Antonio di Benedetto Aquilio, called Antoniazzo Romano Rome before 1452- 1508/12

Commissioned from the artist by Cardinal Philippe de Lévis in 1475;
with Gustavo Volterra, Florence, from whom purchased in July 1923 by an American private collector;
By descent until given to the present owner.

P. Cellini, La Madonna di S. Luca in S. Maria Maggiore, Rome 1943, pp. 33-35, reproduced, figs. 13- 17;
G. Noehles, Antoniazzo Roman. Studien zur Quattrocentomalerei in Rom, Munster 1973, p. 228, no. 82 (as Circle of Antoniazzo);
G. Hedberg, Antoniazzo Romano and his School, New York 1980 p. 261, no 213 (as Circle of Antoniazzo);
E.D.Howe, "The miraculous Madonna in fifteenth-century roman painting," Explorations in Renaissance Culture, VIII-IX, 1982-83, pp. 11-12;
A. Cavallaro, Antoniazzo Romano e gli Antoniazzeschi, Udine 1992, p.216, cat. no. 45, illus., fig. 103 (as Studio of Antoniazzo).

This striking portrait, which is in a remarkable state of preservation, is an important and rare example of portraiture in Antoniazzo's oeuvre, and one of the few in that genre that can be dated with certainty.  It was last traced in the early 1920's, and its reappearance allows its reassessment as a fully autograph and important work by the artist.  

The portrait once formed part of a triptych depicting the so-called "Madonna di San Luca," with the wings comprising images of Saints Peter and Paul, along with this portrait and the sitter's coat of arms (see Fig. 1).  This triptych was dismembered and separated prior to 1923 (by when this portrait was acquired by an American private collector), and the present panel is all that is extant.  Based on the photograph of the triptych made when it was still intact while with Gustavo Volterra in Florence, the painting was inscribed and dated: HANC.S.IMAGI/NEM DE: PINGE/RE. FECIT- MCCCC.LXXV.  The grammar of the incomplete inscription confirms that the name of the artist and patron were given on the left wing of the triptych.  The restorer Pico Cellini (see Literature below) was the first to publish and correctly attribute this panel to Antoniazzo (it has been given previously to Melozzo da Forlì and to Bastiano Mainardi by Bernard Berenson in a letter dated June 24, 1923). 

The Madonna di San Luca was one of the most venerated images of the Virgin in Rome, sometimes referred to as the "Salus Populi Romani [the Well-being of the Roman People]."  It was said to have been painted by Saint Luke himself; in actuality, it appears to have been painted in the 11th Century, either in the Greek East or by a Byzantinizing artist active in Rome.  Whatever its exact provenance, the picture was by the 13th Century considered to be one of the most important religious artifacts in Rome and was placed on the tabernacle of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore where it became the focus of pilgrimage; the Florentine merchant Giovanni Rucellai noted it as such on his visit to Rome during the jubilee year of 1450.  During the reign of Honorius III (reg. 1216-27), the original panel had been fitted with two wings, depicting Saints Peter and Paul (the patron saints of Rome and thus the most appropriate choice for an icon so sacred to the city), and at some point during the 15th Century, the triptych was encased in an elaborately chased silver casing.  This was commissioned by the Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville and depicted the arms and the portrait of the patron (see P. de Angelis, Basilicae S. Mariae Maioris de urbe descriptio et delineatio, 1621, p. 250).  This was preserved until the Sack of Rome in 1537, when it was apparently stripped off as booty.  

Antoniazzo Romano specialized in such cult images; the artist's first documented commission in 1461 had in fact been for a copy of the same Madonna di San Luca for Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro.  By the 1470's, Antoniazzo's reputation had been established, and it is not surprising that Cardinal de Lévis gave him such a specific commission.  De Lévis, (created cardinal by Sixtus IV in 1473) was the archbishop of Arles and had a connection to Santa Maria Maggiore.  Both he and his brother were later buried in the nave of the Basilica (see Fig. 2).  Antoniazzo's replica of the most sacred image in the church, including an imitation of the embellishments made by de Lévis' fellow Frenchman Cardinal d'Estouteville, would have most likely been for the Cardinal's private devotion.  De Lévis, however, died on November 11, 1475, shortly after he commissioned the painting.