Ambrosiana
OCTOBER 12: SPECIAL EVENING OPENING
From 18.00 to 19.30 (last admission) entrance to the Art Gallery and Crypt at the special price of €3.00
08/10/2025-08/10/2025
In Roman numerals on the fragment of stone at the bottom right we see the date when Giovan Battista Moroni finished this portrait: 1554. It shows a gentleman, full-length, leaning on the plinth of a column, on which we see a Latin phrase taken from Horace: Impavidum ferient ruinae (“Ruins would strike him undismayed”). This motto has made it possible to make a hypothesis about the identity of the sitter: it might be Michel de l’Hospital, the representative of the King of France at the Tridentine Council (1547-1548), who did indeed use this phrase from Horace as his own personal motto, even though it was fairly common in sixteenth-century France. The painting is remarkable for its attention to detail, from the sitter’s garments through to the subtle play of shadows.
From 18.00 to 19.30 (last admission) entrance to the Art Gallery and Crypt at the special price of €3.00
