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Biography
Giovanni Tornabuoni (died after December 22, 1490) was an Italian merchant, banker and patron of the arts from Florence.
He had strong connections with the House of Medici, being the brother of Lucrezia Tornabuoni, and therefore Lorenzo il Magnifico's uncle. He was director of the branch in Rome, as treasurer of Pope Sixtus IV.
He was also Florentine ambassador in the Papal court in 1480 and 1484, and gonfaloniere di Giustizia in 1482. In 1485 he signed a contract with painter Domenico Ghirlandaio for a grand cycle of frescoes in what was to become the Tornabuoni Chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Tornabuoni and his wife, Francesca Pitti, are portrayed as donors in the choir wall. He had been already portrayed by Ghirlandaio in the Sistine Chapel in the Vocation of Andrew and Paul.
In 1494 Tornabuoni succeeded Francesco Sassetti in the direction of the Medici Bank.