Portrait of Jacopo del Casentino - Cristoforo Coriolano

A sixteenth-century woodcut portrait of the painter Jacopo del Casentino, originally featured in the 1568 edition of Vasari's 'Le Vite'.

This woodcut portrait depicts the Florentine painter Jacopo del Casentino, who was active during the mid-fourteenth century. The print originates from the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's 'Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori', published in 1568. Cristoforo Coriolano, a German-born engraver working in Italy, produced a series of such portraits to accompany the biographical entries in Vasari's text.

The composition follows a standard format for the publication: a bust-length portrait enclosed within an oval frame, which is then set inside a rectangular decorative border. The subject wears a period-appropriate cap and tunic, rendered with clear, deliberate lines that define the facial features and the folds of the fabric. The cross-hatching technique provides a sense of volume and shadow, typical of the woodcut medium used for book illustration during the sixteenth century.

Below the portrait, the text identifies the subject as 'Iacopo Landini, Pittore di Casentino', noting his activity around 1350. The inclusion of the number '20' suggests this print was part of a larger sequence within the volume. The decorative border features a repeating foliate motif, providing a structured frame that separates the portrait from the surrounding page. This work is a representative example of the illustrative style employed in Renaissance biographical literature, where the visual record was used to document the appearance of artists whose work had preceded the publication by several centuries. The print reflects the technical precision of Coriolano, whose contributions to the 1568 edition of Vasari's work are well-documented in the history of printmaking.