Lotto was the first Italian painter who was sensitive to the varying states of the human soul.
His portrait of the "Giovane Malato" shows the sitter in his study casually flipping through the pages of a thick treatise. It may seem a remarkable intimate depictdion in which the sitter appears to have been caught unawares, but this is fiction.
The hunting horn and the lute that hang from a cornice refer to his culture and pastimes, while before him lie an opened letter, scattered rose petals, a ring, and an inquisitive lizard.
The rose petals and the ring allude to a trial of love -- as conveyed by the letter.
The lizard signifies the jealousy that is at the centre of the problem.
Is it to console or distract himself that this pensive sitter has diffidently turned to the treatise in front of him?
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