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 (later moved to Florence). 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. This can be seen in the work of Piero della Francesca who used the image of John in his Flagellation of Christ and Arezzo frescoes.
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: +ἸΩÁΝΝΗC • BACIΛEV̀C • KAÌ • ἈVTOKPÁTΩP • ῬΩMÁIΩN • Ὁ • ΠAΛΑIOΛÓΓΟC (‘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: ἜPΓON • TÔV • ΠICÁNOV • ZΩΓPÁΦOV (‘The work of Pisano the painter’). This inscription is repeated in Latin within the top of the scene: OPVS • PISANI • PICTORIS.
Historical context
The Council of Ferrara
Pisanello's medal was created in response to John's visit to Italy. The emperor had been invited to attend the council in Ferrara by pope Eugenius IV to address the question of unifying the Latin and Greek churches. One of John's chief motivations for unification was to secure help from the western powers in order to meet the constant threat to his crumbling empire from the Turks. The emperor arrived in Venice in February 1438 where he was met by Niccolò III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara. Niccolò, with his sons Leonello and Borso, accompanied the emperor as they rode into Ferrara on the 4 March. Following its first magnificent opening public session on 9 April 1438, the council was repeatedly postponed until the 8 October to allow the many different representatives of the European rulers to arrive. During this lengthy period of waiting for the representatives, the emperor relocated outside of Ferrara because of an outbreak of plague in the city. He occupied himself with hunting: his enthusiasm for the sport was such that Niccolò was forced on two occasions to make unsuccessful representations to the emperor requesting that he restrain his hunting activities because of the damage to the local game population and surrounding properties. John was also criticized by the contemporary Greek chronicler Syropoulos (who was possibly Patriarch Sophronius I of Constantinople when a young cleric) for spending "all his time hunting without bothering in the slightest with ecclesiastical affairs."
In order to encourage John's attendance to the council, the pope offered to pay the expenses of the Greek delegation. Eugenius found this offer extremely difficult to honour, particularly as John's entourage numbered around seven hundred. In January 1439, however, the Council removed to Florence upon the invitation of Cosimo de' Medici to whom the pope was heavily indebted. In Florence contentious points of theology were resolved, particularly the Filioque, which had contributed significantly to the Great Schism. A decree of union was signed in Florence in July 1439. When John and his delegation returned to Constantinople, however, it was strongly rejected by the clergy and lay population there, and never took effect. Although the exact date of Pisanello's medal is not known, most writers hold that it is more likely to have been made in Ferrara rather than Florence. One reason for this is the existence of a letter dated 12 May 1439 in which Pisanello is promised payment from a church in Mantua, near Ferrara.
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