Leseprobe

126 Elector Friedrich III of Saxony, called “the Wise” Adriano Fiorentino Florence 1450/60–1499 Florence 1498 Bronze; 62.8×49.5×27 cm From Hartenfels Castle in Torgau Inv. no. H4 1/1 Friedrich the Wise (1463–1525) was Elector of Saxony since 1486. As arch-mar- shal to three German-Roman emperors, he was one of the most influential sover- eign princes of his time. Friedrich founded the university at Wittenberg and be- came the protector of Martin Luther, to whose ideas he was open, although he did not implement the Reformation in his lands. In 1505 he appointed Lucas Cranach the Elder as court painter. The signature identifies the bust as the work of the Florentine artist Adriano Fiorentino, who worked as a sculptor, medallist and canon founder in Florence, Naples, Urbino and Mantua. Adriano’s travels took him as far as Innsbruck, to the court of Emperor Maximilian I, and perhaps even to southern Germany. As Friedrich III paid repeated visits to the imperial court at the time when the bust – dated 1498 – was made, it can be assumed that it was created there and can thus be regarded as the earliest example of an Italian portrait bust from the early Re- naissance to be executed north of the Alps. A typical feature is the way the bust terminates in a straight line, an element deriving from medieval reliquary busts. Under the influence of classical models this was superseded in the 16th century by a rounded termination above a pedestal. It is generally assumed that Adriano created the model for the bust while the cast and chasing was the work of a Ger- man master.  |  ckg