The Italian Mannerist sculptor Leone Leoni, a…
1556 CE
The Italian Mannerist sculptor Leone Leoni, a medalist and engraver renowned for his work in bronze, has become master of the imperial mint in Milan, a dependency of the Habsburg emperor Charles V. Leone had visited the imperial courts in Brussels in 1548-49, and, in 1551, Augsburg, where he had received commissions for portraits of members of the Habsburg family.
Leoni has pioneered what is to become a common Baroque format for a portrait bust; mounted on a pedestal, and truncated at mid-chest, or the bottom of the stomach (often defined by an armored breast-plate), sweeping up at the sides to just below the shoulders.
He also makes life-size full-length portrait bronzes, like that of Charles V, which are not intended as funerary effigies, as nearly all previous examples had been.
Leoni makes a second visit to the imperial court in Brussels, where he receives in 1566 another round of commissions for portraits of members of the Habsburg family.