Between Originals and Copies: Notes on Ottoman Portraits from the Giovio Collection

This article aims to further discuss the relationship between originals and copies within the collection of the historian Paolo Giovio from Como. Particular attention is paid to a nucleus of portraits of Ottoman Sultans, the existance of which is also attested in Giovio’s Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (Florence, 1551). Among the series of copies made, the first one, painted by Cristofano dell’Altissimo for Cosimo de’ Medici and now preserved in the Uffizi Galleries of Florence, is taken into consideration. The final remarks concern the echo and influences that Giovio’s collected portraits might have had in the Ottoman territories.