Mirabello Cavalori

This painting was published by Claudio Pizzorusso in 1998 with an attribution to Mirabello Cavalori, one of the most innovative artists who worked on the series of paintings for Francesco I de’ Medici’s Studiolo in Palazzo Vecchio between 1570 and 1572, under the supervision of Giorgio Vasari. His style combines echoes of Pontormo with a new naturalistic sensitivity in his portraiture, depiction of fabrics and use of light.

The present work is a complex allegory symbolising friendship, dense in meaning and allusion. The young man pulls open his tunic with his left hand while pointing with his right to his vibrant red heart, which bears the inscription procul prope (near and far) in gold lettering, the inscription hyemes et ver (winter and spring) in red lettering hovers over the young man’s head, while the bottom of his tunic bears the inscription mors et vita (life and death) twice over, once in dark lettering on the white hem and again in red lettering on the green tunic itself. These symbols plus the dog visually represent the loyalty required for two people to remain friends even in opposing situations: near and far, in winter and spring, in life and death. This allegorical “type” is based on one described in Lilio Gregorio Giraldi’s De Deis Gentium , where the personification is a young man, head bowed, sporting a rough tunic bearing the same inscriptions as Cavalori uses in this painting.