The portrait of Paul V, believed to be a copy of an original attributed to Caravaggio, was most likely painted by Ludovico Leoni, a famous portraitist of the Roman aristocracy of the time, as the mention of an inventory of Scipione Borghese dating from around 1633 seems to suggest. The work portrays the pontiff, in a three quarter bust, seated and turning his gaze toward the viewer. Over the rochet and white cassock, he wears a red mozzetta, bordered in ermine like the camauro.
Rome, Borghese Collection, ca. 1633 (inventory ante 1633, no. 130, Corradini 1998, p. 452); Inventory 1693, room I, no. 26; Inventory 1790, room I, no. 16; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 19. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Exhibitions
1911 Firenze, Palazzo Vecchio
1950 Roma, Palazzo Venezia
1989 Sendai, Sendai City Museum
1989 Ishinomaki, Ishinomaki Culture Center
1989-1990 Tokyo, Museo di Suntory
Commentary
In all likelihood, this work was painted by Ludovico Leoni of Padua, as seems to be suggested by an inventory entry – published by Sandro Corradini in 1998 and dated to roughly 1633 by Stefano Pierguidi (2014) – which describes the painting as ‘a portrait of Paul V, 6 high and 5 wide. Padovanino’. This was certainly a copy of the well-known Portrait of Pope Paul V attributed to Michelangelo Merisi. The painting in question was cited in 1693 and 1790 as a work by Pierfrancesco Mola, a name, however, that was rejected by Adolfo Venturi (1893), Hermann Voss (1910), Roberto Longhi (1928) and Paola della Pergola. In 1959 the last-named scholar published the painting, describing it as a partial copy of the portrait by Caravaggio, which today is preserved at Palazzo Borghese in Ripetta.
According to Giovan Pietro Bellori (1972), the original portrait was indeed by Caravaggio, which in 1910 Lionello Venturi identified as the work in Palazzo Borghese. His thesis was accepted by Voss (1910), among others, but rejected by Longhi (1928) and Walter Friedländer (1955). In 1959 Paola della Pergola took up Venturi’s hypothesis and published the painting in question as a derivation of Caravaggio’s work, confirming the statements in the catalogues of both the Ritratto italiano (Florence, 1911) and the Ritratti dei Papi (Rome, 1950) exhibitions. In the view of this scholar, the work in question was executed by an anonymous artist around the mid-17th century; with respect to the original, however, this painter trimmed the upper portion of the work at the height of the head, with the result that he failed to capture the spirit and expressive power evident in Caravaggio’s portrait.
Two copies of this painting were identified by Maurizio Marini (1974) in Palazzo Altieri in Oriolo Romano and in a private collection in Rome.
Antonio Iommelli
May 2022
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Bibliography
G.P. Bellori, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, Roma 1672, p. 208;
H. Voss, Kritische Bemerkungen zu Seicentisten in den römischen Galerien, in “Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft”, XXXIII, 1910, p. 218;
L. Venturi, Studi su Michelangelo da Caravaggio, in "L’Arte", XIII, 1910, pp. 276, 279;
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