Portrait of a Knight of Malta
Alessandro Imbert, Rome; purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1909.
Inscribed in border of panel, "MACRINI MANV POST FATA VIVAM. 1499" (By the hand of Macrino I shall live after death. 1499).
Portrait of the knight wearing a black outfit and black hat. He has a gold chain around his neck and the Malta cross in white pinned to his shirt.
The sitter wears the white cross of the Order of Malta, a European lay religious order whose 15th-century members were required to be of the Catholic faith, of noble birth, and devoted to works of virtue and charity. He may be Benvenuto da San Giorgio of Biandrate, a nobleman papal ambassador and Knight of the Order, beginning in 1480.
The dated inscription in the border reads, "By the hand of Macrino, I shall live after death," indicating the impetus for having a portrait made was part of a lasting legacy for sitter and painter alike.
Macrino was a little-known painter who was active in the northwest of Italy in the Piedmont region. He may have studied with Pinturicchio, the artist whose work served as models for the lunette paintings in the Rotunda and East Room of this building.