Portrait of Pope Gregory XV with Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi

This double portrait of Pope Gregory XV with Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, painted in 1621 and held in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Béziers, depicts two of the most important figures in early seventeenth-century Roman art patronage. Pope Gregory XV (reigned 1621-1623) was a Bolognese who brought artists from his native city to Rome, while his nephew Cardinal Ludovisi assembled one of the greatest art collections of the century. Domenichino, as a Bolognese painter, benefited from Gregory's pontificate, which favored the classicizing tradition of the Carracci school.

The double portrait balances the formal demands of papal portraiture with naturalistic characterization, capturing both men's individual features with the direct observation instilled by the Carracci academy. The compositional arrangement conveys the hierarchical relationship between pope and cardinal nephew.