Luca Martini

Luca Martini (February 8, 1507 – January 9, 1561) was an Italian engineer, academic, poet, and art patron known for commissioning projects from among other artists Pierino da Vinci and Giorgio Vasari.

Martini was made a member of literary academies at the court of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany in Florence and Pisa and was a consultant to the potentate.

Martini commissioned and suggested the story for The Death of Count Ugolino Della Gherendesca and his son by Pierino Da Vinci and in 1548 employed him to create the marble statue Young River God with Three Putti for the wife of Duke Cosimo Eleanor of Toledo.

[1][2] In 1555 Pierino da Vinci executed a profile portrait of a man in Carrara marble widely believed to be Martini.

[4] Moreover, Martini commissioned the 1544 oil on panel work Six Tuscan Poets by Giorgio Vasari depicting Cino da Pistoia, Guittone d'Arezzo, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri, and Guido Cavalcanti.