Canon Ludovico di Terzi

Canon Ludovico di Terzi, painted in 1559 and housed in the National Gallery, London, is one of Moroni's most distinguished ecclesiastical portraits. Canons occupied an important position in the institutional life of sixteenth-century Italian Catholicism: they were educated clerics connected to cathedral chapters, often from noble families, who combined religious function with cultural prominence. For Moroni, who worked extensively for the church communities of the Bergamo diocese, clerical portraits were a significant part of his output. The Counter-Reformation, formally launched at the Council of Trent (which concluded 1563), was already shaping attitudes to clerical comportment and image in 1559, and Moroni's portrait of Canon di Terzi projects the dignified gravity that reforming Catholics sought to promote. The work joins several other ecclesiastical portraits by Moroni in the National Gallery, making London one of the primary locations for studying this aspect of his practice.

Oil on canvas with Moroni's direct, warm technique. The canon's vestments or clerical dress provide the costume field, and the distinction between different types of ecclesiastical fabric—wool, silk, linen—is rendered with Moroni's careful material observation. The face is the portrait's primary subject, and its individual characterisation distinguishes it from the idealised types of court portraiture.