Funerary Monument of Leonardo Bruni

In this portrait, carved around 1450, we find the fusion of physiognomic truth and idealization of the sitter that had found its highest expression in Donatello. Compared with Donatello’s examples, in which the reality of death adds individualizing tension to the portrait, and with the ostentatious classicism of Michelozzo’s head of Aragazzi, this “death mask” bears witness to a cultural position which, though born of the same climate, unifies its demands in an inspired solution of humanist poetry. Rossellino models Bruni’s features with analytical fidelity, without Donatello’s burning emotional participation and without the formal screen of Michelozzo’s courtly repertoire. In the calm naturalness of lucid observation, it is the most compelling figurative translation of the humanist concept of human wisdom, which had found its full personification in the Chancellor.