Vivified Heraldry

This chapter addresses a largely overlooked aspect of Pisanello’s medallic œuvre: the artist’s adoption, manipulation, and origination of heraldic or para-heraldic imagery. Particular attention is given to the function such imagery served in advancing the political, religious, and familial agendas of the artist’s seigneurial patrons. Sustained consideration of Pisanello’s debt to heraldic visual traditions and grants of arms reveals that, even as the medal celebrated the individual whose portrait appeared on the obverse (i.e. the titular subject), it identified him/her as part of a larger community – dynastic or ideological – thereby partaking of medieval representational systems grounded in notions of belonging. Recognising the important role that heraldic iconography played in the function of medals for conveying messages regarding identity, legitimacy, dynastic aspirations, and authority suggests the social function of Pisanello’s medals – and the need to amend views of early medals as, primarily, emblems of the individuals whose visages appeared on their obverses.