Portrait of Lodovico III Gonzaga

myminifactory

Ludovico III Gonzaga of Mantua, also spelled Lodovico (also Ludovico II; 5 June 1412 – 12 June 1478) was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua from 1444 to his death in 1478. Two editions of this bust exist with the same motifs, depicting the sitter in two extremes of his life (young and old). The work was featured in the Detroit Institute of Arts, "Italian Renaissance Sculpture in the Time of Donatello" (Detroit, 1985). Intil 1958 it was common to regard this bust, from Berlin, as being a work of Donatello, but a comparison with Donatello's contemporary "safe" works shows a great difference in treatment (e.g. The Head of Gattamelata, 1447-53). The bust here, The Detroit Institute of Art claims, bears traces of an untrained hand and is attributed to Alberti on the basis of stylistic similarities between his self-portrait medallions and the Lodovico busts. Maybe from Mantua.