The first time I saw this magnificent Raphael portrait, I thought to myself: “I’d never buy a used car from that man!†And as for his two cronies, one had obviously been running back the mileage counter, while the other had clearly been fiddling with the exhaust emission figures.
I wasn’t far wrong: Raphael’s 1518 picture of Pope Leo X is probably one of the best portraits ever painted, and Leo was undoubtedly one of the worst popes. Mind you, it was a close-run thing with the crony on the left, who became Clement VII, responsible for the infamous Sack of Rome.
And Leo continued to create problems five centuries later: he was the subject of one of our ‘one-stop Uffizi’ adventures, but when we got to the gallery, we found that he had been moved to the Pitti Palace, in an exhibition celebrating the painting’s recently restoration. So, today’s ‘one-stop Uffizi’ is actually a ‘one-stop Pitti.’
Again, we left early in the morning and were able to linger over the picture for as long as we liked, with hardly anyone else there. It was well worth the trip: the painting has been beautifully restored, enabling us to see it in all its original splendour and, incidentally, to shine new light on an art history debate. (There is an excellent blog on the restoration by Alexanda Korey, which you can see by clicking here.)
So, why is this portrait so good ?
For a start, you can appreciate Raphael’s mastery of his art in, for example, the way he creates different textures in the reds which dominate the picture, from the Pope’s robe, to the Cardinal’s gowns, to the red tablecloth and the tassels of the Pope’s chair. Georgio Vasari, writing in his Lives of the Artists, was particularly impressed by the “rustling and shining†of Leo’s damask robe.
Then there is the wonderful rendition of the bible Leo was reading before he looked up for his portrait. It’s either the original 14th century Codex once owned by the Duke of Hamilton, or a more recent copy commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Pope’s father. Experts are divided.
Lois and I were also able to examine closely the extraordinary way Raphael has painted so simple an object as the metal pommel on Leo’s chair. It shines in the only lighting the picture, a window ‘offstage’ to the right, the outline which is reflected in the metal.
The restoration has also enabled us to see in clarity the faces of the two cardinals which were lost in a pale over-painting of an earlier restoration. Now they are darker, leaving Leo the limelight, but we can clearly see details such as their ‘five o’clock shadows’ and individual eyebrow hairs, 600 years after the maestro first painted them.
To my mind, this is one of the best portraits ever painted, but its subject was one of the worst-ever Popes. Leo X was born Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1475, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the ruler of Florence. Although never ordained, Giovanni became a cardinal at the age of 13 and was elected Pope in 1513. While he was highly educated and sophisticated and a notable patron of the arts, Leo was also a lover of luxury, a lecher, a glutton and a spendthrift. His most notorious quote is: “Since God has given us a papacy, let us enjoy it.†Leo more or less bankrupted the Church, and lost much of the Papal territory won by his ‘soldier-pope’ predecessor, Julius II.
But, as Stephen Withnell said the Catholic Herald: “Rather than change course, he pawned papal plate and then, to fund the new St Peter’s, he fast expanded his notorious programme for the sale of indulgences and heaped fuel on the fires within Christendom which ultimately led to the Protestant Reformation.â€
The two cardinals in the picture are illegitimate Medici relatives of Leo: on the left, his nephew Giulio de’ Medici, later to be Pope Clement VII, responsible for the sack of Rome in 1527, and on the right, his cousin and best friend, Luigi de’ Rossi.
Is there a hint in this wonderful painting of the chaos to come in the Christian church? Some people think not, but the ‘used car dealer and cronies’ impression it leaves, speaks to me of Raphael’s prescience.
But let’s not bogged down in history lessons and to return to the painting itself. It is usually thought that the two cardinals were afterthoughts, added by another hand. The most recent analysis, undertaken for the restoration we now see, suggests that they were painted at the same time, and by Raphael himself. This gives further weight to the contention that the portrait was not intended for religious purposes, as some art historians have argued, but rather created to be sent to Florence, so that Leo could be ‘present’ at a Medici wedding.
Such academic arguments, however, pale before the vibrancy of Raphael’s painting, supremely worthy of our ‘one-stop Uffizi’ adventures, even though, temporarily at least, it was a ‘one-stop Pitti.’