Portret van kardinaal Alderano Cibo 1665 - 1698

Jacques Blondeau created this portrait of Cardinal Alderano Cibo as an engraving. It’s interesting to consider this portrait within the context of the Catholic Church in seventeenth-century Rome. Cibo's attire and title speak to the rigid hierarchies within the church and to the power that it exerted over the social and cultural life of Rome and the Papal States. The symbols in the upper corners allude to the Cardinal's lineage and status within the church. This image creates meaning through its visual codes – the clothing, the symbols of status, and the overall formality. The inscription below the image is in Latin, which would have further separated the Cardinal from the common people of the time. To fully understand an artwork like this, we can turn to archival sources that reveal the ways in which the Catholic Church shaped society and how individuals like Cardinal Cibo exercised their authority. Through social history, we recognize that the meaning of art is contingent on social and institutional context.