The Artist: Trained by his father, who was a goldsmith, medalist, and creator of portraits in wax, Ottavio Leoni achieved a broad reputation for his remarkable capacities as a portraitist. His exquisite portrait drawings—some in black chalk heightened with white (
1975.131.34), others in three-colored chalk on blue paper (
54.612.1;
63.91.2)—constitute a virtual who’s who of early seventeenth-century Rome: popes, cardinals, members of old noble families, leading scientists and mathematicians (including Galileo), as well as artists and poets (from Caravaggio to Giovan Battista Marino). Giovanni Baglione—our primary source for the lives of Roman artists of the first half of the seventeenth century—notes that Leoni had no equal for these drawings, which then belonged to the Borghese family. The artist appears to have been universally loved. Beyond his training with his father, the meticulously executed portraits of Scipione Pulzone (1544–1598) and Jacopo Zucchi (ca. 1541–ca. 1590) provided an important model. However, the psychological dimension his portraits acquire after about 1605 he owed to the example of Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio. Beginning in 1615, Leoni systematically dated his drawings. His only signed painting is
Susanna and the Elders (Detroit Institute of Arts), also a work on copper. It is the kind of small-scale painting at which he excelled. Yet, as Baglione remarked, his life-size portraits were no less admired. Baglione also notes several altarpieces.
In addition to the great Roman families, Leoni was also employed by Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua. In 1601 he lived in the same area as Orazio Gentileschi, Antiveduto Grammatica, Peter Paul Rubens, Adam Elsheimer, and Paul Bril, and thus had contact with the most advanced artists of his time. In 1603 he was among those summoned when Caravaggio was accused of slandering Giovanni Baglione (he was cleared when Caravaggio said he did not know him). In 1614, Leoni was nominated as head (
principe) of the Accademia di San Luca.
The Picture: A cardinal and his entourage are shown processing in front of a church located on the outskirts of Rome, with a road that runs past a Roman ruin to a distant arch or city gate. The personages are clearly portraits and were intended to be recognizable. By contrast, the buildings cannot be identified, nor can the coat of arms displayed in the tympanum of the church. The ruins might seem to recall the temple of Minerva Medica, but the resemblance is only generic. The function of the picture would thus seem to have been commemorative or celebrative rather than documentary.
The Attribution: At the time the picture was given to the Museum, several specialists in the field were contacted concerning both the attribution and possible identity of the figures (see European Paintings departmental files for the full correspondence). Francesca Baldassari tentatively suggested as the artist the Florentine painter Anastasio Fontebuoni (1571–1626), who worked in Rome between 1599 and 1620, where he was under the protection of cardinals Giustiniani and Arrigoni. Ian Kennedy (2019) later made a case for the picture being by another Florentine painter who also worked in Rome: Domenico Cresti, known as Passignano. He also suggested identifying several figures, most importantly the cardinal, who he believes is Francesco Sforza; the picture would date to the 1620s. However, the leading scholars in the field have proposed, instead, an attribution to Ottavio Leoni (1578–1630), and this attribution is accepted without reserve by Yuri Primarosa (2017) in his comprehensive monograph on the artist.
Interpretation: Because so much interest attaches to the function of the painting, its patron, and the event to which it presumably alludes or celebrates, it is worth recording the various hypotheses that have been advanced, though always with caution and reservations. Solinas (2013), who also accepts the picture unquestionably as by Leoni, initially suggested that the picture might allude to Cardinal Francesco Sacrati (1567–1623) taking possession of his titular church of San Matteo in Merulana (he later reconsidered this idea). Amendola and Vannugli suggested identifying the figure to the right of the cardinal as Ludovico Ludovisi (1595–1632), the nephew of Gregory XV and a patron of Leoni (Leoni’s drawn portrait of the prelate was executed in 1621; see fig. 1 above for the engraving of 1628). Vannugli considered the identity of the cardinal and the other figures in attendance more problematic. Clovis Whitfield (2017) proposed a more specific interpretation centered on the commemoration of Saint Peter. In her study of the procedures by which cardinals took possession of their titular church, Cloe Cavero de Carondelet (2016) describes the picture as showing a cardinal preceded by his court
barbiere, or chamber assistant, who holds a mace. She further suggests that the folded document held by the cardinal might be the apostolic bull that was read during the possession ceremony.
Building on Cavero de Carondelet’s observations, Yuri Primarosa (2017) has advanced the most detailed reading. He notes that although the church cannot be identified with any existing monument, its style is reminiscent of that of the Borghese architect Giovanni Battistia Soria (1581–1651). The long road would allude to the ancient via Pia that led from the Palazzo del Quirinale to the Porta Pia. In this case, the arch at the end of the road would be a fantastical view towards the arch designed by Michelangelo—minus the Aurelian walls—while the bizarre ruins would allude to the remains of the Temple of the Sun on Monte Cavallo. Taking this series of conjectures still further, he suggests as the possible event the cortege moving towards the Apostolic Palace, the residence of Paul V Borghese, following the pope’s death on January 28, 1621. As support, he notes (as had Whitfield) that the scene on the plinth of the column at the extreme right depicts the conversion of Saint Paul and that a statue of Saint Paul is clearly visible on the facade seen behind the columns on the left. Finally, he notes that Leoni included his own portrait in the cortege at least twice: in the figure at the left shown frontally, looking out, and in the figure dressed as a mace bearer (
mazziere). Primarosa wonders whether the picture might possibly depict the procession of the papal Camerlengo (responsible for administering the property and revenues of the Holy See; at the time this was Pietro Aldobrandini) or the cardinal taking his place towards the presidency of the vacant See following the verification of the pope’s death.
Keith Christiansen 2018; updated 2023
