Commissioned for the convent of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, in 1628.

Canvas has a very old relining. The picture is quite dirty and is covered in an older discolored varnish, which has rendered any retouches underneath mostly invisible. A few small retouches are discernible under UV in the craquelure of the sitter's forehead. Overall, the picture appears to be in healthy condition with no major damages and has retained much detailing. It would likely respond quite well to a surface clean and fresh varnish. Picture is unframed.
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An inscription on the front of this canvas identifies the sitter as Alessandro di Jacopo Strozzi, later known as “Beato Alessio”.  Born in Florence in 1350 to noble and wealthy parents, Alessandro Strozzi joined the convent of Santa Maria Novella at the age of fourteen and, despite the pleas of his family and mother Diana de’ Giamburrari, chose the Dominican order.  A cultured and respected theologian, Strozzi was elected as prior in 1381, yet two years later he was taken ill and died on the 19^th August 1383, at the age of 31.¹  He was buried at the entrance to the family chapel in Santa Maria Novella where a tombstone, engraved with his name, is still visible today.

Unpublished until now, this canvas is a rare and significant example of the portraiture of Jacopo Vignali, the foremost painter of the Florentine Seicento.  Employed in the workshop of Matteo Roselli from the turn of the seventeenth century, by 1616 Vignali had emerged as an autonomous artist.  In his biography of Vignali, Giovanni Pagliarulo published important archival documents that the artist was employed by the convent of Santa Maria Novella in 1628, under the charge of Vincenzio Antifonti, the Florentine predicatore generale, to execute a series of portraits of illustrious gentlemen.²  The dimensions of the present painting correspond with those of two other works dedicated to beati, one formerly with Galerie Canesso, Paris and another in a private collection.³  Beato Alessio turns to the viewer with a luminescent face and large dark eyes, captured in very close detail.  While the sitter’s gaze is depicted in sharp focus, the white collar is executed with swift, soft brushstrokes, reminiscent of the technique used to depict the fabric of the young Saint Benedict’s robes in the Investiture of Saint Benedict, signed and dated, 1620, and now in the Seminario Maggiore, Florence.

Here, the head is portrayed with expressive intensity, reflecting🐬 the influence of Cristoforo Allori, inventor of the seventeenth century emotional portrait in Florence.  Vignali takes Cristoforo’s  ideals to the extreme, equaling him in the realistic depiction of skin while also concentrating on an introspective analysis of his sitters.

The taste for luministic contrast here is typical of Vignali’s youth, the fleshy treatment of the lips and the bright touch of light on the nose remind us of the Galerie Canesso Portrait of a young man similar in its technique and also in the intense emotion of the gaze.  Having ascertained an exact date of 1628 for the present painting, it seems likely the Portrait of a young man dates to the same year.   The portrait of Beato Alessio dates to perhaps the most felicitous period of Vignali&rsquo🉐;s career, when his work displayed similarities with that of the Emilian Guercino and the Genovese Bernardo Strozzi.

Francesca Baldassari

1.  G.M. Brocchi, Vite de’ Santi e Beati fiorentini, Florence 1791, pp. 153-154; L. Strozzi, Vite indeite di quattro uomini illustri di casa Strozzi, Florence 1854 pp. 11-19.
2.  G. Pagliarulo in Il Seicento fiorentino. Arte a Firenze da Ferdinando I a Cosimo III, exhibition catalogue, Florence 1986, p. 184;  F. Baldinucci and A.F. Marmi, Notizie dei professori del disegno, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Fondo Naz. II, II, 110, XVII-XVIII sec, cc. 68 – 69.
3.  For comparative portraits see F. Baldassari, La pittura del Seicento a Firenze,♛ Turin 2009, pp. 710-713, reproduced figs.📖 433 and 434.