Portrait of the bishop Emanuele Maria Thun

The painting portrays Emanuele Maria Thun, elected prince bishop of Trento on 11 August 1800.
During his pastoral office, the treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801), which marked the end of the Napoleonic wars between France and the Sacred Roman Empire, decreed the secularisation of the ecclesiastical principates located within the imperial territories, including that of Trento.
The new institutional arrangement came into force once and for all in 1803. The bishop therefore lost his temporal powers, and was left with the spiritual leadership of the diocese.
The portrait, Domenico Zeni’s masterpiece, presents Thun dressed in violet, white lace rochet and ermine cope, against which the pectoral cross stands out. The prelate is holding a book bearing the family coat of arms enriched with the prince bishop’s insignia. On the far right, through an arch one has a glimpse of the cathedral of Trento.