Monsignor della Casa

Monsignor della Casa stands in a dim interior, a cobalt-blue cape gathered over his arm and a small book pressed open against his chest, the black hat held low at his side. The sitter, in all likelihood Giovanni della Casa (1503–1556), came of a wealthy Tuscan family, rose in the service of the church, and was in his early thirties and acting as Apostolic Commissioner of taxes in Florence when Pontormo painted him; he would go on to write Il Galateo, the book of manners, and the sober self-possession he recommends there is already the whole character of this likeness. Pontormo, the most original of the Florentine Mannerists, angles the body towards us and turns the face away, letting the small head sit against the great conical mass of the cape and the few architectural slivers that suggest the cathedral of Florence. The result is a portrait of a man of letters rather than of an office, and one of the most penetrating likenesses of the sixteenth century. It is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.