Portrait of Cardinal Marcello Cervini degli Spannocchi

Attributed to Del Conte Jacopino

(Florence 1510 - Rome 1598)

The inventory of 1693 attributed the panel to Raphael. Its authorship has however been subject to extensive discussion, also regarding the identity of the subject, though it is now definitively recognized as Cardinal Marcello Cervini degli Spannocchi (1501–1555); elected pope in 1555 with the name of Marcellus II, he reigned for just 21 days. The painting, executed by a Tuscan master strongly influenced by Raphael’s portraiture, seems to be the work of Jacopino del Conte, who specialized in portraits.

Object details

Commentary

The panel was attributed to Raphael in the inventory of 1693 as a ‘painting of 4 spans with a portrait of a cardinal seated with a book in his hand resting on a small table with a gilt frame by Raphael of Urbino’ (inv. 1693, no. 24). After more than a century, in 1838, Antonio Nibby recalled the portrait of the cardinal in the ninth room of the famed Borghese family palace in the city, again assigning it to the hand of Raphael as ‘the portrait of a cardinal, coloured to marvellous effect by Sanzio’ (Nibby 1838, p. 602).

In actual fact, the painting has had a chequered critical history, beginning with the identification of the subject portrayed. The first breakthrough came thanks to Adolfo Venturi (1893, pp. 195-196), who traced the coat-of-arms inserted in the wood panelling behind the cardinal, consisting of a bundle of ears of corn, to the Spannocchi family, thus identifying the character as the ‘most noble gentleman’ Marcello Cervini, the future Pope Marcellus II, born Cervini degli Spannocchi. Cervini, a descendant of a noble Tuscan family from Montepulciano, ascended the papal throne in 1555 (terminus ante quem for the painting of the portrait) and had one of the shortest pontificates in history, lasting only 21 days. Marcello and his family were members of the Accademia delle Virtù; Vasari himself mentioned this in the second edition of the Lives: ‘But afterwards, since there was then in Rome an Academy of very noble gentlemen and gentlemen who attended the lessons of Vitruvius, among whom was Messer Marcello Cervini, who was pope...’ (Vasari 1568, V, p. 571). Moreover, the portrait itself suggests the cardinal’s humanist and bibliophile character, reflecting his taste and espousal of noble cultural ideals.

As for attribution, various suggestions were made between the 19th and 20th centuries: from Perin del Vaga (Cavalcaselle-Crowe 1864-1866) to Pontormo (Morelli 1890, Venturi 1893, Berenson 1928) to Francesco Salviati (De Rinaldis 1945) and Marcello Venusti (Russo 1990 and 1993).

Hermann Voss (1953, p. 251) and Iris Cheney (1954, pp. 35-41) were the first to perceive in the portrait something of the ‘Roman Raphaelism’, of which Jacopino del Conte was an exponent, while others more cautiously posited a Tuscan artist based in Rome and influenced by Raphael-style portraiture (Longhi 1928, p. 352; Della Pergola 1959, pp. 35-36).

Cheney in particular recognised in the ‘loose, heavy locks of hair, the distinctive hooked nose, the thick beard that almost hides the cleft of the mouth’ typical features of Jacopino del Conte’s work, datable to the late 1630s and early 1640s (ibid. 1970, p. 40). Besides, the stylistic proximity to another portrait painted by the painter in the same years, that of Antonio da Sangallo, attributed by Cheney and confirmed by subsequent studies (now housed in the Pinacoteca di Brera), might lead to the conclusion that the friendship and esteem between the cardinal and the architect, evidenced by some private letters, pointed to an understanding between the cardinal himself and Jacopino (Corso 2014, p. 185; see Niccolò 2004, pp. 54, 70-71).

The attribution to Jacopino, despite Vannugli’s scepticism (1992) and the lack of definitive documents, was supported by Costamagna (1994, pp. 319-320), Lucantoni (2006, pp. 66-67) and Donati (2010, pp. 153-154), and seems to us to be the most convincing. There is no certainty that the portrait referred to in a letter by Paolo Giovio addressed to Marcello’s secretary, Bernardino Maffei, and painted by Jacopino del Conte, is the Borghese panel (Giovio 1956-58, p. 348; cf. Corso 2014, p. 184).

The painting, therefore, if it is to be included in that small corpus of known portraits by the Florentine painter, would appear to demonstrate an accomplished stylistic maturity in a genre that had been consolidated by Sebastiano del Piombo in rivalry with Raphael. Indeed, the work is full of exquisite details: from the book that the cardinal holds in his hands to the faux architecture in the background; the warm colour of the robes and the arabesques of the carpet (according to M. Lupo, an Ushak carpet, also known as Lotto, 2009 pp. 250-251); the features of the face, with the thick beard and copious curls and, above all, the depth of the future pope’s gaze, severe and almost melancholic. All these are evidence of the work of a highly gifted painter with refined portraiture skills.

Gabriele de Melis