Medusenschild

The Medusa Shield is one of the best preserved and iconographically most complex shields produced during the Italian Renaissance. Framed by damascened garlands, the Gorgon’s severed head forms the centre of the composition. The second concentric ring features contemporary and classical trophies, as well as David, Samson, Hercules, and Judith. Note the inscription in the book placed bottom right in this ring: CA/RO/LO/V. Although difficult to decipher, it seems to reference Emperor Charles V.

The outermost ring is decorated with portrait busts of, respectively, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, and Scipio Aemilianus set in medallions, as well as figurative scenes inspired by Classical and Classicizing templates. For instance, the bottom left section copies an ancient sarcophagus (Paris, Louvre) that in the Renaissance stood in the cloister of San Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere, in Rome. The top right quadrant contains motifs apparently inspired by a relief in the Campo Santo in Pisa. The bottom right quadrant is based on Andrea Mantegna’s engraving Battle of the Sea Gods from the 1470s.

The Medusa Shield and the lion burgonet (inv. A 693d) were traditionally regarded as belonging to a single all’antica ensemble because they were listed and described together in the 1596 inventory of the estate of Archduke Ferdinand II at Ambras. Stylistically, however, the two pieces differ markedly, despite their shared virtuoso handling and the fact that both were produced at Milan.

Moreover, the traditional attribution to Emperor Charles V does not seem to be correct. It was mainly based on a much earlier dating of the shield to the time of his campaigns against Tunis (1535) and Algiers (1541), but stylistically this is unlikely.