Christ in Glory with Saints and Odoardo Farnese

The two kings in this altarpiece are there as family. The cardinal kneeling at the right is Odoardo Farnese, and the saint presenting him is Edward, king of England, claimed as an ancestor through his mother's line. On the other side stands Hermenegild, a Visigothic prince of Spain, claimed from the same family tree. Above them Christ appears between Peter and John the Evangelist, with Mary Magdalene reaching up towards him. Annibale Carracci painted it in Rome for the cardinal, who had a cell built in the Magdalene's name at the hermitage of Camaldoli, up in the Tuscan forest, and that is where the picture went. Scholars put it somewhere between 1597 and 1600. It came down to Florence at the end of the 17th century and was listed in a Palazzo Pitti inventory by 1698, by which time a strip about 13 cm deep had been added along the top edge. The height the gallery publishes includes it.