Note sulla provenienza dell’Alfonso III in abito da cappuccino di Matteo Loves della Galleria Estense di Modena

This paper presents some news about the history of collecting of the Alfonso III d'Este in abito cappuccino (Modena, Gall. Estense). The painting, dated, was executed in 1635 by Matteo Loves, in that year at court. It shows duke Alfonso after the abdication, when he dressed the capuchin habit. That year he founded the capuchin monastery in Castelnuovo Garfagnana and it is thus possible that the request of a portrait was related to the event. Some very detailed citations allow to recognize it in the inventories of the ferrarese collections Barbi Cinti (1843) and Cavalieri. The latter was sold in auction in 1914, and the portrait joined the Galleria Estense the following year. A new document found in the Boccolari Archive (ASMo), dated 1819, shows that the painting was already in Ferrara that year, by a person intentioned to sell it to the duke of Modena. It is possible that the portrait had been there since a long time, maybe thanks to Cesare Estense Mosti, who was the Governor of Garfagnana at the time of its execution.