Gianfrancesco Enzola

[1] He was a son of Luca Enzola, a goldsmith, medallist and mint official in Parma, active between 1455 (when he designed a medal of Pier Maria II de' Rossi, count of Berceto) and 1478 (when he designed a medal of Federico da Montefeltro).

Enzola's early medals are rudimentary, cutting straight into the metal of the small 4 cm diameter negative-matrices from which they would be struck, similar to those already used for coins.

This phase included his series for count Pier Maria II de' Rossi and his mistress Bianca Pellegrini, medals for Francesco Sforza and single medals for Cecco Ordelaffi, lord of Forlì (1457) and Taddeo Manfredi, lord of Faenza (1461).

They were inspired by the tradition established by Pisanello, showing humanist profile portraits on the recto and a related heraldic or allegoriccal scene on the verso.

His career culminated with a 9.28 cm diameter medal of the condottiero Federico da Montefeltro, known via a two-sided reproduction on the small leather tondoes in the Biblioteca apostolica vaticana.