Live video with Rubén González Cuerva, researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and author of the book A Military Walk through the Prado Museum, discussing Titian’s work The Allocution of Marquis del Vasto to his Troops (1540–1541)

The painting depicts the governor quelling a soldiers’ mutiny and leaving his own eldest son, Francesco Ferdinando, as a hostage. The detail of the child and his armour is particularly noteworthy, as it represents a thoracata type of which only one example survives today in the Royal Armoury in Madrid.

From Room 25 of the Museo del Prado