On the death of Michelangelo, in 1564, his close friend Daniele da Volterra made a portrait of the artist from his death mask. When Daniele himself died, two years later six bronze heads of Michelangelo were found in his workshop. Two of them, not yet properly cleaned, were sent to the artist's nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti, in Florence. All trace was soon lost of one of these, while the other was provided with a rich drapery by Giambologna. The involvement of the great Flemish sculptor led to the entire work being attributed to him in the Descrizione buonarrotiana In 1767 Leonardo Buonarroti put the work on show, still attributed to Giambologna, at the exhibition in the cloister of the Santissima Annunziata, where the principal families of Florence used to display their treasures. The Buonarroti family also took there two works by Michelangelo, a "bas relief in marble" and a "woman's head drawn in black pencil" (the Cleopatra ?), as well as the head of an Old Man traditionally attributed to Guido Reni. The bronze in Casa Buonarroti is considered, on the grounds of both its history and its quality, one of the most significant exemplars of this celebrated sculptural portrait of Michelangelo.

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