Lorenzo Soranzo

The balustrade beside this Venetian nobleman records only the plainest facts: the year 1553 in Roman numerals, his age, 35, and his initials joined in a monogram with a small star. Lorenzo Soranzo came from a patrician family, and in 1553 he took his seat on one of the councils that governed Venice, which may be why the portrait was made. Tintoretto leaves out the usual trappings of a dignitary's portrait. Soranzo sits at ease, and his face and hands come out of a darkness in which almost nothing else can be made out. The Kunsthistorisches Museum reads it as a portrait of the man himself, beyond rank and office. It has been in the imperial gallery in Vienna since at least 1824.