Volterrano’s portrait of Marchese Luigi di Alberto Altoviti presents its youthful, effeminate sitter in the guise of a figure from the classical tradition, a convention embraced by the painters of the Baroque era. The pitcher and tazza clasped by the sitter have led to identifications with two mythological protagonists whose beauty secured their destiny: Hylas, the companion of Hercules abducted by a river nymph while he was fetching water, and Ganymede, admired and then kidnapped by Jove to become his cupbearer. As Gerhard Ewald noted, the beautiful pageboy “dressed up in mythological attire…as Ganymede or Hylas” was a conceit favored by the intellectually sophisticated Florentine patrons of Volterrano, a favorite painter of the Medici (see Gerhard Eward, “Unknown works by Baldassare Franceschini, called Il Voterrano (1611–1689)” Burlington Magazine 115, 842 (1973), p. 283).



Filippo Baldinucci, Volterrano’s earliest biographer, mentions three depictions of Hylas by the artist: “Per Cosimo Citerni dipinse a olio in un ovato un Ilo col vaso: per Francesco Parrocchiani figurò in un quadro a olio un Ila colla Tazza e col vaso d’oro: e per questo si servi dell’effigie al naturale del marchese Altoviti, che allora dello stesso principe era paggio di Valigia, stimato uno de’piu leggiadri giovani, che vedesse quell’età; onde io diro cio, che in altro caso disse il Caro, che per eccellenza dell’opera, e per la bellezza del rappresentato, scorge, chi guarda questa pittura, due maraviglie in un tempo stesso" and somewhat later in this text, "Iacopo del Turco ebbe un Ila con vaso storiato, che poi fu del marchese Carlo Gerini.” [For Cosimo Citerni he painted in oil an oval with Hylas with the vase: for Francesco Parrocchiani he made a painting in oil with Hylas with the cup and golden vase: and for this he used the life-size likeness of the Marchese Altoviti, who was then a valet to the abovementioned prince, and considered one of the most graceful young men of the time: therefore I will quote, what on another occasion, the dear Prince said, that, for the excellence of the work and the beauty of the sitter, the viewer, on looking at this picture, discovers two marvels simultaneously… Jacopo del Turco had a Hylas with a vase, decorated with the theme, which then went to the marchese Carlo Gerini.] (See Baldinucci 1728, p. 161).



The present work has been identified with the one Baldinucci described as being destined for Francesco Parrocchiani, a gentleman in the entourage of Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici (1617–1675), and representing the Marchese Altoviti, a page to Leopoldo, posed as Hylas with a golden cup and pitcher, and painted life-size. As noted by Maria Cecila Fabbri, this description correlates perfectly with the present work. Fabbri further proposed the identification of the figure with Ganymede, as Hylas generally carries only a pitcher, while Ganymede, in his role as dispenser of ambrosia on Olympus, holds both pitcher and cup. Fabbri suggests that Baldinucci suppressed the correct title and substituted that of Hylas instead to obfuscate the homoerotic overtones implied by the association of the painting and its patron with the myth of a youth abducted for the pleasure of a god. For indeed, Baldinucci also recorded Leopoldo’s great delight with the canvas. A scholar, connoisseur, and patron of the arts from Florence’s ruling dynasty who became a cardinal in 1667, Leopoldo is reported to have said that the quality of Volterrano’s painting together with the beauty of the sitter offered two marvels to be appreciated simultaneously.



Altoviti’s elegant pose and the suggestive arrangement of his hands, holding the pitcher and the cup in one whilst securing the sumptuous blue sweep of drapery at his hip with the other, evoke an informal and decidedly sensuous mood. At the same time, his luxuriant mane of reddish-brown curls, his boyish physique, and the curious, beckoning gaze with which he transfixes that of the viewer suggests at once the innocence of youth and also a certain femininity. Thus, the sitter embodies the alluring ambiguities of androgyny at the heart of the Platonic ideal of male beauty, a theme which captured the imaginations of artists and patrons of the Renaissance and Baroque periods alike, inspiring some of the most frankly sensual images of the early modern era.



Volterrano, as noted by Baldinucci, painted the subject of Hylas or Ganymede more than once, and further examples not mentioned by the biographer also punctuate the artist’s known oeuvre. The third work mentioned by Baldinucci, described as Hylas holding a vase with “storiato” decorations, has been identified as the painting now in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, in which a narrative frieze around the body of the vase depicts Hylas being carried off by nymphs (fig. 1). The second work mentioned by Volterrano, an oval, may be identifiable with a picture that appeared on the art market in Milan in 2000. The Stuttgart painting of Hylas was dated to 1670s when it was included in the exhibition Il Seicento Fiorentino held at Palazzo Strozzi in 1987, although the 2013 monograph on the artist suggests a date of around 1657. The present painting might be placed at a somewhat earlier date. Ganymede’s pose, far more informal and provocative than its counterpart in Stuttgart, finds a most striking echo in the figure of a cupbearer in the scene illustrating the Future Grand Duke, Cosimo II de’Medici Receiving the Knights of Saint Stephen in the fresco cycle depicting I Fasti Medicei in the Villa la Petraia, which was completed in 1648 (fig. 2). Indeed, it might be noted that Cardinal Leopoldo was nephew to Franceschini’s first important patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici (1599–1648); thus the present work can plausibly be dated to the late 1640s on the basis of its similarity to the Villa Petraia frescoes and the artist’s links during that period with the Medici family.



Fig. 1. Volterrano, Hylas, ca. 1657, oil on canvas, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.

Fig. 2. Volterrano, The Future Grand Duke, Cosimo II de’ Medici Receiving the Knights of Saint Stephen (detail), completed 1648, fresco, Villa la Petraia, Florence.