Innocent Plea

Hugh M. Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, recalling conversations he had with the artist Francis Bacon, asserts that Pope Innocent X was “the most powerful man in the world [in 1650] . . . a very strong individual, but also very corrupt” (“A Few Prized Obsessions,” by Leah Ollman, Jan. 10).

Please allow me to clarify a couple of things about Pope Innocent X, Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, from whose family I have the honor of being descended: By the time Cardinal Giambattista Pamphilj was elected pope in 1644, the papacy had lost its power to control world affairs. Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister of King Louis XIII, for example, was a far more powerful individual on the world stage than Innocent X. Even inside the Church itself, the power of the papacy had already declined.

Innocent was a miserly old man who presided over the Church at a time of decline, political and economic. He was far from haughty. Nor was he a strong or particularly corrupt individual. He was humble and was rather embarrassed by the spectacular portrait painted by Diego de Silva y Velazquez, which was finished in 1651. Innocent had once been told that he was the ugliest man in Rome. Ironically, the portrait was such a success that Velazquez ended up painting several copies of it.

What one sees when looking at the portrait is, above all, Velazquez’s genius. Likewise, it is Bacon’s artistry we must look for and appreciate when viewing his takeoff on Velazquez’s work. And leave Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, Pope Innocent X, out of it.

CARLOS DE VASCONCELLOS

San Antonio Heights