Retrato de un joven senador

The Venetian Republic legislated what its patricians could wear, so the scarlet robe, the stole over the right shoulder and the black cap on this man's head were a uniform of office rather than a choice of wardrobe. That is where the title comes from. The trouble is the face. He looks far too young for the Senate, and the museum in Padua says so plainly, which leaves the identification unsettled. The panel is small, about 35 centimetres high, and the sitter stands behind a painted marble parapet, the device Bellini used to push a figure forward towards whoever is looking. It reached Padua in 1864 with the bequest of the Emo Capodilista family, which is why the young man is sometimes said to have been an Emo.