In Portrait of Pope Paul III with camauro, how is the History discussed?
Judging by the relative apparent ages of the Pope in the three works, the canvas was produced immediately after the Portrait of Pope Paul III (the first official version of the work) and before the Portrait of Pope Paul III with his Grandsons. This assumption is fundamentally based on the age that transpires from the figure of the pope, who appears to be more advanced than that of the official portrait, already seventy-five, while it is less so than that where the pontiff himself appears with his two nephews. According to Vasari's Lives of the Artists it was produced for cardinal camerlengo Guido Ascanio Sforza di Santa Fiora, president of the Apostolic Camera and grandson of its subject. Unlike the first official version it shows its subject wearing the papal camauro, has a scroll replacing the ring on his hand and a landscape on one side of the background. Versions of this work showing the camauro also survive in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, both of these may or may not be autograph works.
Lives of the Artists Guido Ascanio Sforza di Santa Fiora camauro camerlengo Hermitage Museum Kunsthistorisches Museum Paul III Portrait of Pope Paul III Vasari Portrait of Pope Paul III with his Grandsons