From the spring of 1629 to the summer of 1630, Michelangelo the Younger was the guest of Carlo Barberini, the brother of Urban VIII, in Rome. During his stay with the Barberini family, he was able to appreciate the skilled portraiture of Giuliano Finelli, whose fine busts can still be admired in Palazzo Barberini today. It is probable that it was at that time that Michelangelo the Younger commissioned this portrait, executed from life in Rome and paid for in 1630. The delightful bee set on the left hand lapel of the jacket is an obvious reference to the Barberini and further evidence of the close ties between Michelangelo the Younger and this important Roman family, from whom he received gifts of reliquaries and ancient and modern objects. Here Finelli was openly vying with the greatest achievements of Berninian portraiture: in fact at that time the Tascan sculptor was working in the studio of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who entrusted him with the execution of the most demanding details of his works (especially of the costumes: embroidery, jewelry, buttons...). This work located at the time in the fourth seventeenth century room known as the "Studio", is described in the Descrizione buonarrotiana as follows: "In another cabinet, there is a marble head and bast of Michelangelo the Younger, made by Giovanni sic Finelli from Carrara, a pupil of Bernini, with marvelous refinement; and the marble is worked like wax, so that it can be said that it has no equal in Florence. "A judgment confirmed three centuries later by Antonio Nava Cellini, who described this portrait as one of the most beautiful busts of the period."

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