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The subject of this portrait is Franciscan Friar Carlo Lodoli (1690-1761), a celebrated theorist of the new architectural rationalism, in opposition to the excesses of the Baroque, and a savage critic of not a few among contemporary architects. Acerbic to the extreme, Lodoli made numerous enemies.
The inscription in the upper left zone of the painting can be translated as: "Alexander Longhi painted Brother Lodoli, not among the greatest apologists nor among the greatest architects."
Longhi painted more than a single portrait of the controversial Lodoli, the present painting surely must be posthumous.
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