Portrait of Pope Clement VII

Sebastiano painted the Medici pope Clement VII in 1526, and the calm of the picture is almost cruel in hindsight. Within a year the unpaid army of Emperor Charles the Fifth would pour into Rome and sack it for months, and this pope would be trapped in the fortress of Sant'Angelo, watching the city burn. Here he is still clean-shaven and composed. Afterwards, in mourning for Rome, Clement grew the long beard he wears in Sebastiano's later portrait. Since Raphael's death in 1520 no one in Rome could rival Sebastiano at this kind of grave, weighty likeness, and the grateful pope soon gave him a comfortable post keeping the papal seals, the job that earned him his nickname, del Piombo, of the lead.