Portrait of a Man (Gerolamo Avogadro?)

This is held to be the earliest surviving full-length, life-size portrait painted in Italy, and Moretto da Brescia signed the date on it plainly, in Roman numerals on the stone step beneath the man's foot: 1526. That was daring. Standing portraits at this scale had been reserved for princes and painted on walls, not handed to a private gentleman on a stretch of canvas. Who he is stays uncertain. He may be Gerolamo Avogadro of Brescia, though a later family inventory calls him a Conforto. His enamelled gold cap-badge shows Saint Christopher, and his hand rests on a rapier, then a very new kind of sword. Titian would take up the full-length portrait only afterward.