Sei oggetti in cerca di un volto: Sabba da Castiglione e l’ultima immagine di sé

Despite the strong conditioning intrinsic to his position that led him to a concrete reformist commitment in the growing rigorist climate, Sabba da Castiglione certainly did not lack the willingness to be portrayed. We have preserved four portraits, differing as much in the materials and techniques employed (a gem, two frescoes and a woodcut) as in their purpose and use. And in the famous Ricordo 109 entitled Circa gli ornamenti della casa, published in the Ricordi, one of the most widely read books of the second half of the 16th century, Sabba offers us a significant case of a collector’s image, in which the self-referential tone well deserves an examination of its relationship with the portrait and the impulse to self-representation. Above all, it is a matter of reflecting on the function and meaning of the often apparently contradictory image he so carefully constructed of himself.