AOL.com Video - The Meaning Behind the Use of Armor in Portraiture

VIDEO:Knowledge

The Meaning Behind the Use of Armor in Portraiture

Description:Around 1555 the Duke of Alba commissioned three life-sized bronze busts by the great Italian Renaissance portraitist Leone Leoni: one of himself and the other two of the Hapsburg emperor Charles V and the emperor's son, Philip II of Spain. Though the busts depict sitters of different rank - an emperor, a king, and a duke - Leoni presents them almost identically, as armored warriors in the cause of the Counter Reformation. (3:01)

Source: FORA.tv Culture

Tags: armor in portraiture , fora.tv , leone leoni , renaissance artists