Carlo Beretta, portrait of Innocent XI, terracotta Carlo Beretta (Milan 1690 - 1765) PORTRAIT OF INNOCENZO XI terracotta sculpture, 74x68x32.5 cm Comparative literature A. Bacchi, Carlo Beretta in Brignano , in A. Bacchi, S. Zanuso, Carlo Beretta e i Visconti di Brignano , Trento 2011, pp. 7-8 and 12, fig. 6 Andrea Bacchi, who has studied the bust in question, suggests its possible identification with the one auctioned in 1898 by Giuseppe Sangiorgi, in a sale held in the rooms of the castle of Govone near Cuneo, although he points out the presence of some minor variants. According to Bacchi himself, the attribution of the Portrait of Innocent XI here to Carlo Beretta, a brilliant Milanese sculptor of the first half of the 18th century, does not seem problematic in any way. The nervous modelling of the pontiff's face, with almost Rococo overtones, decisively leads one to exclude the reference of this sculpture to the Roman sphere, marked by a solemn and noble classicism in official post-Berninian portraiture, and also points to a later date than the Odescalchi pontificate (1676-1689).