The Portrait of Pope Leo X with two Cardinals, also known as Portrait of Pope Leo X with the cardinals Giulio de' Medici e Luigi de' Rossi (), is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, executed c. 1518âÂÂ1520. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence.
Pope Leo X (1475âÂÂ1521) led the Catholic Church from 1513 to 1521. He was born in Florence Giovanni Lorenzo de' Medici; the second son of the founder of the Medici dynasty, Lorenzo de' Medici, also known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent".
Pope Leo X financed works of St. Peter's Basilica (as well the War of Urbino to benefit the Medici's) by selling indulgences, for which he was harshly criticized by Martin Luther in 1517, which happened at the same time the portrait by Raphael was started.
The large portrait of the Pope arrived in Florence in 1518, to represent the pope at the wedding of his nephew Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino with the French noblewoman Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, relative of the King of France Francis I.
Vasari in his Lives provides a detailed description that shows the admiration this painting generated in its time:
Various copies were made, including one by Vasari in 1536.
In 1589 the original was inventoried at the Uffizi, and from 1799 to 1816 it was in France where Napoleon had it taken.
A major exhibition dedicated to this work was held by the Uffizi in 2020 to celebrate the completion of its restoration. The detailed technical analysis performed as part of this restoration dispelled the belief of several scholars that the figures of the two cardinals had been added by another painter later.
With this portrait, Raphael continued innovating the tradition of how popes were depicted, which he had started with his Portrait of Pope Julius II, painted six years before in 1511.
For centuries, Popes where usually painted in profile and with indistinct facial features, showing them as idealized characters, kneeling in a religious scene of giving their blessing. Raphael chose to depict them as real human beings, with very distinct facial features and expressions. Pope Julius II is shown as an exhausted, old pontiff, while Pope Leo X is shown as a middle-aged man with a worried, frowning expression.
In the painting, the pope is wearing a camauro on his head and a mozzetta with an ermine edge (as is still the privilege of pontiffs, worn November 1st to Easter). He holds a gold-rimmed monocle that he needed due to his myopia.
He is seated on a chair with a golden knob that reflects a window and the room with an optical realism reminiscent of Early Netherlandish painting masters (such as the mirror scene in Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck). The table in front of him is covered by an orange-red cloth, on top of which is a richly decorated silver bell and an illuminated bible.
The bible is open at the beginning of the Gospel of St. John. It was made around the mid-14th century in Naples and is still in existence. Called the Hamilton Bible as it belonged to the Scottish Duchy of Hamilton, it is preserved in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden.
Vasari indicates that the cardinal to the left is Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici (the future Pope Clement VII), while the other cardinal resting his hand on the pope's chair is Cardinal Luigi de' Rossi, who was a maternal cousin to both of the other two portrayed.