Self-Portrait

This face hangs in one of the strangest collections in Florence: a gallery made entirely of artists looking at themselves. It began in the 17th century with Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, who started gathering painters' self-portraits, and the Medici and their successors kept adding to it for centuries until it grew into the many hundreds you can see today. Pier Francesco Mola was a Roman painter of the Baroque, born in 1612 near Como and active mostly in Rome, where he worked on frescoes for churches and for the pope. Here he presents himself the way a successful painter of his generation wanted to be remembered, turned toward us with an easy confidence. He died in 1666, and his likeness took its place among the colleagues and rivals whose faces line the same walls.