The Cover Section Editor: M. Therese Southgate,
MD, Senior Contributing Editor.
In a city and at a time like no other, he was himself like no other.
An apprentice of Leonardo, a friend of Michelangelo, and, eventually, a rival
of Andrea del Sarto, the Italian Mannerist painter Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1556)
was born, as his name suggests, in Pontormo, not far from Florence. His father
was a painter, Bartolomeo Carucci, his mother Alessandra di Zanobi. Both died
before the boy was 10. Left in the care of his maternal grandfather, he was
orphaned twice more in rapid succession, first at age 12 when his grandfather
died, and again when his grandmother died. Before her death, however, she
took him to Florence, ensured his property rights there, and left him in the
care of a relative. Shortly thereafter he became an apprentice to Leonardo
da Vinci. The boy was apparently a prodigy. In a city of luminaries, Pontormo
would become one of them, to be sure perhaps not the greatest, but certainly
far from the least. And thanks to the gossipy Georgio Vasari, who in vivid
detail (and with some relish, one suspects) recorded his behavioral peculiarities
in his Lives, Pontormo is also remembered as one
of the more colorful of Florence's numerous eccentrics. While Vasari's lengthy
entry on Pontormo contains many descriptions and locations of his works that
would not have been otherwise available, one suspects that Vasari also enjoyed
"the human interest angle" he injected into his stories.
Southgate MT. Portrait of a Halberdier (Francesco Guardi?). JAMA. 2003;290(2):161. doi:10.1001/jama.290.2.161