Alessandro Allori lost his father at the age of five and was cared for by his father’s friend, the painter Agnolo Bronzino, who took in the entire family: his friend’s mother, niece, widow, daughter, and three sons. Alessandro, the youngest, was trained in Bronzino’s workshop and adopted by the older painter, eventually becoming the inheritor of Bronzino’s studio and contents, as well as becoming Bronzino’s companion upon his own death, being laid to rest in the same tomb. In his early twenties, Allori spent five years in Rome studying antique statuary and the work of Michelangelo, whose work exerted a powerful influence, notably in Allori’s rendering of the human form, a talent he would employ throughout his career, executing frescos and oil paintings on canvas and copper.