Emperor Joseph II with Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany

Joseph II arrived in Rome on 15 March 1769 at an unusual moment. Pope Clement XIII had died a few weeks earlier, and the cardinals were shut away in conclave choosing his successor. The emperor and his younger brother Pietro Leopoldo, grand duke of Tuscany, stayed about two weeks, and six mornings of that went to sittings in Pompeo Batoni's studio on the Via Bocca di Leone. The brothers stand close in plain dress, hands clasped. On the table beside them lie a map of Rome and Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, the French book on how laws and governments ought to be made, and Joseph points to it. Leopoldo wears the Order of the Golden Fleece, Joseph the star and cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa and of the Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen. Batoni signed under the table top, in Latin, that he painted it in Rome in 1769 while they were present. In June, finished, the portrait was shown to the newly elected Pope Clement XIV before it travelled north to Vienna.