ABSTRACT
The interesting figure of Count Antonio has received little attention in the Barocci literature, and indeed few facts can be gleaned about him. The only known portrait of him appears in a naïve fresco portraying him and his family on one of the ceilings of his private apartment. As the eldest son of Count Monaldo Brancaleoni, Antonio inherited the lordship of Piobbico in 1556, when his father was murdered by the rival Ubaldini clan of nearby Apecchio. It is likely that the Madonna del Gatto, dated to the mid-1570s and therefore coinciding with the conclusion of Brancaleoni's building campaign, was destined for the new apartment. Buried in an old file at the National Gallery was a catalogue issued by the antiquarian book dealer Bernard Quaritch in the early 1990s, entitled Autograph letters of Italian Artists. Barocci probably made the Madonna del Gatto for the Brancaleoni as a companion piece to the Rest on the Return.
