Page 61 - GUIDO RENI 2017

T his balance between representing a Prince of the Church, bearing the responsibilities of high office and
the strong presence of an individual per­sonality, is exactly characteristic of Reni’s portraits from life as
noted by Sir Denis Mahon in regard to Reni’s portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldini (Fig. 3): ‘...that
of Reni’s own Cardinal Ubaldini where, although the presence of a Prince of the Church is powerfully insisted
upon, the representation of an individual human being is not entirely excluded’.26 It seems that the Borghese
portrait was the precursor of the Ubaldini portrait.

Therefore all of these stylistic features point to a date ‘of’ May 1605, or, as recently proposed by Benati,
a year or two earlier when Reni had just returned to Rome and was executing commissions for Cardinals
Sfondrato and Pietro Aldobrandini, Clement’s papal nephew27. On 3 March 1605, Pope Clement VIII died,
having reigned thirteen years and this led to two stormy conclaves in a very short period of time.28 The French
and Spanish parties were so divided that a schism was threatened. The first conclave convened on 14 March and,
after a protracted battle, ended in the election of Alessandro de Medici on 1 April 1605. The resultant victory
of the French party was short-lived, however, for Leo XI Medici died twenty-five days after his elevation.
There followed an even more fractious contest, which resulted in a compromise candidate emerg­ing, Camillo
Borghese, who then became Paul V on 16 May 1605 (Fig. 8a and b)29.

In fact, Borghese, a man trained in canon law, had been carefully advanced during the entire period as a
potential compromise between the rival factions. However, it would not do for his personal character to be
underrated. We suggest that his portrait was commissioned and executed in the period between late 1604
and May 1603 as part of an endeavor to make him better known and to display the candidate’s qualities,

to get into a discussion re which Carracci hand or what date. It is complicated; the BM also had a profile head in pen and ink
of Clem.VIII given to Annibale.’
26 The Age of Correggio and the Carracci, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1987, p. 473.
27 D. Benati, 2004-5, ‘….tra il troppo material discutibile proposto da Pepper, meritava poi attenzione il forte Ritratto di
Camillo Borghese, il futuro Paolo V (già Londra, Matthiesen), La cui datazione situate sul 1605 da Pepper (1988, p.328,
no.8), dovrebbe pero essere anticipate di almeno uno-due anni….’. This would mean that Reni and Camillo had a rapport
closer in date to the proposed execution of the Borghese Country Dance published in this catalogue.
28 For the history of these conclaves, see C. K. Pullapilly, Cesare Baronio, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1975, Ch. 7, pp. 107-116.
29 Gian Lorenzo Bernini was just twenty-three years old when he received one of his first commissions to make a full-sized bust
of Pope Paul V, the recently deceased uncle of his most important patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The bust was acquired
by The Getty Museum in 2015.

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