Portrait of Doge Francesco Erizzo

Francesco Erizzo was elected Doge of Venice in April 1631, in the middle of the plague that had just killed roughly a third of the city, his predecessor among the dead. He was a soldier and diplomat by career, and Strozzi, recently arrived from Genoa and soon the city's leading portraitist, found in him one of his most important patrons. The painting holds two things at once. There is the official weight of the office, the doge's horned cap and heavy brocade, and then the plain human gesture of his right hand resting on his belt, which pulls him close and almost informal. A finer version of the portrait hangs in Vienna. Erizzo died in 1646 as Venice went to war with the Ottomans over Crete, and by his own wish his heart was placed in the Basilica of San Marco.