Caravaggio

by Andrew Graham-Dixon

  Notes

  PART ONE: MILAN, 1571–92

  1. See Helen Langdon (ed.), The Lives of Caravaggio (London, 2005), pp. 89, 81.

  2. The very structure of Bellori’s Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects consigns Caravaggio to darkness. In arranging the engraved portraits that illustrated his book, Bellori made sure that the artists whom he truly valued be given dignifying attributes such as books or paintbrushes to hold. So for example Nicolas Poussin, one of Bellori’s heroes, holds a book fixed with a fine clasp and gazes out with an expression of grave calm on his face. Caravaggio, by contrast, has his hand on the hilt of a sword and glares nervously sideways with the furtive and guilty eyes of a criminal. One of just twelve artists singled out for inclusion, he has been allowed his place at the table of art history. But he sits on the wrong side, a Judas among the true apostles. For an arresting interpretation of some of the fictional elements of the early biographies see ‘Caravaggio’s Deaths’ by Philip Sohm, Art Bulletin, vol. 84, no. 3 (Sept. 2002), p. 452.

  3. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 57.

  4. Ibid., p. 41.

  5. Ibid., p. 27.

  6. See in particular M. Cinotti, Novita sul Caravaggio (Milan, 1983).

  7. For the importance of Caravaggio’s maternal relations and their contacts, Giacomo Berra, ‘Il Giovane Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: la sua famiglia e la scelta dell’ars pingendi’, Paragone, vol. 53 (2002), pp. 40–128, is the invaluable source.

  8. See Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300–1600 (Baltimore, 1993): ‘Generally speaking … the argument got shifted from the nature of nobility to the behaviour of the noble; and along the way, most of the essential elements of the traditional definition – arms, service, virtue, blood, economic activities – were qualified.’ So many different ideas were ‘bandied about the concept’, the writer adds, ‘that one could have it just about any way he wanted it’.

  9. See Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490–1700 (London, 2003), pp. 330–32.

  10. See C. Hughes (ed.), Shakespeare’s Europe: Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson’s Itinery (New York, 1967), p. 49; see also D. E. Zanetti, ‘The Patriziato of Milan from the Domination of Spain to the Unification of Italy: An Outline of the Social and Demographic History’, Social History, no. 6 (Oct. 1977), pp. 745–60.

  11. See D. E. Zanetti, ‘The Patriziato of Milan’, pp. 750–52.

  12. See Thomas Coryate, Coryat’s Crudities (London, 1611), p. 102.

  13. See ‘Instrucciones de Carlos-Quinto a Don Felipe su hijo’, in C. Weiss (ed.), Papiers d’Etat du Cardinal de Grenvelle, vol. 3 (Paris, 1842), pp. 267–318. My attention was brought to this document by John Hale, who cites it in his The Civilisation of Europe in the Renaissance (London, 1993), pp. 95–6.

  14. See Agostino Borromeo, ‘Archbishop Carlo Borromeo and the Ecclesiastical Policy of Philip II in the State of Milan’, in John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro (eds.), San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century (Washington, London and Toronto, 1988), pp. 85–111.

  15. See Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes (London, 1951), vol. 15, p. 108.

  16. See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan (Leiden, Boston and Cologne, 2001), p.73; Paolo Prodi, ‘San Carlo Borromeo e il Cardinale Gabriele Paleotti: due vescovi della Riforma Cattolica’, Critica Storica, 3 (1964), pp. 135–51.

  17. See Agostino Borromeo, ‘Archbishop Carlo Borromeo’.

  18. See Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, pp. 411–12.

  19. See E. Cecilia Voelker, ‘Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred Art and Architecture’, in John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro (eds.), San Carlo Borromeo, pp. 173–87.

  20. Ibid., p. 178.

  21. See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, p. 43.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid., p.122.

  24. See Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, pp. 406–7.

  25. See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, pp. 62–3: ‘Confessors thus became quite literally law enforcement officers, who were to use their privileged access to the soul to assist in the application of church law. Having dispensed with such matters, they turned to the confession proper. But they continued to wear their uniforms as agents of discipline, constantly weighing the need to deny absolution to those considered unwilling to mend their sinful ways … if obstinacy was undeniable, the refusal of absolution was to be no empty threat. The Milanese confessor was to display the same combination of holy zeal and legal spirit that was characteristic of his bishop.’

  26. See Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes (London, 1930), vol. 19, p. 108.

  27. See David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago and London, 1989), p. 179. Freedberg’s excellent account of traditions of visualization in Christian meditation gives passing mention to Borromeo (but not Caravaggio).

  28. Ibid., p. 171.

  29. Ibid., p. 168.

  30. See Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford, 1972), p. 45: ‘The painter was a professional visualizer of the holy stories. What we now easily forget is that each of his pious public was liable to be an amateur in the same line, practised in spiritual exercises that demanded a high level of visualization of, at least, the central episodes of the lives of Christ and Mary.’

  31. Cited in Roger Fry, ‘Flemish Art at Burlington House. I’, Burlington magazine 50, 287 (Feb. 1927), p. 68.

  32. See Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, p. 46.

  33. See David Gilmore, Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture (New Haven, 1987), p. 161.

  34. See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, p. 113.

  35. Ibid., p. 114.

  36. See M. Cinotti, I pittori bergamaschi (Bergamo, 1983), p. 235.

  37. Ibid. Giovan Pietro, who is first mentioned in a document of 1578, died in childhood.

  38. See Ann G. Carmichael, ‘The Last Past Plague: The Uses of Memory in Renaissance Epidemics’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 53, no. 2, (Apr.1998), p. 143.

  39. Ibid., p. 137.

  40. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano, qual principio nel mese d’agosto 1576 (Ancona and Bologna, 1577). The translation here is that of Ann G. Carmichael in ‘The Last Past Plague’.

  41. See Ann G. Carmichael, ‘The Last Past Plague’, pp. 137, 141.

  42. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano.

  43. See Fra Paolo Bellintano, I due Bellintani da Salò et il dialogo della pesta di Fra Paolo, F. Odorici (ed.), in Francesco Colombo (ed.), Raccolta di cronisti e documenti storici lombardi inediti (Milan, 1857), vol. 2, p. 296.

  44. See ibid.; the story is singled out in Ann G. Carmichael, ‘The Last Past Plague’.

  45. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano.

  46. See M. Cinotti, , I pittori bergamaschi, p. 203.

  47. For this document and the division of land, see ibid., pp. 235, 250, 206.

  48. See Giacomo Berra, ‘Il Giovane Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’.

  49. See The Age of Caravaggio, Royal Academy exhibition catalogue (London, 1985), p. 73.

  50. The contract is quoted in M. Gregori, (ed.), Gli affreschi della Certosa di Garegnano (Turin, 1973), p. 10; I have used the translation offered in Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life (London, 1998), p. 24.

  51. Ibid., p. 57.

  52. See Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies (Princeton, 1955), p. 233.

  53. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, pp. 89, 27.

  54. The passage was first detected and deciphered by
the art historian Maurizio Calvesi, author of a book aptly entitled Le realtà del Caravaggio (The Realities of Caravaggio) (Turin, 1990). I am grateful to him for sharing his insights with me.

  PART TWO ROME, 1592–5

  1. ‘Bugiaronaccia poltrona puttana de tio te voglio tirare una pignatta de merda sul mostaccio … fatti fottere dal boia e ho in culo te con quanti n’hai’: my attention was called to this passage by Alexandra Lapierre, who very kindly allowed me to examine her personal collection of transcripts from criminal archives concerning the activities of artists in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Rome. She quotes the document, in a slightly different translation, in her historical novel Artemisia (London, 2000), p. 16, where it appears in the mouth of Agostino Tassi, a protagonist in her story – artistic licence, because it was actually uttered by another, now long-forgotten painter. The original document is dated 1602. She specifies its location in a note to her book; see pp. 369–70.

  2. See James Fenton, ‘Bernini at Harvard / Chicago Baroque’, in Leonardo’s Nephew (London, 1998), for a concise retelling of the story, which is rehearsed at fuller length in Charles Avery, Bernini: Genius of the Baroque (London, 1997).

  3. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 57.

  4. See The Complete Works of Montaigne, D. Frame (trs.) (London, 1958), p. 1,163.

  5. Ibid., p. 1,164.

  6. Ibid., p. 1,172.

  7. Ibid., p. 1,143.

  8. Ibid., pp. 1,142, 1,150.

  9. Ibid., p. 1,142.

  10. Ibid., p. 1,150.

  11. See Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 34; and Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, p. 59.

  12. See The Complete Works of Montaigne, p. 1,148.

  13. I am grateful to Opher Mansour for allowing me to read his unpublished doctoral dissertation for the Courtauld Institute in London, ‘Offensive Images: Censure and Censorship in Rome under Clement VIII 1592–1605’, from which this information about Clement’s Visitation is drawn.

  14. This figure necessarily involves guesswork, but, given the sheer amount of artistic activity in Rome at the time, and given the size of many painters’ and sculptors’ workshops, it is likely to be on the low side.

  15. Quoted in John Hale, The Civilisation of Europe in the Renaissance, p. 53.

  16. See Giovanni Botero, ‘The Reason of State’ and ‘The Greatness of Cities’, trans. by Robert Peterson 1606, P. J. and D. P. Waley (trs.) (London, 1956), p. 38.

  17. See The Complete Works of Montaigne p. 1,168.

  18. My thanks again to Alexandra Lapierre for guiding me through the history of the artists’ quarter and for sharing the fruits of her own research so generously in conversation.

  19. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 41.

  20. Ibid., p. 27.

  21. The suggestion is made by Bellori in notes written while he was preparing his life of Caravaggio.

  22. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 58.

  23. See Giulio Mancini, Considerazioni sulla pittura, vol. 1 (Rome, 1956), pp. 226–7.

  24. Ibid., p. 226.

  25. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 41. I am grateful to John T. Spike for the suggestion – very plausible, I think – that the picture is a nocturne.

  26. See for example the entries in Caravaggio–Rembrandt, Rijksmueum exhibition catalogue (Amsterdam, 2006), and The Age of Caravaggio, Royal Academy exhibition catalogue.

  27. See Pliny, Natural History, Book 35, 64–6.

  28. I am indebted to Maurizio Calvesi for this suggestion, made to me in conversation in September 2001. See Maurizio Calvesi, Le realtà del Caravaggio, and for an English language version of his interpretation see his Caravaggio (Florence, 1998), pp. 26–7.

  29. The rabbi’s name was Akiva. See Carl W. Ernst, Interpreting the Song of Songs: The Paradox of Spiritual and Sensual Love for a helpful guide through the theological intricacies of the centuries-long tradition of exegesis (www.unc.edu/-cernst/articles/sosintro.htm, 28 Oct. 2008).

  30. St Teresa of Avila, ‘Meditation on the Song of Songs’, The Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, vol. 2, Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD (trs.) (Washington, DC, 1980).

  31. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 28.

  32. Ibid., p. 49.

  33. Ibid., p. 41.

  34. It was painted on a light grey ground like a number of Caravaggio’s earliest works, whereas the National Gallery picture was painted on a warmish ground, which accords with the painter’s practice from around 1596.

  35. All quotations from Sandrart taken from the translation given in Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, pp. 263–6.

  36. See Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Gaston du C. de Vere (trs.), David Ekserdjian (ed.), vol. 1 (London, 1996), p. 860.

  37. Cited in Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1987), p. 98.

  38. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 42.

  39. See Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 78. Langdon writes (and lectures) particularly well about Caravaggio’s pictures of rogues. The idea that the cardsharps are rather like wasps in human clothing – see below – I owe to her.

  40. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 42.

  41. Mancini, cited in Howard Hibbard, Caravaggio (London, 1983), p. 350 (he was writing about the later version, a picture that he particularly loved, but his remarks are equally applicable to the painting owned by del Monte).

  42. Cited in Todd P. Olson, ‘The Street has Its Masters: Caravaggio and the Socially Marginal’, in Caravaggio: Realism, Rebellion, Deception, Genevieve Warwick (ed.) (Delaware, 2006), p. 76.

  43. The quotations reprinted here have been extracted from the essay ‘Perceiving a Counter-Culture’, in Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy, pp. 63–75. My summary of the different types of beggar is an abridged version of Burke’s.

  44. Ibid., pp. 65–71. My discussion of poverty, religion and politics throughout this section of the book owes a great deal to Burke’s lucid analysis.

  45. See Antonio Maria Cospi, Il giudice criminalista, pp. 374–7.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Cited in John F. Moffitt, ‘Caravaggio and the Gypsies’, Paragone, vol. 53 (2002), p. 141.

  48. Cited in D. J. Gordon, ‘Gypsies as Emblems of Comedy and Poverty’, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. 23 (1944), pp. 39–42.

  49. Ibid.

  50. See John F. Moffitt, ‘Caravaggio and the Gypsies’, p. 134.

  51. Giuseppe Pavoni, Diário, 1589, pp. 29–30, cited in Kenneth Richards and Laura Richards, The Commedia dell’Arte: A Documentary History (Oxford, 1990), p. 74.

  52. Ibid., p. 60.

  53. Tommaso Garzoni, quoted in ibid., pp. 221–2.

  PART THREE: ROME, 1595–9

  1. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 42.

  2. See Creighton Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals (Pennsylvania, 1995), p. 116.

  3. See Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 79.

  4. See Zbgniew Wazbinski, Il Cardinale Francesco Maria del Monte 1549–1626 (Florence, 1994), p. 77, cited in Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 81.

  5. Decorated with languorous, graceful figures and a flying putto, it is now one of the treasures of the British Museum.

  6. He might have appreciated the French Romantic painter Delacroix’s slashing cut through that particular Gordian knot: the observation that a painter’s every brushstroke necessarily incorporated the act of drawing.

  7. See Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 96.

  8. For del Monte, Mancini, health care and alchemy, see Silvia De Renzi, ‘ “A Fountain for the Thirsty” and a Bank for the Pope: Charity, Conflicts and Medical Careers at the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Seventeenth-Century Rome’, in Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga (eds.) (London, 199
9), pp. 102–31.

  9. De Renzi’s scholarly study of the hospital (see above) concludes, ambiguously, that ‘Reasons to apply for a job at the Santo Spirito could be various: a somewhat difficult-to-detect religious and moral commitment, and the more evident search for a prestigious position, were interwoven.’

  10. See Creighton Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, p. 205.

  11. Ibid. Gilbert has done all scholars of Caravaggio and del Monte a service by so thoroughly exposing Amayden’s untrustworthiness as a biographer.

  12. The letter in question was discovered in the Florentine State Archives by the scholar Franca Trinchieri Camiz, who published it for the first time in 1991. See Franca Trinchieri Camiz, ‘Music and Painting in Cardinal del Monte’s Household’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, no. 26 (Hartford, 1991).

  13. See Franca Trinchieri Camiz, ‘La “musica” nei quadri di Caravaggio’, Caravaggio. Nuove riflessioni, Quaderni di Palazzo Venezia, vol. 6 (Rome, 1991).

  14. See Keith Christiansen, A Caravaggio Rediscovered: The Lute Player (New York, 1990).

  15. See Franca Trinchieri Camiz, ‘La “musica” nei quadri di Caravaggio’.

  16. See Claude V. Palisca, ‘Musical Asides in the Diplomatic Correspondence of Emilio de’ Cavalieri’, Musical Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 3 (July 1963), p. 346.

  17. See Keith Christiansen, A Caravaggio Rediscovered: The Lute Player, p. 26.

  18. See the entry on Emilio de’ Cavalieri in The Grove Dictionary of Music (Oxford, 2003).

  19. See Zbgniew Wazbinski, Il Cardinale Francesco Maria del Monte, pp. 137–8.

  20. See Creighton Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, p. 116.

  21. See Keith Christiansen, A Caravaggio Rediscovered: The Lute Player, p. 46.

  22. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 63.

  23. See Keith Christiansen, A Caravaggio Rediscovered: The Lute Player, p. 32.

  24. See Franca Trinchieri Camiz, ‘Music and Painting in Cardinal del Monte’s Household’, p. 220.

  25. As Franca Trinchieri Camiz remarks, in ‘Music and Painting in Cardinal del Monte’s Household’: ‘the voice was well suited for solo performance because of its greater capacity for proper phrasing, which allowed the expression of the strong emotions in fashion during this period’(p. 221).