Ambrogio Spinola in Genoese Art

Ambrogio Spinola’s image and the depiction of the most important feats of his military career enjoyed extraordinary success in the visual arts.¹ His unprecedented role in the Spanish Netherlands, his fame and an efficient image strategy guaranteed a level of dissemination of his painted and engraved likeness, as well as of the representation of his victories, which was absolutely unusual for anyone but a sovereign. As José Luis Colomer observed in his important study,² Spinola’s portrait, often executed by exceptionally gifted artists, was to be seen simultaneously in such far removed, yet significant places as the Salón de Reinos in