VETRI, Domenico de'
Domenico de’ Vetri (Domenico di Polo), Italian medallist and gem-engraver. Vasari stated that he was a disciple of the gem-engraver Giovanni delle Corniole (c. 1470-c. 1516), and it is known that he studied the same craft with Pier Maria Serbaldi da Pescia (c. 1455-after 1522), whose atelier he entered in 1501. He appears to have spent his entire career as court medallist for Alessandro de’ Medici, 1st Duke of Florence from 1531 and Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Florence from 1537 and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569. None of his works is signed, but a group of medals and several cameos and gems (e.g. Head of Hercules, Florence, Uffizi) have been attributed to him. His medal showing a figure of Florence and, for Cosimo, another with the sign of Capricorn (1537) on the reverse serve as a basis for the attribution of others.
All of de’ Vetri’s medals were originally struck, either in bronze or silver, and are between 29 and 44 mm in diameter. In most of his surviving medals of the Medici he established an official portrait and varied it with several interchangeable reverses, most commonly an allegorical figure derived directly from ancient Greek and Roman coinage. His portraits have the precision of the gem-cutter, but are not dry and lifeless, unlike many mint-struck pieces, and the reverses are well-balanced and delicate, though somewhat limited in invention.
