Portrait of Ranuccio Farnese

Ranuccio Farnese was twelve years old when he sat for this, and he was already a person of consequence: a grandson of the reigning pope, Paul III, and freshly handed a lucrative post in the Knights of Malta. Titian lets the honour weigh on him almost literally. The dark mantle of the order, marked with its white cross, is cut for a grown man, and it slides heavily off the boy's narrow shoulder while his face stays open and a little unsure of itself. The portrait was made around 1542 in Venice, commissioned by a bishop of the Cornaro family as a gift to be sent to Ranuccio's mother.