Seated Roselli [reverse] c. 1460 - 1466

This bronze medal was made by Bartolomeo Bellano in fifteenth-century Italy. It presents us with a seated figure, possibly a depiction of a Roman emperor, surrounded by an inscription. Bellano was a sculptor in Padua, a city-state which, at this time, had strong ties to the humanist culture of Venice, where there was great interest in classical antiquity. Medals like these were luxury items designed to signal one's awareness of classical antiquity. They represent a humanist desire to reconnect with an ancient past seen as authoritative. The inscription is in Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, which suggests the desire for a revived "golden age" and a renewed cultural authority. The medal itself seems to participate in a social project that extends beyond the limits of art, and it hints at the cultural values that informed Bellano's artistic production. Historians of art often rely on a combination of visual and textual evidence to interpret works like this, looking at period documents to determine the social and intellectual contexts of their production.