Here, for example, are some good Medici portraits by Bronzino, among them the famous Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, in a rich brocade (in which she was buried), with the little staring Ferdinand I beside her.

Eleanora, as we saw in chapter V.was the first mistress of the Pitti palace, and the lady who so disliked Cellini and got him into such trouble through his lying tongue.

Bronzino's little Maria de' Medici--No.

1164--is more pleasing, for the other picture has a sinister air.

This child, the first-born of Cosimo I and Eleanora, died when only sixteen.