Bronze artifacts from San Martino in Poggio: buttons

Description

In the vicinity of the church of San Martino in Poggio a Frascole, specifically in the central compartment of the large Etruscan building, a number of buttons have been found, in good quantity and discreetly preserved. They have a so-called "convex" shape and have an eyelet to fasten it to clothing. The surface is decorated with a motif of hooked rays ending in small circles. In order to better understand what historical period they came from, scholars got help from an "unknown 18-year-old" that is, the young man depicted in the small reproduction of the 1544 painting by Georg Pencz, now on display at the Uffizi Galleries. If you look closely, the buttons found in Frascole are very similar to the ones the artist paints on the boy's doublet fastened on the front. it is possible, therefore, to establish that these small, but valuable objects came directly from the 16th century.