Ottaviano Sforza Riario, b. 1479, Count of Forli and Imola [obverse]

Art Historical Context

This bronze medal, created around 1498 in the style of the Florentine medallist Niccolò Fiorentino, portrays Ottaviano Sforza Riario on its obverse. Born in 1479, the young sitter is identified as Count of Forlì and Imola, reflecting the complex web of noble families that shaped Renaissance politics in central Italy. As a late cast, the piece preserves the crisp profile format typical of fifteenth-century commemorative medals while offering later audiences access to an earlier design. Renaissance medals like this one served as portable portraits, blending sculpture and currency to celebrate status and lineage. Fiorentino’s workshop specialized in such works, using the durable bronze medium to capture idealized likenesses that could be distributed among courts and collectors. The obverse format implies a reverse side, often featuring symbolic imagery or heraldry that further narrated the subject’s identity. Housed in the National Gallery of Art’s Samuel H. Kress Collection, the medal invites viewers to consider how art documented power during a pivotal era of Italian history. Its modest scale—roughly the size of a modern coaster—belies the cultural weight these objects once carried as tokens of prestige and memory.

About the Artist

Style of Niccolò Fiorentino

"Style of Niccolò Fiorentino" refers to the distinctive manner of bronze portrait medals produced by the workshop, circle, or close followers of the Florentine medallist Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli (1430–1514), known as Niccolò Fiorentino. Born into a prominent family of Florentine goldsmiths, Spinelli—great-nephew of the painter Spinello Aretino—emerged as one of the leading figures in the burgeo...