Bronzino was born Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano on 17th November 1503, in Monticelli, and was the son of a butcher. He was apprenticed to mediocre painter and then to Raffaellino del Garbo in order to study the principles of art, but his greatest progress was made after he was apprenticed to Jacopo Carrucci, known as Pontormo, an association that was to last the rest of Pontormo's life. Bronzino looks at the life of this artist throughout four phases of his life, from his origins and apprenticeship to Pontormo, to his time as the official painter and portraitist of the Medici Court (1537 - 1555) to his late works.