Image: Museo delle Porcellane, Florence
The Uffizi Galleries have highlighted Raphael’s ‘Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena’, a 1516 work held in the Galleria Palatina at Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The painting depicts Bernardo Dovizi, known as Cardinal Bibbiena, a writer, diplomat and trusted collaborator of Pope Leo X.
Raphael presents Bibbiena in his official ecclesiastical clothing: a white robe, a red satin mozzetta and a red biretta. His right arm rests on the chair, while his hand holds a letter bearing the words “Sanctissimo d(omi)no nostro Pap…”, indicating that it was addressed to the pope.
The portrait’s composition places the sitter in a three-quarter view from a slightly lowered viewpoint. According to the Uffizi’s description, this arrangement reinforces the pyramidal structure of the image and directs attention towards the white sleeve in the foreground, whose finely rendered folds contrast with the heavier patterned fabric of the cardinal’s mantle.
Bibbiena’s alert gaze is directed towards the viewer. The museum identifies this expression as central to the portrait’s characterization, conveying the sitter’s authority and intellectual presence while also presenting a more human aspect of his personality. The work is painted in oil on panel and measures 85 by 66.5 centimetres.
The painting is recorded in the Sala di Saturno of the Galleria Palatina, where it has been located since 1816. The Uffizi’s catalogue notes that it was in the collection of Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici in 1637 and may have reached him through Bibbiena’s descendants. It was included among works sent to Paris in 1799, recovered in 1815 and placed at Palazzo Pitti the following year.
Raphael, born in Urbino in 1483 and deceased in Rome in 1520, painted the portrait around the period in which Bibbiena served within the circle of Leo X. The work is listed in the collection as inventory number 1912 n. 158 and remains part of the Galleria Palatina’s holdings at Palazzo Pitti.
