Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena

Bernardo Dovizi, called Bibbiena after his home town, was one of the most powerful men in Rome around 1516, private secretary to the Medici pope Leo X, a diplomat, and the author of a bawdy comedy that had delighted the papal court. He was also close enough to Raphael that the painter was betrothed to his niece, a marriage Raphael kept postponing until his early death. Here the cardinal sits in his red silk mozzetta and biretta, a letter in hand. The picture is so stiff by Raphael's standards that scholars still debate how much of it he actually painted and how much came from his busy workshop.