1597 (ca.), Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), Head of Medusa -- Uffizi Gallery (Florence)
From the museum label: This parade shield was given to Grand Duke Ferdinando I by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, a Medici agent at the papal court in Rome, in 1598. It was intended for the new armoury, where it was part of the knightly accoutrements of a dummy on horseback wearing Persian armour. The subject, based on the Classical myths on which Caravaggio had trained in his youth, is reinterpreted here in a naturalistic vein, the eyes open wide in horror, the mouth frozen in a cry of revulsion, the writhing tangle of serpents (paralleled in the scientific plates commissioned by the Medici from Jacopo Ligozzi) seemingly at odds with the drastically severed neck.
1597 (ca.), Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), Head of Medusa -- Uffizi Gallery (Florence)
From the museum label: This parade shield was given to Grand Duke Ferdinando I by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, a Medici agent at the papal court in Rome, in 1598. It was intended for the new armoury, where it was part of the knightly accoutrements of a dummy on horseback wearing Persian armour. The subject, based on the Classical myths on which Caravaggio had trained in his youth, is reinterpreted here in a naturalistic vein, the eyes open wide in horror, the mouth frozen in a cry of revulsion, the writhing tangle of serpents (paralleled in the scientific plates commissioned by the Medici from Jacopo Ligozzi) seemingly at odds with the drastically severed neck.