Vincenzo Cappello stands in full armor, grasping the baton of command, in this portrait designed to express the authority of a venerable military leader who had passed a lifetime in the faithful service of the Venetian state. Cappello was a member of a Venetian patrician family, several of whose members pursued distinguished careers in the navy. Vincenzo’s authority as a naval commander brought him political honors and responsibilities: he was knighted by Henry VII of England, nominated as ambassador to the papal court, and served as procurator of San Marco (the second-highest lifetime appointment in the Republic, under the doge).
Cappello’s celebrity as a military commander led to a demand for painted portraits of him both before and after his death in 1541. A number of artists met that demand. This Titian composition is preserved in at least four other contemporary versions or copies. Of these extant versions, the Gallery’s picture is now generally accepted as the earliest and the finest. Titian’s design changes can be seen in x-radiographs of the painting’s underlayers, indicating that the Gallery’s picture precedes the other known versions. Historic documentation and the painting’s broad brushwork suggest that it was executed in the 1550s. Titian was likely to have been aided in this task by his workshop, which would then have been entirely responsible for subsequent versions of the composition.
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