Case containing a lock of Lucrezia Borgia's hair
1928
Physical Description
Medium: Mixed materials, including glass, wood, bronze, pearls and malachite
Production Description
Production Date: 1928
Provenance
Current Location: Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This famed lock of hair, found among the correspondence of Pietro Bembo, has long been associated with Lucrezia Borgia. The strands were kept among the Borgia-Bembo correspondence, where they were seen by Lord Byron in 1816, and praised in his letter to Augusta Leigh on October 15 (Marchand, Byron's Letters and Journals, 114). The mischievous Byron made off with a strand of the hair during his visit to Milan, and it was seen by both Leigh Hunt and Walter Savage Landor, who wrote an epigram in her honor. In 1859, Prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana Bernardo Gatti confirmed that the celebrated golden lock was indeed a Renaissance-era object ( Lettere di Lucrezia Borgia a Messer Pietro Bembo, 4) and they were placed under glass. An elaborate stand was crafted by Milanese jeweler Alfredo Ravasco in 1928 as a fitting reliquary for such a sacred (“ divino”) object.
Bibliography