When visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, it is essential to pay attention to the portrait gallery located in the first floor corridor on the door side ("Gioviana" gallery). Among the impressive pantheon of eminent European personalities, we find there an oil portrait of Jan Zamoyski, executed on board around 1578-1581. The history of this painting is controversial and has been of keen interest to Polish researchers for over a century.

This portrait is one of the two best preserved 16th-century paintings of Zamoyski (it underwent conservation in 1998). Its execution is attributed to the Italian Cristofano dell'Altissimo (1525-1605), who worked at the court of Medici Cosimo I (1519-1574) in Florence. The portrait shows the figure of a man in his prime against a dark, solid, neutral background, in a bust shot, framed to the waist, with his torso and face slightly turned to the right. The portrait is clad in a red żupan fastened with four gold buttons. On his shoulders is a purple fur-lined delia decorated with two gold buttons and a wide collar of lynx fur. The head shows grey hair with a distinctive lock of hair at the top of the forehead. The upper lip of the mouth is hidden under a grey, slightly curled moustache. The Italian titulature "GIO - ZAMOISHI - GRAN. CANCELLE|RE DEL REGNIO DI POLONIA" at the top of the painting translates as: "Jan Zamoyski Grand Chancellor of the King of Poland". The painting is characterised by luscious colours and a soft contour line. The style is in the manner of the other images from the 'Gioviana' gallery of the Altissima hand. They are made similar by the format, the oil technique of execution, the matter of the subpainting and the repetition of unchanging compositional elements.

Timelessly aristocratic and elitist

This representation is sometimes accused of being too immobile, but there is nothing surprising in the procedure of 'rigid posing'. All 16th-century European galleries of "di uomini famosi" presented their portrayed subjects in the same way - stiff, static, simply dignified. One would even like to say - timelessly aristocratic and elitist. All this served to emphasise the official nature of the portrayal, born of the Renaissance desire to pay tribute to famous men for their outstanding services. The style of the images hung on the walls had to correspond with the equally official atmosphere that prevailed at the courts of the great princely families.

Therefore, the austere, hieratic and cool appearance of Hetman Jan Zamoyski in this portrait should not come as a surprise. Let us also point out that this portrait is an original copy from the period. During the Renaissance, portrait copies did not diminish the aesthetic value of the gallery.

This image is a very important element of the entire iconography of Jan Zamoyski, and the very presence of our compatriot among such a noble group of the world's "di uomini famosi" and in such a dignified place as the Uffizi Gallery - one of the world's most famous art galleries, is undoubtedly an ennoblement for Polish history and for our country....