Portrait of Pope Sixtus IV

Titian's posthumous portrait of Pope Sixtus IV from around 1545, now in the Uffizi Gallery, was created more than sixty years after the Della Rovere pope's death in 1484 — an act of retrospective image-making that served the political and dynastic purposes of the Farnese family or another great patron who wanted a series of papal portraits to decorate an official or private space. Sixtus IV had been one of the most architecturally ambitious popes of the fifteenth century, building the Sistine Chapel and commissioning the frescoes of its walls from Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio; his family, the Della Rovere, produced a second great pope in Julius II. Titian would have worked from earlier portraits or medals to construct this image, and the resulting work serves as much as a statement about the tradition of papal portraiture as a documentary likeness. The Uffizi holds this work alongside Raphael's Julius II and Titian's own portraits of Paul III, creating a survey of Renaissance papal imagery in a single room.

Despite being a posthumous portrait, Titian invests the figure with characteristic vitality through warm, rich coloring and the convincing treatment of the papal vestments' sumptuous fabrics.

This posthumous portrait was commissioned as part of a series honoring the Della Rovere family's connection to the papacy. The painting has undergone restoration and cleaning. As a posthumous likeness, it has attracted less scholarly attention regarding its accuracy. The canvas is in fair condition, with some areas of retouching and repair.