Portret Canon Bartolomeo Bonghi

Dressed in his professorial robes and three-cornered hat, the legal scholar Bartolomeo Bonghi is shown holding a book on Roman civil law dedicated to him by its author in 1553. Through the open window is a tower that was one of the city of Bergamo’s most identifiable landmarks. Moroni was admired throughout northern Italy for his ability to capture his sitters "from life," or "from nature," in the words of the Venetian artist Titian. Works such as this were doubtless studied by the young Caravaggio.