Santi di Tito

(Sansepolcro, 1536 - Firenze, 1603)

The typology of the double portrait was frequently explored by Santi di Tito, who enjoyed equal reputation and authority both as a painter of sacred subjects and as a specialist in portraiture. The present remarkable painting constitutes a noble testimony to Florentine portraiture in the final decades of the sixteenth century, by then distant from the boldness of Pontormo and Mannerism, and directed instead towards a more restrained and domestic naturalism: in line, moreover, with the private and familial function of the work and the presumably “bourgeois” status of the sitters, also confirmed by the simplicity of their clothing. Of the sitters, the painting records only their ages (28 and 10), which, however, do not necessarily indicate a father-and-son relationship, but could also suggest a fraternal bond between the two figures.