Daughter of viceroy of Naples Don Pedro di Toledo, Eleonora married Cosimo I de' Medici in 1539 and died in 1562.
He was the illegitimate son of a merchant, from Pistoia, Bartholomew the Elder, the owner of the main commercial Florentine company that was operating in France, in Lyon, a city of thriving commercial and cultural initiatives, because at the crossroads with Switzerland, Italy and Germany.
The father had financed the military exploits of Louis XII, which led to the temporary conquest of the Duchy of Milan, and the young Bartholomew welcomed as a page at the court of Francis I, was formed culturally much in Lyon than in Padua, where he attended the Studio 1529-1531, neglecting the commercial interests of the company, when his father died, he left to the care of relatives.
He was a friend of Jean de Vauzelles, abbot of Menthon, who was appointed by Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre and his patron, master of supplications; the de Vauzelles joined the spiritual movement of the French return to the Gospel, promoted in France by the bishop of Meaux, Guillaume Briçonnet, Lefrèvre by Jacques d'Etaples and Louis de Berquin, and translated religious works of Pietro Aretino, the Humanity of Christ and the Passion of Christ, whose first copies were sent to Venice in 1539 by the Italian writer Panciatichi.
In 1534 he married Lucrezia Panciatichi Pucci in 1539 and settled in Florence, where 20 January 1541 he became a member of the Academy of the Humid; January 31 was chosen among the reformers of its Statutes and in 1545 the Duke of Florence, Cosimo I de 'Medici appointed him consul in 1549, sending him to France to renew its relationship with the French monarchy governed then by Henry II and Catherine de' Medici.
Here Bartolomeo became interested in the Protestant Reformation, leading to Florence, in intellectual circles that were owned by Benedict Varchi, Pier Francesco Riccio and Marcantonio Flaminio, banned books by the Roman Church, as the Institution de la religion chrétienne Calvin.
Lucrezia di Gismondo Pucci married in 1528 Bartolomeo Panciatichi, whose portrait was probably painted in pendant with this one about 1540. Bronzino describes her beautiful dress, enhancing her aristocratic dignity and her elegance: the long gold necklace the lady wears includes small plates where are legible the words "Sans fin amour dure", alluding to love and faithfulness.
She has her hand on a book of daily offices, turned to prayers to the Virgin Mary, and the words on her outer gold necklace say Amour Dure Sans Fin (love lasts eternally).
This copy of the Canzoniere begins with a stylized portrait of Petrarch at his writing table. The manuscript is written in minuscola cancelleresca, a script similar to one that Petrarch adopted in early rough drafts of his poetry, some of which survive in the Vatican Library’s Codex Vaticanus latinus 3196. The minuscola cancelleresca was in wide use during the 14th century, and it has been suggested therefore that this manuscript may have been copied in the 1390s. Whether written in the 14th or early-15th century, Marston MS 99 is one of the earliest copies of the Canzoniere. It appears together with Petrarch's Triumphi, and a collection of Italian poetry by various authors. Petrarch remains the dominate figure in the manuscript, just as he was in the literary circles of both the 14th and 15th centuries.
This is not the only level on which the open book acts as an attribute, for Laura Battiferri was an eloquent poet in her own right, well known not just in Florentine literary circles, but also in other cultural centres in Italy and abroad.42 She therefore holds up the hallowed model of her own poetic out- put. Her special position as both subject and object in terms of the Petrarchan lyric found expression in sonnets sent to her. For Cellini, for example, in a sonnet she included in the published volume of her poems, both Laura and Petrarch were united in her person: Lassui v'alzo ii Petrarca, e dietro poi ne venne a rivedervi in paradiso; sete scesi in un corpo ora ambidoi
