Portrait of Pope Paul V

Portrait of Pope Paul V (c. 1605-1606) is a painting by the Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. Camillo Borghese reigned as Pope Paul V from 1605 to 1621. Caravaggio's biographer Giovanni Bellori records that the artist painted a seated portrait of him as pope, which must place the work between Borghese's election on 16 May 1605 and Caravaggio's flight from Rome in May 1606 following t... more

Portrait of Pope Paul V (c. 1605-1606) is a painting by the Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. Camillo Borghese reigned as Pope Paul V from 1605 to 1621. Caravaggio's biographer Giovanni Bellori records that the artist painted a seated portrait of him as pope, which must place the work between Borghese's election on 16 May 1605 and Caravaggio's flight from Rome in May 1606 following the death of Ranuccio Tommassoni. The portrait is attested in the Borghese collection from 1650. Many scholars have doubted the authenticity of this painting, considering the composition too uninspired for the artist's style. But the scholar John Gash in his authoritative (revised) 2003 catalogue of Caravaggio believes the work is genuine, pointing out that the pose would have been beyond the artist's control - Paul V was noted for his dignified and even taciturn demenour, and would be unlikely to accept direction. "[H]is unostentatious bearing... less