Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (78 page)

43.
For the correspondence between Paravicino and Gualdo, see G. Cozzi, ‘Intorno al Cardinale Ottavio Paravicino, a Monsignor Paolo Gualdo e a Michelangelo da Caravaggio’,
Rivista storica italiana
, vol. 73 (1961), pp. 36–68. I am indebted to Opher Mansour, who allowed me to see his translations of, and commentaries on, these letters, in his unpublished doctoral thesis submitted to the Courtauld Institute: ‘Art, Offensive Images: Censure and Censorship in Rome under Clement VIII 1592–1605’ (London, 2003).

44.
It is often said that there is a hidden self-portrait reflected in the carafe – see, for example, Langdon,
Caravaggio: A Life
, p. 151. I have inspected the painting under high magnification and there is no such self-portrait in it.

45.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 43.

46.
See n. 41 above.

47.
See Giorgio Vasari,
Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects
, vol. 1, p. 629.

48.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 93.

49.
He did so, perhaps, because there was an established connection between that particular artistic style and alchemy. See my comments on Francesco de’ Medici’s
studiolo
, on p. 159 above.

50.
Again, see n. 41 above. The resemblance to Ottavio Leoni’s portrait of Caravaggio is, in my opinion, incontrovertible in the
Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto
. The identification with Francis is a little less certain but I am still confident that the saint is a self-portrait.

51.
See Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, p. 260.

52.
Sandro Corradini discovered the case. With Maurizio Marini, he subsequently published the transcripts in full, together with a useful interpretative essay. See Sandro Corradini and Maurizio Marini, ‘The Earliest Account of Caravaggio in Rome’,
Burlington Magazine
, vol. 40, no. 1,138 (Jan. 1998), pp. 25–8.

53.
The building still stands in Rome today. It is still a barber’s shop!

54.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 92.

55.
See Fiora Bellini, ‘Tre documenti inediti per Michelangelo da Caravaggio’,
Prospettiva
, no. 65 (Jan. 1992), pp. 70–71.

56.
See Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, pp. 263–5.

57.
See Francesco Susinno,
Le vite de’ pittori messinesi e di altri che fiorirono in Messina
, V. Martinelli (ed.) (Florence, 1960), p. 117.

58.
See Rudolf and Margot Wittkower,
Born Under Saturn
(New York, 1963), p. 198. Orazio Gentileschi eventually prospered in France and Genoa in the 1620s. He was called to London in 1626 to become a painter at the court of King Charles I, who rewarded him with a generous stipend.

59.
See G. P. Caffarelli, ‘Famiglie romane’, Biblioteca Angelica MS 1638, cc. 88r–v; cited (reliably) in Riccardo Bassani and Fiora Bellini,
Caravaggio assassino
(Rome, 1994), p. 13, n. 20.

60.
ASR, Tribunale criminale del Senatore (TCS), reg. 1438, testimony of Onorio Longhi, 4 May 1595, cc. 20v–22v.

61.
Ibid.

62.
Ibid., reg. 444, testimony of Margherita Fannella, 4 May 1595.

63.
Cited in Sandro Corradini,
Materiali per un processo
(Rome, 1993), document 15, 25–7 Oct., deposition by Stefano Longhi and others.

64.
Ibid.

65.
See Rudolf and Margot Wittkower,
Born Under Saturn
, p. 196.

66.
See L. Pascoli,
Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni
(Rome, 1730), vol. 2, pp. 512–13.

67.
See
ASR
,
TCS
, reg. 1438, testimony of Onorio Longhi, 4 May 1595, cc. 20v–22v.

68.
See Christopher Breward, ‘Fashioning the Modern Self: Clothing, Cavaliers and Identity in Van Dyck’s London’, in
Van Dyck and Britain
, Karen Hearn (ed.) (London, 2009), pp. 34–5.

69.
See Tommaso Garzoni,
La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo
(Rome, 1996), pp. 1,263–83, for the following quotations.

70.
ASR, Tribunale del governatore (TCG), reg. 483, witness statement of Anna Bianchini, 22 Apr. 1594, c. 144v; cited (reliably) in Riccardo Bassani and Fiora Bellini,
Caravaggio assassino
, p. 74, n. 5.

71.
ASR, Archivio Sforza Cesarini, s. xii, b. 1b, filza 1, interrogationes et testes 1596–7, cc. n.n; cited (reliably) in Riccardo Bassani and Fiora Bellini,
Caravaggio assassino
, p. 53, n. 5.

72.
Inventories show that she owned a painting of the Magdalen repenting by Caravaggio. The banker Ottavio Costa also owned a version of the same subject. Scholarly opinion is divided about who originally owned the Detroit painting but the balance of evidence currently available favours Olimpia Aldobrandini.

73.
See Gregory Martin,
Roma sancta
, George Bruner Parks (ed.) (Rome, 1969), p. 143.

74.
For Ranuccio Tomassoni, see Riccardo Bassani and Fiora Bellini,
Caravaggio assassino
, pp. 55–73.

75.
For all the following testimonies see Sandro Corradini,
Materiali per un processo
, document 17.

76.
Such figures appear with great frequency in northern European genre painting, especially Dutch art. Her tough, harsh face was probably modelled on a male Roman portrait bust.

77.
See Carlo Cesare Malvasia,
Le vite de’ pittori bolognese
, edition of 1678 (Bologna, 1841), vol. 1, p. 344.

78.
His methods might be described as a kind of empirical Tintorettism, in
the sense that they are the techniques a painter might evolve if he wanted to emulate Tintoretto but had never been trained in Tintoretto’s actual methods –
which were rather different, and certainly involved drawing.

79.
See Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, p. 264.

80.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 64. The idea that Caravaggio also used some kind of lens or camera obscura is a red herring. Caravaggio had plenty of enemies who would have no doubt taken pleasure in exposing him as a cheat, but no such device is mentioned by any of the early writers. Nor does anything like it appear in the only known inventory of his possessions.

81.
Ibid., p. 33.

PART FOUR: ROME, 1599–1606

1.
The document is reprinted and translated in Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, p. 297.

2.
See Herwarth Röttgen,
Il Caravaggio: ricerche e interpretazioni
(Rome, 1974), pp. 20–21; the translation is from John T. Spike,
Caravaggio
. The contract in question is the one signed by Giuseppe Cesari on 27 May 1591. As Cesari’s successor, it seems highly probable that Caravaggio would have been made aware of Contarelli’s wishes.

3.
Quoted in Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, p. 265.

4.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 69.

5.
See for example Catherine Puglisi,
Caravaggio
(London, 1998), pp. 157–60.

6.
See G. Urbani, ‘Il restauro delle tele del Caravaggio in S. Luigi dei Francesi’,
Bollettino dell’Istituto Centrale del Restauro
, vol. 17 (1966).

7.
See Franca Trinchieri Camiz, ‘Death and Rebirth in Caravaggio’s
Martyrdom of St Matthew
’,
Artibus et Historiae
, vol. 11, no. 22 (1990), pp. 89–105.

8.
See E. Cecilia Voelker, Charles Borromeo’s ‘Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis
ecclesiasticae’, translation with commentary, dissertation, Syracuse University, 1977, pp. 250–51.

9.
See Anti-Nicene Christian Library,
Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to AD 325
.
Volume 9: The Writings of Tertullian
, I, 25. Cited in ‘Death and Rebirth in Caravaggio’s
Martyrdom of St Matthew
’.

10.
Titian’s painting is lost, destroyed by fire, but its design can still be studied from prints.

11.
See Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, p. 300.

12.
See, in particular, his thunderously inept contributions to the fresco cycle begun by Giorgio Vasari in the dome of Florence cathedral.

13.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 45. The translation here gives ‘the style of Giorgione’, which I have changed to ‘idea’ because the Italian word Baglione used was
pensiero
.

14.
See Giorgio Vasari,
Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects
, vol. 1, p. 641.

15.
San Luigi dei Francesi was open to such innovations from outside. When Caravaggio accepted his commission, it was already one of the few churches in Rome to have a great Venetian canvas – by Jacopo Bassano – above its high altar.

16.
See Helen Langdon,
Caravaggio: A Life
, p. 75.

17.
See Sandro Corradini,
Materiali per un processo
, document 21, 7 Feb. 1601.

18.
See Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, pp. 269–70.

19.
All the material from the investigation of Onorio Longhi in Oct. 1600, discussed below, is from Sandro Corradini,
Materiali per un processo
, document 15.

20.
See above, p. 74.

21.
Ibid., document 16, 20 Jan., deposition by Stefano Longhi and others.

22.
Ibid., document 18.

23.
Cited in John T. Spike,
Caravaggio
, in his
CD
-ROM catalogue entries for
The Conversion of St Paul
and
The Crucifixion of St Peter
; and Walter Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies
, pp. 302–3.

24.
See Denis Mahon, ‘Egregius in Urbe Pictor: Caravaggio Revisited’,
Burlington Magazine
, vol. 93, no. 580 (July 1951), p. 226.

25.
Caravaggio was familiar with the place too. He had convalesced in the Hospital of Santa Maria Consolazione in 1592–3, after being kicked by a horse.

26.
Sixtus V; see Helen Langdon,
Caravaggio: A Life
, p. 181.

27.
Quoted in John T. Spike,
Caravaggio
, p. 106.

28.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 88, where Bellori says that ‘Caravaggio did not use cinnabar reds or azure blues in his figures; and if he occasionally did use them, he toned them down, saying they were poisonous colours.’

29.
See Fiora Bellini, ‘Tre documenti per Michelangelo da Caravaggio’, pp. 70–71.

30.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 91.

31.
See Charles Scribner III, ‘In Alia Effigie: Caravaggio’s London
Supper at Emmaus
’,
Art Bulletin
, vol. 59, no. 3 (Sept. 1977), pp. 375–82, for an illuminating account of the youthful Christ and his theological significance.

32.
The author’s name was Gaspare Celio, whose book was published in Naples in 1638. He described the picture as ‘a Pastor Friso, in oil, by Michelangelo da Caravaggio’. See the entry in John T. Spike, Caravaggio,
CD
-
ROM
catalogue entry no. 29.

33.
See Conrad Rudolph and Steven F. Ostrow, ‘Isaac Laughing: Caravaggio, Non-Traditional Imagery and Traditional Identification’,
Art History
, vol. 24, no. 5 (Nov. 2001), pp. 646–81. The article advances the theory that the painter meant to depict Isaac instead of St John. It also contains a very good summary of the hard documentary evidence that disproves its own argument.

34.
‘Un quadro di San Gio: Battista col suo Agnello di mano del Caravaggio’, cited in ibid., p. 649.

35.
He described it as ‘di San Giovanni Battista del Caravaggio’; cited in ibid.

36.
See Helen Langdon,
The Lives of Caravaggio
, p. 72.

37.
See Sergio Benedetti, ‘Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ: A Masterpiece Rediscovered’,
Burlington Magazine
, vol. 135, no. 1,088 (Nov. 1993), p. 740.

38.
See Niccolò Lorini del Monte,
Elogii delle piu principali S. Donne del sagro calendario, e martirologio romano
(Florence, 1617), p. 316. My attention was called to this passage by Pamela M. Jones’s enlightening study of the pauperist context of Caravaggio’s Rome in her book
Altarpieces and Their Viewers
in the Churches of Rome from Caravaggio to Guido Reni
; see pp. 75ff. in particular.