| II.
The following year, in 1865 at an exhibition in Musée Rétrospectif, a portrait bust of the late 15th-century Italian poet Girolamo Benivieni caused no less a sensation as a master-piece of Renaissance art.6 This bust was bought by Count de Nieuwekerke, the superintendent of the Louvre, for the Venus of Milo-comparable sum of 14,000 francs in May 1866.
‒‒‒‒‒‒
6) On Bastianini, see Anita F. Moskowitz, "The Case of Giovanni Bastianini. A Fair and Balanced View," Artibus et historiae vol. XXV, 50 (2004), pp. 157–185, Anita F. Moskowitz, "The Case of Giovanni Bastianini. II. A Hung Jury?," Artibus et historiae vol. XXVII, 54 (2006), pp. 201–217, and Jeremy Warren, "Forgery in Risorgimento Florence. Bastianini's 'Giovanni delle Bande Nere' in the Wallace Collection," The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXLVII, 1232, Italian Art, November 2005, pp. 729–741.