Michelangelo · c. 1539-1540
Bust of Brutus
Michelangelo
Bust of Brutus
c. 1539-1540
Michelangelo's unfinished marble 'Bust of Brutus' (c. 1542–1544) casts the Roman tyrannicide as a Republican hero — almost certainly a coded tribute to Lorenzino de' Medici's assassination of the Florentine despot Alessandro de' Medici in 1537. Following the antique Roman bust format but left with deliberately raw, non-finito passages at the neck and back, it is a characteristic late Michelangelo sculpture now in the Bargello in Florence.
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Image source: Wikimedia Commons