Bildnis der Lucina Brembati

For centuries no one knew who this Bergamo noblewoman was, until someone read the clues Lorenzo Lotto had hidden in plain sight. Up in the evening sky at the upper left he painted a crescent moon, and inside it the letters CI. Read in Italian as CI in luna, the moon becomes Lu-CI-na, and the sitter is Lucina. Her surname is on her hand, in the ring stamped with the Brembati family arms. She was the wife of a Bergamo count, and Lotto, who spent important years working in and around the city, wraps her in dark fur and jewels against the deep blue night. The little rebus was only cracked in the early 20th century, more than 300 years after he painted it.