The ''Portrait of
Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521.
Born into the prominent political an ...
with two Cardinals'' is a painting by the Italian
High Renaissance master
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
, executed ''c.'' 1518-1520. It is housed in the
Uffizi Gallery
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...
of
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
. But currently on exhibition at the Palazzo Pitti.
In contrast to works depicting classical, idealised Madonnas and figures from antiquity, this portrait shows the sitter in a realistic manner. The Pope is depicted with the weight of late middle age, while his sight appears to be strained. The painting sets up a series of visual contradictions between appearance and reality, intended by Raphael to reflect the unrest of a period of turmoil for the papacy. Martin Luther had recently challenged papal authority, listing among other grievances, Leo X's method of selling indulgences to fund work on
St Peter's.
The
pommel on top of the Pope's chair evokes the symbolic abacus balls of the
Medici family
The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Muge ...
, while the
illuminated Bible open on the table has been identified as the
Hamilton Bible
The ''Hamilton Bible'' (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett 78 E 3) is a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript Bible, commissioned by the Angevin court in Naples and illustrated by the workshop of Cristoforo Orimina around 1350.
It was part of the Ha ...
.
The cardinal to the left of the painting is surely identified as Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici (the future
Pope Clement VII
Pope Clement VII ( la, Clemens VII; it, Clemente VII; born Giulio de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the ...
) while the other cardinal is usually identified as
Luigi de' Rossi, who was a maternal cousin to both the other two portrayed.
See also
*
List of paintings by Raphael
The following is a list of paintings by Italian Renaissance painter Raphael. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. He was enormously prolific, despite his early death at ...
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Portrait Of Leo X (Raphael)
Leo X
1510s paintings
Leo X
Pope Leo X
Paintings by Raphael in the Uffizi