page_title: Medal of John VIII Palaeologus
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Medal of John VIII Palaeologus / Description
caption_attribution_description: CdM, pisanello, medaglia di giovanni VIII paleologo v
context_page_description: The medal of John VIII Palaeologus is a portrait medal by the Italian Renaissance artist Pisanello. It is generally considered to be the first portrait medal of the Renaissance. On the obverse of the medal is a profile portrait of the penultimate Byzantine emperor, John VIII Palaeologus; the reverse contains an image of the emperor on horseback before a wayside cross. Although the date of the work is not clear it was likely to have been some time during 1438 and 1439, the years John was in Italy attending the Council of Ferrara. It is not known whether the emperor himself or his Italian hosts commissioned Pisanello to make the medal, but Leonello d’Este, the heir apparent to the marquisate of Ferrara, has been suggested as the most likely candidate. Several drawings by Pisanello are closely associated with the medal and these include sketches now held in Paris and Chicago.
  Its impact on art was significant: it extended beyond numismatics and the proliferation of outstanding Renaissance medals to influence sculpture and painting. Renaissance artists subsequently used Pisanello's portrait of John almost as a stock type to represent exotic or antique figures.
context_section_description: A number of specimens exist of Pisanello's medal of John; most of these are bronze or lead casts. Renaissance medals were often produced in a variety of metals, sometimes with a few gold or silver ones.  The bronze example in the British Museum measures 10.3 centimetres in diameter. The obverse of the work portrays a bust of the emperor looking to the right. His hair hangs in corkscrew curls and he sports a moustache and pointed beard. The emperor’s back is curved, giving the suggestion of a slight stoop. He is dressed in a high-necked shirt with an open jacket, with discernible buttons on both garments. The most striking aspect of the portrait is the emperor’s hat: this large garment occupies around half the pictorial space of the obverse. The hat is sharply peaked and its crown is tall, domed and vertically ribbed. Extravagant hats were typical of Byzantine officialdom and many were drawn by Pisanello. At the summit of the hat is a jewel which intrudes into the space of the Greek inscription encircling the portrait. The inscription reads: Ἰωάννης Βασιλεύς καί Αὑτοκρἀτωρ Ῥωμαἰων ό Παλαιολόγός (‘John, emperor and autocrat of the Romans, the Palaeologus’).  This style of hat is similar to that which had often been used to represent Mongols in earlier European painting.
  Unlike some of Pisanello's other portrait medals, such as those of Leonello d'Este, the reverse of the medal of John presents no iconographic or allegorical mysteries. It shows the emperor on horseback, in profile to the right. Behind him, mounted on another horse, is a page or squire viewed from the rear and foreshortened. The emperor wears his distinctive hat and carries a bow on his left side and a quiver of arrows above his right leg. The double reins of the emperor’s horse are visible and both horses possess elaborate straps over their hindquarters. The illustration conveys the arrest of a hunting expedition occasioned by John’s encounter with a pedestalled wayside cross. The gesture of the emperor’s raised right hand indicates his acknowledgement, in an act of piety, of the cross before him. The event takes place in a rocky landscape and is framed in the bottom portion by a Greek inscription: Ἕργον του Πισἀνου Ζωγρἀφου (‘The work of Pisano the painter’). This inscription is repeated in Latin within the top of the scene: OPVS • PISANI • PICTORIS.
caption: Medal of John VIII Palaeologus (reverse)
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