Dona Isabel de Requesens   

Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens y Enriquez de Cardona-Anglesola, Vice Queen of Naples (1518)

by:   Raphael   |    Romano      patron:   Cardinal Bibbiena      category: Painting    location: Viceroy of Naples Palace

note:  This painting is also known as Portrait of Giovanna d'Aragona, perhaps owed to the letter from Beltrando Costabili (an ambassador speaking on behalf of Raphael) to Duke Afonso d'Este dated 2 March 1519 in which Costabili notes Raphael "mandasse uno suo gargione a Neapolit per ritrare quella signoria, ha mandato a la excellentia vostra quello proprio ritracto fece el suo gargione" (Ferrara 1992, p. 3; Shearman 2003, I: p. 438). This identification of the sitter in this portrait, however, was later proven to be inaccurate. As Woods-Marsden has noted (2001), and echoed in Henry/Joannides (2013), this portrait was commissioned by Cardinal Bibbiena to be gifted to Francis I. Restored by Primaticcio in 1540.