This medal, along with other examples portraying Faustina the Elder, belongs to a series produced around the mid-15th century, dedicated to Roman emperors and the subject of extensive scholarly research over time.
In 1930, George Francis Hill attributed these medals to an unidentified artist he called the "Master of the Roman Emperors", likely a Milanese medallist active in the last quarter of the 15th century.
However, a major breakthrough came in the 1970s, when Charles Seymour identified this enigmatic figure as the Florentine sculptor and architect Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete. Seymour compared the emperor medals with a bronze self-portrait medallion of Filarete (London, Victoria & Albert Museum, inv. 194-1866) but, more significantly, with the central bronze doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, which Filarete completed in 1445.
Key details of this monumental Roman commission reveal striking affinities with the imperial medallions. These parallels are evident not only in the irregular and somewhat unrefined letterforms, which lack a carefully structured arrangement of space, but also in certain iconographic choices—such as the figure of Nero seated in armor on a curule chair, which closely recalls the depiction of Antoninus Pius on the reverse of the medal.
Filarete’s bronze doors also feature several profile busts set within scrolling acanthus leaves. One, depicting a youthful, laurel-crowned emperor, bears a remarkable resemblance to Antoninus Pius, while another, identifiable as Faustina the Elder by her distinctive coiffure, is nearly identical to the profile on this medal. It is no coincidence that in his Trattato di Architettura (1460–1464), Filarete himself referenced an ancient cameo he had seen depicting Empress Faustina, underscoring the importance of such classical artifacts in the study of antiquity.