rare terracotta Renaissance medal, dated 1581, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

Following the acquisition of a scarce 16th century terracotta medal, the gallerists of Old World Wonders (Leesburg, VA) found it appropriate to donate it to the National Gallery of Art whose vast holdings of Renaissance medals are the most important public collection of its type in the United States.

Renaissance medals represent the genesis of modern medals still culturally relevant and in-use in modern times. In 2007 the National Gallery of Art published their authoritative catalog of Renaissance Medals, representing 957 medals in their collection and expounding upon the importance of medals for both artists and patrons and their role in culture throughout the centuries.

The terracotta medal donated by Old World Wonders is a unique addition to the collection since most medals of the Renaissance were cast in bronze and other precious metals.

National Gallery of Art associate curator of sculpture, Eleonora Luciano, writes:

“This medal of the little-known poet and astrologer Giovanni Francesco Tinti is of particular interest because though it follows the typology of a bronze medal, it is made of terracotta. It seems to have been created with very fine clay pressed into molds and then fired.

Examples of the medal have been excavated in at least four locations in Tuscany: In the ruins of the tower in the village of Porcari (near Lucca), in the ruins of a structure at the summit of Monte Giovi (about 20 miles west of Florence), under the floor in a chapel in the convent of Santa Maria a Ripa (near Empoli), and in the castle of Montalto. Following the practice of burying medals in the foundations of buildings that was established in the fifteenth century, Tinti assiduously placed groups of his medals in protected sites for future discovery. In an inscription on a clay tablet placed with medals at Santa Maria a Ripa, our astrologer boldly claimed: ‘I placed these (medals) so as to give an example to posterity.’

On the medal’s obverse the proud Tinti is crowned with laurel, wears Romanizing drapery and looks up at three stars placed in the field, a clear reference to his poetic and astrological aspirations. On the reverse is Tinti’s coat of arms, which also includes three stars.”

The medal was inventoried in the NGA collections under: 2015.178.1.a and 2015.178.1.b. Tinti’s ambition for posterity appears to have succeeded him in this public reception of his otherwise obscure legacy.

October 2015

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