ABSTRACT
Late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento portraits of Renaissance court family life, at the same time, both underscored the signi cance of the dynastic legacy of the family, implicit in the heraldry and placement of images of privileged children, and introduced an element of familial association that determined the future of the court itself. Painters and sculptors, in the employ of the dukes and counts of central and Northern Renaissance courts, utilized the trope of the interconnectedness of an extended privileged family, as introduced by Augustus in the Ara Pacis Augustae , 13-9 bc, Rome.1 Andrea Mantegna , in the environmentally frescoed Camera Picta , Ducal Palace , Mantua, 1465-74, framed the minor family members of the family of Ludovico Gonzaga and Barbara von Hollenzollern in a setting that emphasized their dominion over both the physical space of the palazzo and the contado under their political control, and through the portrait of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, their entry into the principate of the Church hierarchy.2 Federigo da Montefeltro , singular in his emulation of the antique in his Humanistic court and support of scholars and philosophical inquiry, had his heir, Guidobaldo, included in every artistic commission from his regency as Duke of Urbino .3 Notably, as a youth, Federigo was a hostage in the courts of Northern Italy , in Mantua itself. Although most of their dynastic portraits follow the elevation of a private family to noble status in 1523, when Alessandro de’ Medici was created Duke of Florence , the newly ennobled Medici had practiced in the eenth century, in the Cappella dei Magi, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (c.1459), by the hand of Benozzo Gozzoli.4 eir established role in Florence and their children’s portraits supporting this idea were also made public in the Sassetti Chapel , St Trinità (1483-6) by Domenico Ghirlandaio , commissioned by Francesco Sassetti, and not the Medici themselves.5 Just as Augustus had employed a public monument in a sacred setting to legitimize
the privilege and principium of his family , so also did the nobili nuovi seek status and recognition of dynastic privilege in portraiture .
