Portrait of Count Fortunato Martinengo

In 1541 Fortunato Martinengo, a nobleman of Brescia, set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and the National Gallery suggests he may have sat for this portrait before he left. He came home and married in 1542. Moretto shows him with his head propped on his hand, the old pose of melancholy that Dürer had made famous in an engraving. A small badge on his feathered cap carries a line in Greek, “Alas, I yearn too much.” Whether he longed for learning, a person or the journey ahead is left open. On the table lie a humanist's treasures, ancient coins in silver and gold, a bronze oil lamp shaped like a sandalled foot, and grey leather gloves. A poet himself, he founded a literary society in Brescia, the Accademia dei Dubbiosi. His coat is lined with the spotted fur of a lynx or a snow leopard.