This small portrait of Alessandro was executed by the workshop of Bronzino. In 1532, Alessandro became the first Medici duke, the result of a pact between his father, now Pope Clement VII, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The tyrannical and illegitimate duke, whose African features suggest his mother's origin, was murdered by his pretender -cousin, the wicked Lorenzaccio, when he was twenty-six years old.
