The image of the wealthy merchant from Lucca Giovanni Arnolfini shown together with his wife in the intimacy of their comfortable home in Bruges has always been considered the brilliant figurative proof of the commercial and artistic relations between Italy and Flanders in the 15th century. However, there has been a certain amount of doubtful attention devoted to the figures for some time; in fact, the hypothesis that one of the maximum masterpieces of portraiture of all times may not depict the Arnolfinis at all, but the van Eycks, is not entirely new. It had already been cautiously suggested by the Director of London’s National Gallery over a century and a half ago, when the painting was purchased by the great museum, but the idea was soon cast aside by the objections of specialists. Other doubts about the couple’s identity have cropped up a number of times, juggled back and forth amongst the abundant historic information on the painting, archival research, and allegorical theories. Today the National Gallery’s tag carries a prudent question mark after the first name (Giovanni), but not after the surname of Arnolfini: room for doubt…