Half-bust portrait of Vincenzo Pellegrini

The marble bust, which became part of the Civic Art Gallery in 1937 with the other items in the collection of Count Arnaldo Primo Arnaldi Tornieri, portrays the well-known lawyer Vincenzo Pellegrini, an important figure on the Venetian judicial scene in the mid sixteenth century.

At the end of the Fifties Pellegrini left Padua, where he had begun a promising career, and moved to Venice. There, as well as achieving success in the professional field, he was able to cultivate his passion for art and for collecting. He succeeded in putting together a rich collection of antique and Renaissance sculptures, while at the same time establishing relations of close friendship with the artists of whom he was himself a patron. One of these was the sculptor from Trento, Alessandro Vittoria, who made this portrait bust for him, originally one of a pair; the other bust, now lost, portrayed Vincenzo’s younger brother, Giambattista.

The expression on the face is tense and thoughtful: the bright eyes and the broad forehead are marked with wrinkles, the mouth is tightly closed, the eyebrows are raised.

The work, sculpted between 1561 and 1566, is distinguished by the vigorous movement of the head facing right and by the skill with which the sculptor, meticulously tooling the marble, succeeded in representing the anatomical details of the figure: from the folds of the pavilions of the ears to the hollow of the jugular, from the dimple of the chin to the curls – made with a drill – of the beard and the hair.

Stateliness and plasticism are the distinctive features of the bust which, as may be noted from certain details (the cloak fastened on the shoulder with a clasp and the presence of the pedestal), is inspired by Roman portrait busts of the imperial period.