In 1989, the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum was enriched by a portrait of a young man in a soldier dress with a halberd, painted by Jacopo Pontormo (Ill. 134). The work, which is called the Portrait of a Halberdier, became one of the most discussed Florentine portraits of the Cinquecento. The dispute concerns the identification of the Pontormo's model. There are two candidates: the first one is Cosimo I de' Medici, the Duke of Florence (1537-1569) and the Grand Duke of Tuscany (1569-1574); the second one is the Florentine noble Francesco Guardi, the defender of the Florence during the Siege in 1529-1530, whose name is not that famous in the history of 16 th century Florence. The identification of the young halberdier as either Cosimo I or Francesco Guardi is a key to date (1529/1530 for Francesco or late 1530s for Cosimo I) and interpret the Pontormo's portrait. In Cosimo's case, the portrait refers to the triumph of the Medici dynasty in the person of young Duke as the absolute ruler of Florence. In Francesco Guardi's case, the halberdier symbolizes the struggle of Florentine republic against the encroachment of the Medici supported by Spanish troops of Charles V, the King of Spain (1516-1556) and the Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1556). The article aims to methodize different approaches to identify the young halberdier, to reconsider the recent studies on this subject, and to analyze, why the Pontormo's portrait admits directly opposing interpretations.Before appearing in the Getty Museum, the Portrait of a halberdier passed through a number of French and American collections where it was generally considered as Bronzino's portrait of a young man 1 . In 1920, Hermann Voss attributed the Halberdier to Pontormo on the basis of the stylistic analysis [25, p. 175]. Voss was also the first who suggested to identify the young soldier as Francesco Guardi, according to The Lives of Giorgio Vasari. In the account of Pontormo's life, Vasari mentioned the portrait of Francesco Guardi in the costume of a soldier that Pontormo had painted during the siege of Florence 2 . However, the Voss' attribution was not supported by colleagues because Francesco Guardi, the only one known to history, was born in 1466 [5, p. 8]. Obviously, this person could not be painted on the portrait of the 16 th century that represented a young man no older than twenty years old. The new suggestion about the model for the halberdier's portrait was proposed in 1959 by Herbert Keutner who published the newfound inventory of the Riccardi collection. The Riccardi, originally from Pisa, was in the service of the Medici dukes. The 1612 inventory of their collection included the description of the Halberdier 1 For Halberdier's provenance and bibliography, see [18, pp. 431-433]. 2 "Ritrasse similmente, nel tempo dell'assedio di Fiorenza, Francesco Guardi in abito di soldato, che fu opera bellissima…" [23, p. 282].
