Portrait of a Friar in the Guise of Saint Thomas Aquinas

A restoration in 1950 brought up letters in gold that settled an old argument about who this friar was meant to be. They read Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma, you have written well of me, Thomas, the words a crucifix was said to have spoken to Thomas Aquinas near the end of his life. The man at the desk, then, is a Dominican shown in the guise of his order's great theologian, in Parma around 1550.

He is also clearly somebody in particular. The thin beard, the deep sockets, the sharp nose belong to a face that was looked at rather than imagined, which is why one long-standing guess names the Dominican Michele Ghislieri, later Pope Pius the Fifth. It stays a guess.

Under the black overpaint added later, the habit the friar wears is white with a black cloak, and for years it made him look like a Benedictine instead.