Lorenzo de' Medici had one of the most famous antique cameo collections. There was a great interest in them, they were described in a lot of illuminations, among them illustrations in Corvinus manuscripts. Matthias was passionately fond of them. The portrait can be considered as two magnified gems: they are in fact reliefs on white marble with silky shine against a dark green background of jasper. They were created by a Lombard artist, perhaps Gian Christoforo Romano.
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