Portrait of the Young Pietro Bembo

Raphael completed this portrait around 1504, depicting his friend Pietro Bembo as a young man. Bembo was a Venetian poet and humanist who would later become a cardinal. The youth appears in a red gown and cap against a gentle Umbrian landscape, with long hair framing a gentle face. His right hand holds a folded sheet of paper, suggesting his literary pursuits.

This is one of Raphael's earliest portraits, created during the transition from his Umbrian training to his Florentine period. Scholars once thought it might be a self-portrait due to resemblance to Raphael's known image. Recent research identified it through Venetian records describing this very painting in Bembo's Paduan study. The work hangs at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.