ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the theme of the reception of Italian Renaissance art in Poland by considering how images are disseminated. It uses the example of putto-and-skull motif to illustrate the importance of emblem books, medals, prints and plaquettes in the dissemination of Italian Renaissance artistic devices and ideas. The putto-and-skull motif, which later became popular throughout Europe as a memento mori, was appropriated in Renaissance Poland to represent an individual, named infant on funeral monuments. The chapter aims to establish the iconographical context for the dissemination and creative reception of the putto-and-skull motif, which first appeared on a medal by the Venetian Giovanni Boldu in 1458. Scher makes the point that, until recently, the influence of medals in Renaissance works of art has tended to be overlooked. Yet in the Renaissance period, numismatic studies flourished and the evidence provided by antique coins was considered to be more valuable than that of the literary sources.
