ABSTRACT
The image is an encapsulation of early modern ideals of nepotism. Maffeo is a pious, studious individual, as indicated by the image of the Crucifixion on the wall to the far left and the books on the table beside him. He has justifiably been raised to the throne of St. Peter; as Barberini iconography proclaimed, his election was foreseen by divine providence. His foot, resting on a tasselled pillow, peeks out from under his robes. In a print that appears among the opening pages of Girolamo Teti’s Aedes Barberinae, Pope Urban VIII is visited by three children. The child in the foreground steps toward his great-uncle and holds up a book which features an anthropomorphic sun on the cover. The publication is, presumably, the Aedes Barberinae itself, being offered to the Barberini pontiff. As the sun was one of Maffeo Barberini’s most common personal emblems, the cover proclaims the book a manifestation of the pope’s vivifying powers.
