Among the various pieces of artwork representing the Italian Renaissance housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi’s 1449 piece, The Triumph of Fame (Desco Da Parto di Lorenzo De’ Medici) stands out as a key work of the time period. Foremost, the subject matter seems to call to attention both a mythologized scene recalling characters of antiquity presiding over the representations of persons who were presumably alive at the time of the commission, all gathered for the birth of the new family heir, Lorenzo De’ Medici. Of equal importance to this is the medium of which the piece is made, with the polished wooden plate being small enough for personal domestic use, yet ornate enough to hold a certain social
