Brother Gregorio Belo of Vicenza

The Picture: A friar—identified by the inscription on the stone in the lower right-hand corner as Fra Gregorio Belo of Vicenza, hermit in the Hieronymite order of Blessed Fra Pietro of Pisa, in his 55th year—is depicted wearing the habit of the Hieronymite order (a white tunic—here visible only at the sleeves—with a brown, hooded scapular and a brown mantle), holding an open book in one hand while with the other he beats his breast. Behind him is a landscape with, on the right, a distant vista lit by the evening sky and, on the left, a hill—near at hand—on which is seen Christ crucified on the cross with the mourning figures of his mother, John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalen. The painting belongs to a category of portraiture popular in Venice, where an individual is portrayed with the attributes of his or her patron saint. The friar's features have been scrutinized by the artist with extraordinary acuity, whether the clenched fist or the intent gaze of the friar, directed toward the viewer. One is reminded of the observation of Bernard Berenson—the author of the first monograph on the artist—that Lotto’s portraits “have the interest of personal confessions. Never before or since has anyone brought out on the face more of the inner life.”[1] The penitential gesture of Fra Gregorio’s right hand and the diminutive depiction of the crucifixion—which registers as a projection of the sitter’s meditation—are unequivocal references to Saint Jerome, the patron saint of the Hieronymite order. Jerome, in fact, is commonly represented in the act of beating his chest while meditating on the crucifixion in the wilderness. The heremitic nature of the landscape and the overall atmosphere of the work reflect the contemplative and ascetic spirituality promoted by Jerome and embraced by the Hieronymites.

The Sitter and the commission: Portraiture played an essential role in the career of Lorenzo Lotto, as the large number of surviving portraits by the artist demonstrates. The Met’s picture is a rare case of a portrait for which both the date and the sitter's identity are known. Not only is the friar's name inscribed on the stone at the lower right of the painting, but the commission is registered in the artist's account book, the "Libro di spese diverse" (see References). There we learn that on December 9, 1546 Lotto, who was then in Treviso, north of Venice, recorded his agreement to paint a portrait of “Fra Gregorio of Vicenza of the friars of Saint Sebastian of Venice” that would also include “a crucifixion, the Madonna, Saint John, and the Magdalen.” The price had not been agreed upon, but Lotto purchased a strainer and canvas (“teller e tella”) the same day the commission was recorded and Fra Gregorio made payments on December 13, 1546, and April 27 and March 5 and 7, 1547. We then learn that on October 11, 1547, the picture was delivered to the vice-prior of the convent of San Sebastiano, Fra Isidoro of Treviso, who made final payment on behalf of Fra Gregorio.

A certain amount of information concerning Fra Gregorio Belo enables us to reconstruct the context of the commission of his portrait. As noted above, Fra Gregorio belonged to the order of the Hieronymites, the poor hermits of Jerome. The congregation, founded by the Blessed Pietro de' Gambacorti of Pisa (1355–1435), had its Venetian headquarters in the church and monastery of San Sebastiano. In 1546, at the time of the commission of his portrait, Gregorio resided in Treviso as a member of the community of Santa Maddalena, of which he became prior in 1549 (in 1526 he had been prior of the sister convent of Santa Maria Maddalena in Padua). It is likely that Fra Gregorio met Lotto through Bernardo de Biliolis of Vicenza, a member of the same community and the artist's confessor in Treviso. In 1544 Bernardo had commissioned an altarpiece from Lotto and, apparently, Gregorio acted as an intermediary in the work's payment process (Giammarioli 1983). Two years later the artist began Fra Gregorio's portrait.

The personal relationship between Fra Gregorio and Lotto probably accounts for the format and content of the portrait. According to the "Libro di spese diverse," the portrait was to be painted dal naturale—that is, “from life.” It is tempting to assume that the resulting work reflects a visual and verbal dialogue between the sitter and the artist. Fra Gregorio is shown life-sized and close to the picture plane, and the book he holds, Saint Gregory the Great's Homilies on the Gospels (593 A.D.), is given accentuated prominence. An Italian edition of the homilies was published in Venice in 1543 (Rugolo 2003); Christiansen (1985) has suggested that Lotto may have intended an allusion to the thirty-seventh homily. The compositional structure has been explained in the light of the religious climate in which the portrait was executed. In the early 1540s, shortly before the official opening of the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church had already started tightening its disciplinary measures against what might be considered unorthodox practices, and many books fell under suspicion. The Homilies of Gregory were listed among the approved readings. Both Fra Gregorio Belo and Lotto were part of a religious community in Treviso that was drawn to a philo-Protestant spirituality (Rugulo 2003), so the presence of the Homilies might be seen as counterbalancing any evangelical and reformist interpretation of details such as the crucifixion in the background, with Adam's bones at the bottom of the cross, and the penitential attitude of the friar.

Eveline Baseggio 2010; revised by Keith Christiansen 2018

[1] Bernhard Berenson, Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism, London, rev. ed., 1905, p. 258.

Inscription: Dated and inscribed (lower right): .F. Gregorij belo de Vincentia / eremite .D[ivi]. hieronimi Ordinis beati / fratris Petri de pisis Anno / etatis eius. LV.M.D.XLVII (Fra Gregorio Belo of Vicenza, hermit in the Hieronymite order of Blessed Fra Pietro of Pisa, at the age of fifty-five, 1547)

Johann Matthias, Graf von der Schulenburg, Venice (1738–d. 1747; bought for 26 zecchini, as by Paolo Veronese; inv., 1738, unnumbered; inv., 1741, unnumbered; posthumous inv., n.d. [by 1774], no. 101, all three as by Veronese); Grafen von der Schulenburg, Hehlen, Germany (1747–1945; inv., n.d. [after 1924], no. 67, as by Lorenzo Lotto); Johann Heinrich, Graf von der Schulenburg, Hehlen (1945–65; sold through Jean Marchig to The Met)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat. (p. 21).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, no. 211.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Venetian Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," May 1–September 2, 1974, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Patterns of Collecting: Selected Acquisitions, 1965–1975," December 6, 1975–March 23, 1976, unnumbered cat.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The Golden Century of Venetian Painting," October 30, 1979–January 27, 1980, no. 18.

Washington. National Gallery of Art. "Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance," November 2, 1997–March 1, 1998, no. 50.

Bergamo. Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti. "Lorenzo Lotto: Il genio inquieto del Rinascimento," April 2–June 28, 1998, no. 50.

Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Lorenzo Lotto, 1480–1557," October 13, 1998–January 11, 1999, no. 50.

Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado. "El retrato del Renacimiento," June 3–September 7, 2008, no. 60.

London. National Gallery. "Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian," October 15, 2008–January 18, 2009, no. 28.

Rome. Scuderie del Quirinale. "Lorenzo Lotto," March 2–June 12, 2011, no. 48.

Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado. "Lorenzo Lotto: Retratos," June 19–September 30, 2018, no. 44.

London. National Gallery. "Lorenzo Lotto: Retratos," November 5, 2018–February 10, 2019, no. 44.

Lorenzo Lotto. Libro di spese diverse. 1546–47, pp. 51v–52r [published in Adolfo Venturi, "Libro dei conti di Lorenzo Lotto (1538–1556)," Le Gallerie nazionali italiane: Notizie e documenti 1 (1894), pp. 126, 155; "Il 'libro di spese diverse' con aggiunta di lettere e d'altri documenti," ed. Pietro Zampetti, Venice, 1969, pp. 74–75, 343; and "Lorenzo Lotto, 1480–1556: Libro di spese diverse," eds. Floriano Grimaldi and Katy Sordi, Loreto, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 76–77; vol. 2, pp. 51v–52r], records the commission on December 9, 1546, and payments on December 13, 1546, and April 27, March or May ["mazo"] 5 and 7, and October 11, 1547.

Inventario Generale della Galleria di S: Eccellza Felt Marescial Conte di Sculembourgh. May 30, 1738, unnumbered, as "Quadro che Rappresenta un Frate che dice l'Officio, e con una mano si batte il petto et un poco in lontano un Crocifisso con le Marie," by Paolo Veronese.

Inventario Generale della Galleria di S.E. Maresciallo Co: di Schulemburg. June 30, 1741, unnumbered, as "Quadro Cornice dorata rapresenta un Frate che dice l'Ufficio, e con una mano si batte il petto, ed un poco in lontano un Crocefisso con le Marie 4ta spne," by Veronese.

Inventaire de la gallerie de feu S. E. Mgr. le Feldmarechal Comte de Schulenburg. n.d., no. 101, as "Tableau, représ. une moine, qui recit l'office & avec une main se bat au cœur avec crucifix en perspectives & maries," by Veronese.

Kurzgefasster Katalog der Gemälde, Handzeichnungen und Plastiken des Gräflich Schulenburgischen Hauses, Hehlen. n.d., no. 67, as "Bildnis des Fra Gregorio von Vicenza 1547," by Lotto; notes Vitzthum's record of Gronau's opinion written on the back of the work [see Ref. Gronau 1924].

Bernard Berenson. Lotto. 3rd ed. Milan, 1955, pp. 164–65, pl. 361 [English ed., "Lorenzo Lotto," New York, 1956, pp. 126, 471, pl. 361], as location unknown; accepts Gronau's [see Ref. 1924] identification of the work with the portrait of Brother Gregorio recorded in Lotto's account book; dates it 1546; finds it similar to Lotto's portraits in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. London, 1957, vol. 1, p. 107; vol. 2, pl. 787.

Theodore Rousseau. "Reports of the Departments: European Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 26 (October 1967), pp. 64, 67, ill. p. 65, attributes it to Lotto.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 112, 510, 609.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Venetian School. New York, 1973, pp. 40–41, pl. 45, identify the book held by the sitter as an account of the sermons of Gregory the Great; add that the wild landscape and gesture of the right hand refer to Saint Jerome, who retreated to the wilderness to do penance and study the scriptures; provide information on the monastic community to which the sitter belonged; call the picture typical of Lotto's mature portrait style; compare the small Crucifixion in the background with the "Christ Crucified with the Symbols of the Passion" (Villa I Tatti, Florence); mistakenly report the inscribed date as "M.D.XLVIII".

Anthony M. Clark in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1965–1975. New York, 1975, p. 82, ill.

Giordana Mariani Canova in L'opera completa del Lotto. Milan, 1975, p. 121, no. 259, ill. p. 119 and colorpl. LXII, dates it 1548 [see Zeri and Gardner 1973]; relates it to Lotto's two versions of Saint Jerome (Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, and Museo del Prado, Madrid) and relates the Crucifixion in the background to two small panels by Lotto of the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist (Fondazione Longhi, Florence); sees the influence of Grünewald in the Crucifixion.

Rodolfo Pallucchini in L'opera completa del Lotto. Milan, 1975, p. 10.

Terisio Pignatti in collaboration with Kenneth Donahue in The Golden Century of Venetian Painting. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1979, pp. 68–69, 161, no. 18, ill. (color).

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, p. 257, fig. 468 (color).

Flavio Caroli. Lorenzo Lotto e la nascita della psicologia moderna. Milan, 1980, pp. 286–87, ill. , dates it 1548 [see Ref. Zeri and Gardner 1973].

Simonella Condemi in La Fondazione Roberto Longhi a Firenze. Milan, 1980, p. 260, under nos. 58–59.

Carlo Ginzburg. Indagini su Piero: il Battesimo, il ciclo di Arezzo, la Flagellazione di Urbino. Turin, 1981, p. 68, fig. 52.

Christina Sinclair Thoresby. "Return to the Capital and the Great Venetian Period." Lorenzo Lotto. Ed. Pietro Zampetti and Vittorio Sgarbi. Treviso, 1981, p. 223.

Michelangelo Muraro. "Asterischi lotteschi." Lorenzo Lotto. Ed. Pietro Zampetti and Vittorio Sgarbi. Treviso, 1981, p. 309, fig. 29.

Maurizio Giammarioli in Il S. Girolamo di Lorenzo Lotto a Castel S. Angelo. Ed. Bruno Contardi and Augusto Gentili. Exh. cat., Castel Sant'Angelo. Rome, 1983, pp. 119–24, fig. 65, gives biographical information on the sitter.

Keith Christiansen in The Age of Caravaggio. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, p. 72 [Italian ed., "Caravaggio e il suo tempo," Naples], calls it "the most immediate precedent" of Giovanni Battista Moroni's "Portrait of a Man and Woman, with the Madonna and Child and Saint Michael" (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond).

Stefania Mason Rinaldi in La pittura in Italia: il Cinquecento. Ed. Giuliano Briganti. revised and expanded ed. [Milan], 1988, vol. 1, p. 174, dates it 1548 [see Ref. Zeri and Gardner 1973].

Alice Binion. La galleria scomparsa del maresciallo von der Schulenburg: un mecenate nella Venezia del Settecento. Milan, 1990, pp. 73, 79 n. 6, pp. 159, 198, 226, 267, 276, fig. 15, provides early provenance information, including several Schulenburg inventories and a document that includes this painting among works of art sent to Germany in October 1738.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 77, ill.

Jacques Bonnet. Lorenzo Lotto. Paris, 1996, pp. 170–71, 197, no. 133, fig. 113 (color), dates it 1548 [see Ref. Zeri and Gardner 1973].

Peter Humfrey in Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1997, pp. 216–17, no. 50, ill. (color) [Italian ed., "Lorenzo Lotto: il genio inquieto del Rinascimento," Milan, 1998; French ed., "Lorenzo Lotto, 1480–1557," Paris, 1998].

Peter Humfrey. Lorenzo Lotto. New Haven, 1997, pp. xii, 156, 160, 174 n. 18, colorpls. 151 (detail), 155, compares it with Lotto's "Portrait of a Man" (Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome).

Massimo Firpo. Artisti, gioiellieri, eretici: il mondo di Lorenzo Lotto tra riforma e controriforma. Rome, 2001, pp. 286–88, fig. 45 (color).

Carlo Pirovano. Lotto. Milan, 2002, pp. 16, 171, 188, no. 162, ill. (color and black and white).

Ruggero Rugolo. "Come un libro aperto: Lorenzo Lotto e Fra Gregorio Belo." Per il Cinquecento religioso italiano. Ed. Maurizio Sangalli. Rome, 2003, vol. 2, pp. 205–30, figs. 1–7 (overall and details), identifes the book held by Brother Gregorio as "Omelie di Santo Gregorio Papa sopra li Evangeli: nuovamente stampate, historiate & in lingua Tosca ridotte, & con somma diligentia corrette", published in Venice in 1543, noting that the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, owns a copy of the same edition; argues that other devotional literature published in Venice during the 1540s also provided source material for the painting.

Andrea Bayer. "North of the Apennines: Sixteenth-Century Italian Painting in Venice and the Veneto." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 63 (Summer 2005), pp. 44, 46, fig. 37 (color).

Elsa Dezuanni. Lorenzo Lotto da Venezia a Treviso: ritratti e committenti 1542–1545. Dosson di Casier (Treviso), 2005, p. 60, fig. 16 (color).

Louisa Matthew. "Clergy and Confraternities." Venice and the Veneto. Ed. Peter Humfrey. Cambridge, 2007, p. 135, fig. 92.

Minna Moore-Ede in Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian. Ed. Lorne Campbell et al. Exh. cat., National Gallery. London, 2008, pp. 136–37, no. 28, ill. (color) [Spanish ed.,"El retrato del Renacimiento," Madrid, 2008, pp. 272–73, 485, no. 60, ill. (color)], notes that after final payment the portrait was collected by Frate Isidoro, prior of the congregation; suggests it was commissioned not by Fra Gregorio himself, but by his order, to honor an exemplary member of their community.

Guillaume Cassegrain in Titien, Tintoret, Véronèse . . . Rivalités à Venise. Ed. Vincent Delieuvin et al. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2009, p. 402.

Elsa Dezuanni. "Due ritratti trevignani di Lorenzo Lotto: dall'identificazione degli effigiati alla datazione dell'opera." Lorenzo Lotto e le Marche. Ed. Loretta Mozzoni. Florence, 2009, p. 41, fig. 4 (color).

Elsa Dezuanni in Lorenzo Lotto. Ed. Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa. Exh. cat., Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2011, pp. 201–2, 230, 242–44, no. 48, ill. (color).

Renzo Villa in Lorenzo Lotto. Ed. Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa. Exh. cat., Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2011, p. 38.

Peter Humfrey in Lorenzo Lotto. Ed. Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa. Exh. cat., Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2011, p. 64.

Marco Collareta in Lorenzo Lotto. Ed. Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa. Exh. cat., Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2011, p. 146.

Alessandra Tamborino in Da Lotto a Caravaggio: la collezione e le ricerche di Roberto Longhi. Ed. Mina Gregori and Maria Cristina Bandera. Exh. cat., Complesso del Broletto, Novara. Venice, [2016], p. 71, ill. (detail), under nos. 10a–b.

Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo and Miguel Falomir in Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2018, p. 15.

Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo in Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2018, p. 60.

Miguel Falomir and Ana González Mozo in Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2018, pp. 75, 78.

Giuseppe Gullino in Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2018, pp. 132, 135 n. 52.

Miguel Falomir in Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2018, p. 305, under no. 36, pp. 329–32, no. 44, ill. (color).

The frame is from the South Lombardy region and dates to about 1620 (see figs. 1–4 above). This cassetta frame is made of pine with dynamic giltwood carving and walnut veneer. The carved moldings emerge from centers and include raking knulls at the sight edge within a small cavetto and pearl and reel at the outside of the frieze. The raking knull ornament at the top edge is punctuated by acanthus leaf carving at both the corners and centers. While the sight edge gilding has been refreshed the top edge retains a dark glaze on the knulls. Based on walnut and gilt cassoni furniture patterns the frame indicates evidence of previous adjustment at the centers.

Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2020; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files