Simone Cantarini per Antonio Barberini, tre ritratti e la congiuntura naturalista

The article presents, for the first time together, three portraits of Cardinal Antonio Barberini junior painted by Simone Cantarini at the time of Antonio’s arrival in Pesaro and Urbino as Papal Legate for the Devolution of the duchy to the Church, in 1631. The examination and comparison of the series, closely interconnected, starting from the vivid oil on paper that prepares it, closing any doubt on the autograph of the latter, allows a new dive into the delicate ridge of the painter’s beginnings, which is clarifed in his wealth and freedom of sources that find in Claudio Ridolfi a bearing and stimulating reference, also towards other naturalistic solutions.