What’s with Braccio di Bartolo and his strategically placed moth? Braccio was a court jester of Cosimo I de’ Medici in 16th-century Florence and stood for this Agnolo Bronzino portrait around 1564. Somewhere in the ensuing centuries, Braccio was given a pair of underwear made of vines and his owl replaced with a goblet, transforming him into a more modest Bacchus. The painting was restored to its former glory for a 2010 exhibition on Bronzino.
You too can become the possessor of strange and wonderful facts when you browse The Ames Library’s collection of periodicals on the east side of the first floor, from which this issue of The Art Bulletin is drawn!