UNKNOWN MASTER, Italian
(active c. 1500 in Ferrara)

Tito Vespasiano Strozzi

c. 1500
Speculum metal, 19 x 16 cm
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

This relief is one of nearly ten plaques representing the same man in profile. Most versions carry the inscription TITVS STROCIVS, which identifies the sitter as Tito Vespasiano Strozzi (1422-1505), a well-known courtier of the ruling Este family in Ferrara. A pupil of the renowned scholar Guarino da Verona, Strozzi is among the educated elite accompanying Leonello d'Este.