Portrait of Cardinal Pietro Maria Borghese

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini) · late 1620s–early 1630s

This inquisitive-looking cardinal, with his intelligent gaze, plump waistline, fashionable goatee and moustache, and large ear, is Pietro Maria Borghese (1599–1642), grandnephew of Pope Paul V. The elaborate silver inkwell carries his family’s coat of arms, an eagle over a dragon. When Paul V died, Pietro Maria moved to Rome and was made a cardinal at age twenty-five by Pope Urban VIII, a member of the Barberini family. Pietro da Cortona was a favorite of the Barberinis, great patrons of the arts who commissioned Poussin’s Death of Germanicus, also in this gallery. Cortona was famous for his magnificent frescoes and oil paintings in the High Baroque style. This rare portrait is one of just a handful he executed over his long, prolific career.