In 1944 Margaretta Salinger proposed to ascribe the painting to Jacopino del Conte. The young Federico Zeri, who devoted his dissertation to this artist, rose his doubts about this attribution. In 1949 he wrote a letter to the Metropolitan Museum stating that:

“Inv. no. 41.100.05: The hypothesis about Jacopino del Conte is not acceptable, as it is not supported neither by comparisons with other artworks of his, nor by the date 1566. At this time Jacopino was doing totally different portraits, which are characterised by a very mechanical and arid style. In my opinion, the painting was not created by this Roman painter, rather by an artist who also knew the pictorial tradition of Northern Italy”.

In the catalog about North Italian paintings at the MET, written by Zeri in the following years and published in 1986, he shifted his opinion and attributed the portrait to the Bolognese painter Bartolomeo Passerotti

"The composition is apparently derived from a model current in Rome, very likely by Jacopino del Conte, but the brushwork reflects Venetian technique around the middle of the century, especially that of the young Jacopo Tintoretto. The treatment of highlights, the thin layer of colors, and the general tone are quite typical of Passerotti, and the date is consistent with his work at that moment”.

In 1995, D. Stephen Pepper reoriented the discussion to suggest that the author came instead from among the so-called Studiolo artists, the group of painters that worked for Duke Francesco I de’ Medici in his private chamber in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence beginning in 1570. Of these, Pepper focused on Girolamo Macchietti (1535–1592).

Privitera and Feinberg later demonstrated as visual connections are even closer with another painter of this circled, Mirabello Cavalori (Florence ?-1572). This latter appears to be the most authoritative attribution nowadays, even if some scholars have recently proposed the names of Maso da San Friano and, again, of Jacopino del Conte.

The discovery of a copy of the painting in a private collection, bearing the castle of Magione in the background, made it possible to identify the character depicted, who is supposed to be Fra Jacopo Salviati, nephew of the Grand Prior of the Knights of Malta, born in 1537 and thus 29 in 1566.