On the obverse, the medal depicts the poet in profile with wavy, long hair covering the nape of his neck, accompanied by the legend LVDOVICUS ARIOSTVS. The reverse, on the other hand, depicts a hand wielding a shear with which the forked tongue of a snake hidden in the grass of a meadow is sliced off.

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it has been hypothesized that the medal was cast on the occasion of the wedding between Alfonso II and Lucrezia de’ Medici in April 1558, and that the depiction proposed on the reverse, together with the legend PRO BONVM MALVM, may be an allusion to the rumors that pointed to Lucrezia as “guerza and ugly” that Anna, Alfonso’s sister, had spread in the French court. In this sense, the act of cutting off the serpent’s tongue would represent the silencing of slander against the duchess of Ferrara.