STACK'S BOWERS: RENAISSANCE MEDAL OFFERINGS

Cristoforo di Geremia (fl. 1450-1475). Portrait Medal of Paolo Dotti (fl. ca. 1289) of Padua. Offered at: $1,100 61.5 x 61.3 mm. 108.4 grams. Bronze. Kress 214, Hill 758c. Truncated bust to right, DOTTVS PATAVVS MILITIE PREFETVS PROPTER RES BENEGESTAS / Constancy standing, CONSTANTIA. Medal turn. Neat hole atop portrait. A very early cast with good bold detail on both sides. Medium steel brown with some olive encrustation around peripheries. Some dull marks and evidence of handing, vestiges of vertical chasing lines in reverse field. An unusual 15th century medal, insofar as it commemorates a military leader from the 13th century. Quite scarce.

Galeazzo Mondella, called Moderno (c. 1467-1529). Round Plaquette of The Fall of Phaeton or Death of Hippolytus. Offered at: $42,250 106.5 x 105.8 mm. 197 grams. Bronze. Molinier 191; Bange 467; Lewis ["The Plaquettes of 'Moderno' and His Followers," 1989] 29, fig. 33; Scaglia V.38; Kress 160; Maclagan p. 33; Bargello 174; Warren, Ashmolean, 324. Uniface. Rich charcoal brown patina with some trivial hints of brassy undertones on high points. Well detailed and attractive, with no evidence of chasing on the obverse. Some casting flaws and pits are seen on the blank back. Edges filed and finished, oval depression on edge at 12 o'clock remains from a former mounting. "Moderno" has been written in black ink in an antique script on the back. A magnificent piece of art, dated to ca. 1500-1505 and called "a very fine contemporary cast with dark patina" by Morton & Eden in 2020. Pieces of this quality and age bridge the gap between numismatics and adjacent fields of art and sculpture. This piece set an auction record for a plaquette by Moderno when it sold in 2020, surpassing the £22,800 level set by the more recently-attributed Moderno plaquette of Standing Hercules and the Nemean Lion in Morton & Eden's 2019 Auction 105, offered elsewhere in this sale. As an unquestioned work by Moderno himself of long standing, accomplished with astonishing expertise and vision, this plaquette stands atop his most desirable works. Douglas Lewis' 1989 paper in Studies in the History of Art, Vol. 22. describes this plaquette as "the masterpiece of Moderno s 'archaeologically' classicizing style," continuing to say: "The balance and foil of richly modeled forms, intricate curvilinear detail, and dramatic open space is nowhere better handled by Moderno than in the Phaeton."

Valerio Belli (1468-1546). Pair of Trapezoidal Bronze Plaquettes, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem and Christ in Limbo. Offered at: $31,700 The Entrance into Jerusalem. 100.9 x 63.4 mm. 113.3 grams. Bronze. Molinier 266; Bange 762; Gasparotto 53. Uniface. Deep brown applied patina shows traces of brassy color beneath. A bit of pewter solder is noted at top center of blank reverse. A fine early cast with elegant detail and no sign of chasing, some casting pits but no flaws. Collector mark B.M. incuse stamped, hidden at central base of design near exergue. Beveled edges neatly filed and rounded. A handsome early production.

Christ in Limbo. 100.5 x 61.9 mm. 107.8 grams. Bronze. Molinier 279; Bange 770; Gasparotto 60. Legend VALER BELLVS VICETI at left. Uniface. Deep brown applied patina shows traces of brassy color beneath. A bit of pewter solder is noted at top center of blank reverse where a mount has been lost. A fine early cast with excellent detail and good gloss despite fine granularity, a few little hints of dark verdigris within the design. Collector mark B.M. incuse stamped at top of design left of center. Beveled edges neatly filed and rounded. Fine and early.

As noted in the 2020 Morton & Eden catalog, "These form part of a series of similarly shaped plaquettes of the Passion of Christ referred to in the Kress catalogue, p. 10, of which The Entombment (Kress 10, fig. 352) is also from the Baron de Monville collection."

Unidentified Venetian Medalist (Niccolo da Ponte?). Portrait Medal of Vincenzo Maggi (1498-1564). Offered at: $1,600 33.3 x 33.1 mm. 14.9 grams. Silver. Armand II, 207, 20; Voltolina 534. Draped and bearded portrait to right, VICEN MAGIVS THEODI CONSTI TER EIVS QVI PNP / man rows while putto watches, NON EST VOLENTIS NEQVE CVRRENTIS SED MISERENTIS DEI. Medal turn. Attractive light silver gray with iridescent gold and pastel highlights. Fully chased on both sides, including fine details in the design elements and all peripheral legends. Fields on both sides are elegantly smoothed. Minor depression flaw behind portrait. The obverse inscription comes from Job 14, the reverse from Romans 9. Maggi was a philosophy professor at Padua and Ferrara. A very attractive early casting.

Girolamo Santacroce (1502-1537). Portrait Medal of Andrea Caraffa, Count of Santa Severina and Viceroy of Naples. Offered at: $1,100 37.0 x 37.5 mm. 33.1 grams. Bronze. Armand II, 108, 13; Kress 109; Pollard 155. Helmeted bust to left, ANDREAS CARRAFA - S SEVERINAE COMES / Prudence seated, NILABEST in exergue. Coin turn. A thick early cast with the brassy surface tone of a sestertius. Darker toning and shallow encrustation present around design elements, some smoothing scratches seen in right obverse field. Handsome and well detailed.

Jacopo Nizzola da Trezzo (ca. 1515-1589). Portrait Medal of Gianello della Torre of Cremona (1501-1585). Offered at: $26,400 81.0 mm. 173 grams. Bronze. Attwood 91; Armand I, 170, 38; Kress 441a; Pollard 501; Scher (Currency of Fame) 55. Medal turn. Portrait to right, IANELLVS TVRRIAN CREMON HOROLOG ARCHITECT / Fountain of Science at center with grateful crowd surrounding, VIRTVS NVNQ DEFICIT. An exquisite early casting, with fine detail and glossy surfaces. Two mould cracks are nearly perpendicular in the right obverse field. Edges filed and smoothed to roundness. Obverse fields smoothed with light pin scratches, reverse chased at vertical flaw extending upwards from T of DEFICIT. A minuscule neat hole is noted outside the border at 12 o'clock. A very handsome portrait medal, described as "an extremely fine contemporary cast of high quality with dendritic patterns in the brown patina" by Morton & Eden in 2018. The Italian medallist and engraver Jacopo Nizzolo de Trezzo left Milan about 1555 and eventually ended up in Madrid. He masterfully rendered this lifelike portrait of another Italian in Spain, the clockmaker Gianello della Torre, described as "Gianello della Torre from Cremora, builder of clocks" in the obverse legend. The reverse translates as "Virtue never fails." On being appointed court clockmaker by Charles V in 1529, della Torre relocated to Toledo, where he lived until his death. He was celebrated for his clocks, his engineering feats, and toy-like automatons, then considered feats of mechanical wonder.

Domenico Poggini (1520 - ca. 1590). Portrait Medal of Domenico Fontana (1543-1607), 1586. Offered at: $3,175 38.2 x 38.6 mm. 27.2 grams. Bronze. Armand II, 263, 7; Löbbecke 104; Bargello 839. Portrait to right in ruff collar, DOMINIC FONTANA CIV RO COM PALAT ET EQ AVR. / Vatican obelisk, EX NER CIR TRANST - VLIT ET EREXIT. Medal turn. Holed at 12 o'clock. An extraordinary portrait piece, an attractive early cast. Medium brown with darker peripheries. High relief portrait shows exceptional detail, fields are glossy despite being a bit granular and unchased. Edge filed and smoothed. Some very trivial doubling is seen at the bases of some letters in the reverse inscription. Well preserved and attractive. An important medal, marking the removal of one of Rome's ancient Egyptian obelisks from the Vatican hill to the middle of St. Peter's Square. Caligula brought the obelisk to Rome from Heliopolis in 40 AD. Pope Sixtus V engaged Domenico Fontana, an architect, to move it to its present location on September 10, 1586, a moving process that took 800 men and 160 horses one day after 13 months of planning. St. Peter's Square was designed around the obelisk a century later. This medal marking its placement is rarely encountered today in any form.

Federico Cocciola (fl. 1566-1613). Portrait Medal of Prospero Publicola Santacroce (1514-1589). Offered at: $1,600 50.9 mm x 50.4 mm. 64.1 grams. Bronze. Armand I, 263, 5; Kress 377. Bust to right, .PROS PER.SANCTA CRVCIVS.S.R.E.CARD. / Santacroce's villa, GEROCOMIO around, date 1579 below. Medal turn. A handsome early casting with deep brown applied patina over brassy surfaces. Smoothed to gloss in the fields, lightly granular elsewhere. Edges smoothed and finished to roundness. A very handsome example with a high profile portrait. Santacroce was a cardinal who holds the distinction of being the first European to grow tobacco for his own use.

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