Portrait de Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale

For a long stretch of its life this picture was thought to show Christopher Columbus, painted by someone in Raphael's circle. It is neither. The sitter is Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale, a minor lord of Fontanellato near Parma, and the painter was the young Parmigianino, barely 21, who dated it 1524 on the back while working at the Sanvitale family fortress. Sanvitale wears fashionable black over red sleeves and holds a small round medal, his armour and sword set beside him as marks of rank. Within a year the painter left this provincial court for Rome and the papal city. It took until 1857 for a descendant of the family, going through old documents, to recognise his own ancestor and undo the Columbus story.