"As for the hands… they are almost as expressive as words… Do we not use them to demand, promise, summon, dismiss, threaten, supplicate?"
⁓ Quintilian, The Orator's Education
This is a portrait of Andrea Doria, a Genoese naval admiral in the service of Pope Clement VII, here depicted in the year he became supreme captain of the papal fleet (1526). He was a skilled negotiator in securing peace and independence from the Holy Roman Empire for the Genoese Republic in the 1520s.
Sebastiano places Doria behind a fictive parapet inspired by a similar Roman friezes he would have seen in the collection of Pope Clement VII. The hieroglyphics become a visual key to the subject's various virtues, which we are commanded to read by his pointing hand, like a sentence from left to right. The six maritime symbols are laden with double meaning: not only do they witness to his naval prowess, but also to his diplomatic and humanistic strengths. The rudder signifies prudence; the anchor, steadfastness; the ship's swan finial of the upper deck, grace and eloquence.
Coupled with his monumental scale, stern facial expression and the portrait's monochromatic scheme, Doria's gesturing points out to us without speaking a single word, his legitimacy to hold his title.
