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Agnolo di Cosimo (November 17, 1503, Firenze – November 23, 1572, Firenze) (also known as Agnolo Bronzino and Agnolo Tori). Florentine Mannerist painter, pupil and adopted son of Pontormo, who introduced his portrait as a child into his painting Joseph in Egypt (National Gallery, London).

The origin of his nickname, Bronzino is unknown, but could derive from his dark complexion. Bronzino's style was indebted to his Pontormo, however he lacked the emotional intensity characteristic of his master's work, and excelled as a court portraitist rather than a religious painter. He first came to the Medici patronage in 1539 to carry out the decorations for the wedding of Cosimo de' Medici with the beautiful and rich Eleonora of Toledo, the daughter of the Viceroy of Naples. It was not long before he became, and stayed most of his career as the the official court painter of the Duke and his court. His portraits, imbued with unemotional haughtiness and assurance, influenced the course of European royal portraiture for a century.

Bronzino was also a poet, and his most personal portraits are perhaps those of other literary figures such as (Laura Battiferri, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, c.1560). Two years spent in Rome (1546–1548) induced him to carry out a series of ecclesiastic paintings (the Resurrection of the Virgin Mary, 1552) which appear to be suffering from the effects of a moral crisis: this was, after all, the period in which the atmosphere of austerity and Counter Reformation held full sway.

He was less successful as a religious painter, his lack of real feeling leading to empty, elegant posturing, as in The Martyrdom of San Lorenzo (1569), in which almost every one of the extraordinarily contorted poses can be traced back to Raphael or to Michelangelo, whom Bronzino idolized. These affected exercises in posture causeMannerism to be viewed as an artificial style, devoid of naturalism. Bronzino's skill with the nude was better deployed in the celebrated Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, which conveys strong feelings of eroticism under the pretext of a moralizing allegory. His other major works include the design of a series of tapestries on The Story of Joseph for the Palazzo Vecchio.

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