Pittura infamante

could appear in any public place, but some places were more frequently adorned with them; for example, the first floor exterior of the Bargello (originally a barracks and prison, now an art museum) periodically contained numerous, life-size, frescoes. Florentine law required the have such caricatures painted, and accompanied by verbal identification of those held in contempt of court for financial offenses (bad debt, bankruptcy, fraud, forgery, etc.). ==Themes==

Common themes of – which were meant to be humiliating – include depicting the subject as wearing a mitre, hanging upside down, or being in the presence of unclean animals such as pigs or donkeys or those deemed evil like snakes; would also contain captions listing the offenses of the subject. could originate as more favorable depictions, only to be transformed after the subject had fallen out of favor. ==Imagery==

always depicted men and never women, and generally depicted upper-class men (who would have the most to lose from character assassination). Famous artists who painted frescoes include Andrea del Castagno, Sandro Botticelli, and Andrea del Sarto. There are no surviving examples of frescoes, but contemporary sources suggest that they were brightly colored. A very few preparatory drawings, however, are extant, and The Hanged Man from Tarot cards is thought to resemble the archetypal theme, as Tarot decks were first produced in northern Italy in the 1440s. ==Records==

Documentary evidence for outside Italy is rarer but existent. For example, records support the use of "very unpleasant pictures" painted on cloths during the Hundred Years' War and the reign of King Louis XI of France, and – later – in England and north Germany. were the counterpoint of another contemporary form of secular, full-length portrait: ("famous men") or ("illustrious men"), which depicted figures from the Old Testament or Antiquity in a positive context, generally on the interior of private or civic buildings as moral exemplars. ==Subjects of ==

Bologna • Konrad von Landau, painted on the walls of Bologna for treachery; in response Landau created his own on the saddle of his horse, depicting the local politicians hung upside down by their feet in the hand of a giant whore. Fermo • Rinaldo da Monteverde, the papal governor of Fermo, "fell victim to humiliating popular justice" in the form of a pittura infamante. Florence • Niccolò Piccinino, in the Palazzo della Signoria in 1428, which depicted him hanging upside down in chains; "depaint[ed]" in April 1430. Hanging upside down by one foot was a common theme for of who switched sides. • The eight Pazzi conspirators, on the wall above the Dogana by Botticelli, commissioned by the Otto di Guardia in 1478; visible from the Sala dei Gigli until its removal in 1494. • Ridolfo di Camerino, "traitor to the Holy Mother Church, to the and commune of Florence and to all its allies", painted upside down on a gallows, hanging by his left foot on the facade of the Army Pay Office with a siren on his left and a basilisk on his right while wearing a bishop's mitre (circa October 13, 1377). Milan • Reliefs of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrice of Burgundy set on the Porta Romana and Porta Tosa, Milan. ==See also==