The handwriting on the back of the painting has turned nearly illegible over the centuries, but this is possibly Alessandro Braccesi.

Renaissance Master Pietro Perugino, who taught Raphael, captured this young man’s serene face in oil on panel in 1480. Portrait of a Young Man now sits in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

It’s been written that young Alessandro was sick when his portrait was painted. You can see it in his eyes, can’t you? That yellow-skinned, glass-eyed look as a result of prolonged fever.

If this is Alessandro, he apparently made it though his bout of illness. A man named Alessandro Braccesi went on the serve as secretary to some big shot or other at the Palazzo della Signoria, the city hall of Florence.

Whatever the true identity of Perugino’s subject, he sure had a nice, Florentine face.