Giovanni Battista Moroni began his successful career as portrait painter at the two sessions of the Council of Trent held between 1545 and 1548, and between 1551 and 1552. Most of his subsequent career, he spent in the area of northern Italy encompassed by Brescia, Bergamo, and Trent, painting portraits and religious commissions for the mercantile elite and the local clergy. The unknown sitter for this portrait is identified as an ecclesiastic by his opened New Testament and his biretta, or four-pointed cap. Moroni's portraits can be distinguished by their directness of observation and austere formality of presentation.