Ritratto di Ippolito de' Medici

The man in this portrait was a cardinal of the church, yet Titian dressed him as a soldier. Ippolito de' Medici had been sent to Hungary in 1532 as the pope's legate, and there, rather than praying, he led thousands of Hungarian troops against the advancing Ottoman Turks. Titian caught that pride, painting him in a rich Hungarian costume, a fur-trimmed doublet and a plumed cap, his hand resting near a commander's baton. Ippolito had never wanted the priesthood. His family had pushed him into the church and he chafed against it, and this warrior's outfit is almost a protest in paint. Titian made the portrait around 1533. Within a few years Ippolito was dead at 24, poisoned, most believed, on the orders of his cousin Alessandro.