Portret van Alessandro Achillini 1549 - 1577

This is an undated portrait of Alessandro Achillini, made by an anonymous artist with etching. Achillini was a prominent philosopher and physician in Bologna, Italy, around the turn of the 16th century. This portrait offers us a glimpse into the cultural and institutional landscape of Renaissance intellectual life. The fashion of Achillini’s clothes, especially his hat, is a marker of status within the university culture of the period. The decorative flourishes around the edge of the image, too, may give us a sense of the ways that humanist learning was perceived at the time. It is worth remembering that, while the Renaissance is remembered for its radical thinking, this thinking was almost always underpinned by patronage. It is highly likely that Achillini himself, or one of his wealthy supporters, would have commissioned this etching to cement his position in the academic and social hierarchy. To better understand the social world of this image, we would need to research the archives of the University of Bologna, to look at the histories of printing and patronage, and, of course, to study the writings of Achillini himself. The image is simply the beginning of our enquiry.