Portrait of a Franciscan Friar (formerly called Savonarola)

In May 1498 the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who had preached against the luxury of Florence and its rulers, was hanged and burned in the city's main square. For a long time this portrait was taken to be him. The museum points to the habit, which belongs to the Franciscans, the order of Saint Francis, and that rules out the Florentine preacher.

The friar holds a palm, the sign of a martyr, wrapped in a ribbon with a line from the Psalms, iustus ut palma florebit, the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. A small slip of paper is pinned to the book in front of him. It carries Moretto's signature and the date 1524, but the writing is so worn that it tells us nothing more, not even who the man was. The canvas came to the museum from the collection of Giulio Pompei, in Verona.