Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan

Bellini painted the new leader of Venice around 1501, the year Leonardo Loredan was elected doge, and he broke with how doges had always been shown. Tradition put a ruler in strict profile, like a head on a coin, dignified and remote. Bellini turned Loredan almost to face us in three-quarter view and lit him from the left, so the light rakes across the raised threads of his stiff brocade robe and picks out every ridge and hollow of an aging, watchful face. The buttons and cloth are done with a jeweller's patience. And yet the man behind them gives nothing away, mouth set, eyes fixed just past us. Loredan would go on to lead Venice for 20 years, through war that nearly destroyed the city.