# Battista Fiera [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [COSTA, Lorenzo the Elder]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Oil on wood, 51 x 39 cm ## Commentary The sitter of this portrait is identified by an inscription on the back as Battista Fiera \(c. 1465.1538\), a physician, poet, and philosopher, native of Mantua. After studying medicine and logic in Pavia, Fiera spent several years, where he belonged to the humanist circle around Pomponio Leto. His chief work, the Coena, is a series of Latin epigrams on foodstuffs and their medicinal properties. Costa's portrait of Fiera is his finest, and its immediacy and vitality make it one of the most unusual examples from the early sixteenth century. In concept it is patterned after Venetian prototypes by <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/a/antonell/condotti.html'\)" href="/html/a/antonell/condotti.html">Antonello da Messina,</a> <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/b/bellini/giovanni/1480-89/131portr.html'\)" href="/html/b/bellini/giovanni/1480-89/131portr.html">Giovanni Bellini,</a> and <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/v/vivarini/alvise/port\_man.html'\)" href="/html/v/vivarini/alvise/port\_man.html">Alvise Vivarini.</a> However, here Costa used an unusual, carefully balanced perspective to create the impression of lifelike, spontaneous movement. ## Related artworks - [Adoration of the Magi]() - [Concert]() - [Court of Isabella d'Este \(detail\)]() - [Court of Isabella d'Este]() - [Giovanni II Bentivoglio and His Family]() - [Legend of Sts Cecilia and Valerian, Scene 2]() - [Legend of Sts Cecilia and Valerian, Scene 9]() - [Madonna and Saints]() - [Nativity]() - [Portrait of a Lady with a Lap-dog]() - [Portrait of a Woman]() - [Portrait of a Woman with a Pearl Necklace]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()