The path of humility: Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo 2014043809, 9781433129278, 9781453914960, 1433129272

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Muraoka_cpi_cb_DDtesting.qxd 5/7/2015 11:49 AM Page 1

RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE: STUDIES AND TEXTS

The Path of Humility

Anne H. Muraoka received her Ph.D. in art history from Temple University, Philadelphia, specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, and in particular Counter-Reformation painting. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she also serves as the Art History Program Director. She is a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Fellowship (Rome, Italy, 2006–2007) and a Summer Research Fellowship (2013) from the Office of Research at Old Dominion University. Among her publications are two lengthy contributions to Oxford Bibliographies Online. She has presented her research on Caravaggio, Gabriele Paleotti, and Carlo Borromeo at several professional conferences, including the Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth-Century Society, and College Art Association conferences.

34 ANNE H. MURAOKA

The Path of Humility: Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo establishes a fundamental relationship between the Franciscan humility of Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo and the Roman sacred works of Caravaggio. This is the first book to consider and focus entirely upon these two seemingly anomalous personalities of the Counter-Reformation. The import of Caravaggio’s Lombard artistic heritage has long been seen as pivotal to the development of his sacred style, but it was not his only source of inspiration. This book seeks to enlarge the discourse surrounding Caravaggio’s style by placing him firmly in the environment of Borromean Milan, a city whose urban fabric was transformed into a metaphorical Via Crucis. This book departs from the prevailing preoccupation—the artist’s experience in Rome as fundamental to his formulation of sacred style—and toward his formative years in Borromeo’s Milan, where humility reigned supreme. This book is intended for a broad, yet specialized readership interested in Counter-Reformation art and devotion. It serves as a critical text for undergraduate and graduate art history courses on Baroque art, Caravaggio, and Counter-Reformation art.

PETER LANG

w w w.peter lang .com

34

The Path of Humility Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo

ANNE H. MURAOKA

Muraoka_cpi_cb_DDtesting.qxd 5/7/2015 11:49 AM Page 1

RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE: STUDIES AND TEXTS

The Path of Humility

Anne H. Muraoka received her Ph.D. in art history from Temple University, Philadelphia, specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, and in particular Counter-Reformation painting. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she also serves as the Art History Program Director. She is a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Fellowship (Rome, Italy, 2006–2007) and a Summer Research Fellowship (2013) from the Office of Research at Old Dominion University. Among her publications are two lengthy contributions to Oxford Bibliographies Online. She has presented her research on Caravaggio, Gabriele Paleotti, and Carlo Borromeo at several professional conferences, including the Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth-Century Society, and College Art Association conferences.

34 ANNE H. MURAOKA

The Path of Humility: Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo establishes a fundamental relationship between the Franciscan humility of Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo and the Roman sacred works of Caravaggio. This is the first book to consider and focus entirely upon these two seemingly anomalous personalities of the Counter-Reformation. The import of Caravaggio’s Lombard artistic heritage has long been seen as pivotal to the development of his sacred style, but it was not his only source of inspiration. This book seeks to enlarge the discourse surrounding Caravaggio’s style by placing him firmly in the environment of Borromean Milan, a city whose urban fabric was transformed into a metaphorical Via Crucis. This book departs from the prevailing preoccupation—the artist’s experience in Rome as fundamental to his formulation of sacred style—and toward his formative years in Borromeo’s Milan, where humility reigned supreme. This book is intended for a broad, yet specialized readership interested in Counter-Reformation art and devotion. It serves as a critical text for undergraduate and graduate art history courses on Baroque art, Caravaggio, and Counter-Reformation art.

PETER LANG

w w w.peter lang .com

34

The Path of Humility Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo

ANNE H. MURAOKA

The Path of Humility

Renaissance and Baroque Studies and Texts Vol. 34

This book is a volume in a Peter Lang monograph series. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG

New York  Bern  Frankfurt  Berlin Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw

ANNE H. MURAOKA

The Path of Humility Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo

PETER LANG

New York  Bern  Frankfurt  Berlin Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Muraoka, Anne H. The path of humility: Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo / Anne H. Muraoka. pages cm. — (Renaissance and baroque: studies and texts; vol. 34) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, 1573–1610—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Charles Borromeo, Saint, 1538–1584. 3. Christian art and symbolism—Italy— Modern period, 1500–. 4. Christianity and art—Catholic Church. I. Title. ND623.C26M87 759.5—dc23 2014043809 ISBN 978-1-4331-2927-8 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4539-1496-0 (e-book) ISSN 0897-7836

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2015 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

For Marcia B. Hall, with admiration and gratitude

table of contents

Illustrations Acknowledgments

xi xvii

Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Sacred Art before the Council of Trent The March toward Narrativity In between Icon and Narrative The Return to Icons through a Mannerist Lens Lombard Sacred Style and the Sacro Monte di Varallo Chapter 2. Carlo Borromeo’s Milan: Building Bridges to the Sacred via Word, Deed, and Image Carlo Borromeo in Rome The Life and Devotion of Saint Francis of Assisi and Borromeo Outward Devotion: The Importance of Visual Apprehension in Borromean Milan Borromeo and the Sacro Monte di Varallo

11 12 18 23 27

49 50 52 57 72

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Franciscan Meditation and Darkness Caravaggio’s Beginnings The Impact of Borromeo’s Death

74 76 80

Chapter 3. Canon Reformulation in the Age of Counter-­Reformation 95 Giovanni Andrea Gilio’s Degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori, 1564 96 Gabriele Paleotti’s Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, 1582 106 Chapter 4. Establishing His Name: Caravaggio in Rome, 1592–1599 Arrival in Rome: Lombard-­Inspired Genres Ottavio Costa Girolamo Vittrice Maffeo Barberini Cardinal Francesco Maria Bourbon del Monte Cardinal Federico Borromeo The Giustiniani

127 127 130 140 150 152 156 158

Chapter 5. Caravaggio’s Public Roman Works Contarelli Chapel Cerasi Chapel Vittrice Chapel Cavalletti Chapel Cherubini Chapel Altar of Saint Anne

167 168 181 186 190 194 197

Chapter 6. Caravaggio’s Patrons and the Cultivation of Humility The Mattei New Commissions from Early Patrons: The Giustiniani and Ottavio Costa Cardinal Scipione Borghese Penitent Saints

215 216 223 227 228



table of contents

ix

Chapter 7. Scaling the Ladder to the Divine with Bare Feet 239 Tra devoto et profano 239 Caravaggio’s Final Years 243 Canonization of Carlo Borromeo 252 Humilitas 256 Notes 273 Bibliography 325 Index 349

illustrations

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Ottavio Leoni, Portrait of Caravaggio, ca. 1614, chalk on blue paper. Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 2. Anonymous, San Carlo Borromeo, seventeenth century, oil on canvas. San Carlone, Arona. Photo: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY. 3. Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Saint Francis altarpiece, 1235, tempera on panel. San Francesco, Pescia. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 4. Fra Angelico, Descent from the Cross, 1430–34, tempera on panel. Museo di San Marco, Florence. Photo: Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY. 5. Giovanni Bellini, The Resurrection of Christ, ca. 1475–78, oil on panel transferred to canvas. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie/Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY. 6. Raphael Sanzio, Entombment, 1507, oil on panel. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY. 7. Antonello da Messina, Christ at the Column, ca. 1476, oil on panel. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-­Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

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the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Andrea Mantegna, Presentation in the Temple, ca. 1460, oil on panel. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie/Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY. Sandro Botticelli, The Dead Christ Mourned, 1495–1500, tempera on panel. Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY. Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Entombment, ca. 1500, tempera on panel. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Jacopo da Pontormo, Descent from the Cross, ca. 1525, oil on panel. Capponi Chapel, Santa Felicita, Florence. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, ca. 1490, oil on panel. Czartoryski, Museum, Kraków. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Gaudenzio Ferrari, Chapel of the Crucifixion, ca. 1515–20, polychrome terra-­cotta and fresco. Chapel 38, Sacro Monte di Varallo. Photo: Marco Riccardo and Paolo Gonella/Archivio Riserva Speciale Sacro Monte di Varallo. Girolamo Romanino, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1542, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY. Leonardo da Vinci, Head and Shoulders of Christ, ca. 1490, pen and ink drawing. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Photo: Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY. Giovanni Battista della Rovere (il Fiammenghino), San Carlo in Procession with the Sacred Nail, 1602–3, tempera on canvas. Duomo, Milan. Copyright © Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano. Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano), San Carlo Borromeo Consoles Plague Victims, 1601–2, oil on canvas. Duomo, Milan. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. Antonio Campi, Scenes from the Passion, 1569, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-­Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Antonio Campi, Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, 1581, oil on canvas. San Paolo Converso, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

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illustrations 20. Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano), San Carlo Borromeo Praying before the “Dead Christ” at Varallo, ca. 1610, oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. © Museo Nacional del Prado/Art Resource, NY. 21. Simone Peterzano, Entombment, 1573–78, oil on canvas. San Fedele, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY. 22. Giovanni Battista della Rovere (il Fiammenghino), San Carlo Preparing for Death at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, 1602–3, tempera on canvas. Duomo, Milan. Copyright © Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano. 23. Anonymous, Funeral of San Carlo Borromeo, 1584, oil on canvas. San Carlone, Arona. Photo: Gianni Dagli Orti/ The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY. 24. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, 1594, oil on canvas. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1943.222. Photo: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. 25. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, ca. 1598, oil on canvas. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY. 26. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Penitent Magdalen, ca. 1594, oil on canvas. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY. 27. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, ca. 1594, oil on canvas. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. Photo: HIP/Art Resource, NY. 28. Federico Barocci, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1570, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 29. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1603, oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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30. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 31. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 32. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Matthew and the Angel (first version), ca. 1602, oil on canvas. Formerly Kaiser-­Friedrich-­ Museum, Berlin, destroyed. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie/Art Resource, NY. 33. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Inspiration of Saint Matthew (second version), 1602, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. 34. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, detail of self-­portrait, Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 35. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Conversion of Saint Paul, 1600–1601, oil on canvas. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 36. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 1600–1601, oil on canvas. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 37. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Entombment, 1602, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 38. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Madonna di Loreto, 1603, oil on canvas. Cavalletti Chapel, Sant’Agostino, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 39. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin, 1605–6, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. 40. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Madonna dei Palafrenieri, 1606, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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illustrations 41. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601, oil on canvas. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. 42. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Taking of Christ, 1602, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Jesuit Community of Leeson Street, Dublin, who acknowledge the generosity of the late Dr. Marie Lea-­Wilson. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland. 43. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Incredulity of Saint Thomas, ca. 1603, oil on canvas. Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-­Brandenburg, Potsdam. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-­ Brandenburg/Gerhard Murza/Art Resource, NY. 44. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Crowning with Thorns, ca. 1604, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. 45. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, ca. 1604, oil on canvas. Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Photo: Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY. 46. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Jerome Writing, 1606, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY. 47. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Francis in Prayer, 1603–4, oil on canvas. Museo Civico, Cremona. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 48. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Francis in Meditation, 1606, oil on canvas. Church of San Pietro, Carpineto Romano (in deposit at Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome). Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY. 49. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1606, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY. 50. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Seven Acts of Mercy, ca. 1607, oil on canvas. Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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51. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1608, oil on canvas. Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral, Valletta, Malta. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY. 52. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, detail of Caravaggio’s signature, Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1608, oil on canvas. Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral, Valletta, Malta. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 53. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Raising of Lazarus, 1608–9, oil on canvas. Museo Regionale, Messina. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 54. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, 1610, oil on canvas. Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Naples. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY. 55. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1610, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY. 56. Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano), San Carlo in Glory, 1615, oil on canvas. San Gottardo in Corte, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

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acknowledgments

This book is the result of many years of research and of rethinking the nature and origins of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s sacred style. I began research shortly after completing my dissertation on Caravaggio and Counter-­ Reformation style at Temple University in 2009. I was privileged to spend a summer in Rome on a 2013 Research Fellowship through the Office of Research at Old Dominion University, during which time the bulk of my book was written. The majority of the copyediting took place between November 2013 and March 2014 thanks to the extraordinary talents of Michael Gnat. His meticulousness, patience, and humor are unequaled, and I cannot thank him enough. Several colleagues and friends graciously read the manuscript and made crucial recommendations that helped me reshape the book. I would like to thank especially Marcia B. Hall and Robert Wojtowicz for devoting so much time and care in reading my manuscript at various stages of its development. Many offices and institutions enabled my research and the completion of the book, which include: the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, and the staff at the Interlibrary Loan office at Old Dominion University. In finding and securing images I was assisted by the remarkable efforts of Liz Kurtulik Mercuri and Michael Slade at Art Resource

xviii the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo in New York; by Stacey Stachow at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art; by Sinéad Farrelly at the National Gallery of Ireland; Stefano Aietti at the Archivio Riserva Speciale Sacro Monte di Varallo; and Roberto Fighetti at the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano. I especially thank Charles Wilson, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Old Dominion University, for subsidizing a substantial portion of the costs for these images, and Nancy Shelton, for her time and expertise in preparing my images for publication. I would also like to thank these colleagues and friends for their help and support: Fred Bayersdorfer, Elizabeth Bolman, Heather Bryant, Andrew Casper, Tracy Cooper, Ken Daley, Dianne deBeixedon, Kenneth FitzGerald, Susan Langworthy, Rose May, Linda McGreevy, Greta Pratt, and Gerald Silk. I especially thank my current and former students at Old Dominion University who collectively cheered me on as I neared the completion of the book. Among these students, I would like to thank, in particular, Kymberly Cardullo, Elizabeth Duntemann, Abigail Johnson, and Bianca Rawlings. Special gratitude must go to Michelle Salyga, Acquisitions Editor at Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., whose professionalism, kindness, and support are unparalleled. I would be remiss if I did not thank my family who have always believed in me and supported me in all my endeavors: my parents, Walter and Yoshiko Muraoka; my sisters, Joanne E. Jantson and Dianne A. Muraoka; and my brother-­in-­law, John A. Jantson. Finally, I must give a special note of gratitude to Matthew Mankus, who has stood by my side through the last seven years.

introduction

Saint Matthew was once Levi the tax collector. Saint Paul was once Saul the persecutor of Christians. Saint Mary Magdalene was a former prostitute. These are only some of the saints whose lives are recalled in the Gospels and hagiographic texts, people who turned their lives around, converted, and became disciples of Christ. Their conversions seemed instantaneous and miraculous—a gesture, a flash of light, a few spoken words—and then they were followers of Christ, paving their way to sainthood. But how realistic are these stories to an uneducated and poor Christian? How can one relate to an exceptional story depicted in an exceptional, otherworldly manner? It was for the eyes and salvation of the illiterate and poor Christian populace that the Council of Trent directed its attention to the veneration of sacred images, defining their purpose in a well-­known 1563 decree. Sacred images not only needed to serve as memory aids and as Bibles for the illiterate, but also needed to touch and move the emotions of the viewer in a profound way. At the turn of the seventeenth century in Rome, one artist in particular fulfilled these objectives: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Fig. 1). The sacred works of Caravaggio have long been under scrutiny. Many regard Caravaggio’s sacred works as expressions of Counter-­Reformation ideology by drawing parallels between the artist’s images and his Roman exposure to

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the humility of the Oratorians, the Spiritual Exercises of the Jesuits, and the Augustinian light of grace. Although these connections have been accepted in part or collectively by many scholars as a Counter-­Reformation phenomenon that worked in concert to influence Caravaggio’s formulation of sacred style, the evidence seems inadequate. Why would a strong-­willed, belligerent, and independent young artist—as his biographers describe him—suddenly be moved by the Catholic rhetoric on images? The objective of this book is to provide some answers to this important question. This book was formulated after the completion of my 2009 dissertation “Il fine della pittura: Canon Reformulation in the Age of Counter-­Reformation,”1 in which I explored the relationship between Counter-­Reformation theory and style in Rome—particularly between Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane (Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images) and the sacred style of Caravaggio. The compelling parallels between the Discorso’s heavy-­handed emphasis on being true to nature (alla natura) and Caravaggio’s realistic canvases seemed more than coincidental, particularly since the artist’s formulation of a new sacred style corresponded to the date he found himself in the household of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte: 1595, the same year that both Paleotti and Del Monte were named co-cardinal-­ protectors and Educators of Reform at the Accademia di San Luca, in Rome. My dissertation explored the idea that there was a concerted effort to establish a canon reformulation on sacred imagery under the guidance of Paleotti and the authority of his Discorso, and with Caravaggio as its artistic head through his espousal of Paleotti’s ideas on nature and naturalism. I charted the intricate connections among Paleotti, Caravaggio, and his cardinal-­patrons, suggesting that there was a cultivation for a sacred style based on naturalism, and one intimately connected to the artist’s Lombard roots. A piece of the puzzle, however, was still missing. Although Paleotti’s extensive discussion on the importance of imitation, truth to nature, and naturalism as a means to move the emotions of the viewer appeared consonant with Caravaggio’s sacred style, the profound humility that inflects all of the artist’s sacred work found no comparable parallel in Paleotti’s text. This led me to look beyond Rome to the artist’s Lombard beginnings under the aegis of Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo (Fig. 2).2 The import of Caravaggio’s Lombard artistic heritage has long been seen as pivotal to the development of his sacred style.3 There is no specific evidence, however, that Caravaggio was significantly influenced by the Lombard style, a situation that has not prevented numerous scholars from spilling ink

introduction

3

on the subject. Lombardy is noted for having an artistic style distinct from other regions in Italy, but it was not Caravaggio’s only source of inspiration. This book seeks to enlarge the discourse surrounding Caravaggio’s style by placing him firmly in the environment of Borromean Milan, particularly since no late-­sixteenth century Catholic—clergy or laity—would have been unaware of Borromeo’s holy example. So great was his fame during his own lifetime. The names Carlo Borromeo and Caravaggio do not often appear together in the same sentence, and indeed, they seem like an unlikely pairing. Borromeo served as the archbishop of Milan from 1564 until his death in 1584, and he was considered the embodiment of saintly virtue already in his lifetime. The Baroque painter Caravaggio, on the other hand, was not known for such saintly virtue. The artist’s early biographers portrayed him as a disturbed, violent, and contentious man. Yet his powerfully affective and realistic sacred images suggest a deep understanding of Catholic humility and piety. Borromeo’s tenure as archbishop occurred precisely during the artist’s formative years in Milan. This book considers Borromeo’s contribution to the formulation of Caravaggio’s sacred style, through his visible and public demonstrations of humility, charity, and piety. Borromeo was also attuned to the powerful role that images played in one’s spiritual growth as seen particularly in his practice of spiritual exercises before the sculptural tableaux at the Sacro Monte di Varallo. His influence, I argue, lasted long after his death. When Caravaggio moved to Rome, he was put into contact with some of Borromeo’s closest associates, including Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti. The popularity and influence of the archbishop only intensified in the period between his death in 1584 and his canonization in 1610, a period almost exactly contemporaneous with Caravaggio’s most significant output. Chapter 1 establishes a context for understanding the crisis in sacred art that emerged as a result of the advent of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 and the Catholic Church’s response, the Counter-­Reformation, beginning with the opening of the Council of Trent in 1545. Already in the trecento, there had been a clash between the ideas of devotion and art, with the slow transformation of icons and iconic formulae into full-­fledged narrative altarpieces, exemplifying the collision between Christianity and the growing interest in the classical past. The origins of the tangible and experiential sacred style of Lombardy are also provided here in order to understand the artistic milieu in which Caravaggio was born, in addition to how the Lombard style

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would later address the crisis of the image. The brief overview of the transformation of icon to narrative and Lombard sacred style is essential to understanding not only the reversal of classicism’s progression, particularly in the years after the Council of Trent, but also Caravaggio’s implicit decision to merge the iconic and narrative, and therefore devotion and art, in his sacred works of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Chapter 2 examines the life, character, practices, and impression of Borromeo in Lombardy and Rome as a means to gauge the significant impact the archbishop would have wielded on the young Caravaggio. Recent studies on Borromeo’s humility—in particular, studies by Pamela M. Jones4—led me to explore the archbishop in greater depth. Three early biographies of the future saint were published shortly after his death in 1584: Agostino Valier’s Vita del beato Carlo Borromeo (1586), Carlo Bascapè’s Vita e opere di Carlo, Arcivescovo di Milano, Cardinale di S. Prassede (1592), and Giovanni Pietro Giussano’s Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo (1610).5 Borromeo played only a marginal part in my dissertation, but upon closer reading of these biographies, particularly the one by Giussano (one of Carlo’s closest disciples), I have given him center stage. In this chapter, set largely during Borromeo’s tenure as archbishop of Milan, I focus specifically on his emulation of Saint Francis of Assisi and his espousal of Franciscan devotion; these are paralleled with the life of Saint Francis written (1228–54) by the saint’s earliest biographer, Tommaso da Celano.6 The visibility of Borromeo and the impression he made on his colleagues and diocese are highlighted as a means of suggesting the influence he would have had on the young Caravaggio. In addition, Borromeo’s words and writings are examined, including his treatise Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae (Instructions on Ecclesiastical Building, 1577),7 which provided a concise overview of the design and decoration of ecclesiastical buildings following the directives of the Council of Trent. The final pages of this chapter examine the early years of Caravaggio’s life in the Lombardy of Borromeo. As Borromeo’s Instructiones dealt almost entirely with architecture, the task of addressing style in sacred paintings, in the end, fell to other post-­ Tridentine theorists. Chapter 3 examines two treatises published in Italy prior to Caravaggio’s arrival in Rome in 1592. In 1564, just one year after the closing of the Council of Trent, Giovanni Andrea Gilio published his Dialogo nel quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori circa l’istorie (Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters).8 Gilio’s Degli errori provided a foundation for the discourse on sacred images based on the principles of naturalism, and

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it would spark the publication of a series of Counter-­Reformatory treatises on sacred painting through the next century. But it was Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso that would carry the greatest authority, promise, and direction for sacred painting, and from which subsequent theorists would draw and quote. Several editions of Paleotti’s Discorso have been published with critical notes and introductions, including the modern editions of the Discorso by Paola Barocchi (1961); Gian Franco Freguglia (2002); Paolo Prodi’s 1990 edition (which reproduces Paleotti’s original text); and, most recently, the first English translation of the Discorso by William McCuaig (2012).9 Numerous studies on Paleotti’s Discorso are also available both in Italian and in English, but these focus primarily on either general or singular aspects of Paleotti’s treatise. Paolo Prodi’s lengthy essay “Ricerche sulla teorica delle arti figurative nella Riforma Cattolica”10 underscored the connection between Paleotti’s ideas on naturalism and the naturalistic style exemplified in the art of the Carracci, who in 1583 had founded their own academy based upon this principle. A similar connection is espoused by A. W. A. Boschloo, who saw in Paleotti’s Discorso and the work of the Carracci a shared interest in “visible reality.”11 Donald Posner12 and Charles Dempsey13 each contributed to new understanding of the relation between Paleotti and the art of the Carracci, and identified the Emilian and Venetian influences that inspired their personal reform of sacred art. Other studies have concentrated on particular aspects of the Discorso, including the hierarchical framework of Paleotti’s “delights”;14 Paleotti’s discussion of grotteschi (grotesques);15 the correspondence between the Discorso and the works of Bolognese artist Bartolomeo Cesi;16 the relationship between the Discorso and the artistic commissions undertaken during the pontificate of Pope Clement VIII;17 and most recently a study on the publication data of the Discorso.18 Chapter 3 contributes significantly to our understanding of Paleotti’s ideas on sacred art by providing not only a careful reading of his text and an examination of its naturalistic language, but also an analysis of its relationship to the ideas of Carlo Borromeo, whom Paleotti, a close associate, consulted in writing his treatise. Chapter 4, the first of three chapters focusing on the Roman sacred work of Caravaggio, examines the artist’s beginnings and the associations he forged upon his arrival to the Eternal City. Of particular import here are the patrons Caravaggio cultivated, including the Genoese banker and member of the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, Ottavio Costa; Girolamo Vittrice, sottoguardaroba to the popes, whose family was intimately

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connected with Carlo Borromeo and the Oratorians; Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII; Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, first protector of Caravaggio and closely tied to Filippo Neri, the Oratorians, Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, Cardinal Federico Borromeo (Carlo’s younger cousin), and the Accademia di San Luca; and Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani and Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, who were both closely tied to the Oratorians, the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, among others. Chapter 4 enumerates not only these patrons but also the works Caravaggio painted for them, which are examined both with regard to their orthodoxy—their correlation with Paleotti’s Discorso—and through a Franciscan lens vis-­à-­vis Carlo Borromeo.19 In 1599, Caravaggio received his first public commission to provide two lateral canvases (this was later to include an altarpiece as well) for the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi. Chapter 5 examines Caravaggio’s public Roman commissions beginning with the Contarelli Chapel (1599–1602), followed by the Cerasi Chapel (1600–1) in Santa Maria del Popolo, the Vittrice Chapel (1602) in Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova), the Cavalletti Chapel (1603) in Sant’Agostino, the Cherubini Chapel (1605–6) in Santa Maria della Scala, and the altarpiece (1606) for the altar of the Palafrenieri (Papal Grooms) in San Pietro in Vaticano. This chapter also examines the patrons for these commissions and the compliance of the works’ iconography and style with the 1563 Tridentine decree on images, as well as parallels between his images and Paleotti’s Discorso and Borromeo’s Franciscan ideology. The consideration of these works as orthodox representations is particularly important here: it is with his public commissions that we hear about several rejections put forth by Caravaggio’s early biographers. Chapter 6 centers on the private commissions the artist completed simultaneously with his public works during 1599–1606, which include private sacred commissions for Ottavio Costa, Cardinal Girolamo Mattei and Marchese Ciriaco Mattei, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani and Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, and Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The numerous penitent saints painted between the years 1594 and 1606 are also considered, in light of the fact that many (if not all) of the subjects of these paintings may have been selected by Caravaggio himself. Of particular interest here are the images of Saint Francis; these may be considered visual manifestations of the overriding influence of Borromeo’s humility, which loomed large in the minds of everyone (including Caravaggio) during the years leading to his canonization (1610).

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Chapter 7 serves as my conclusion and integrates the preceding chapters into a cohesive whole. It considers how Caravaggio’s sacred works combined the icon and narrative, devotion and art, into what can be characterized as a style positioned somewhere between the sacred and the profane. Although this idea of the mixture of sacred and profane has been considered by many scholars in a negative light, I argue here that it perfectly conforms to the Franciscan spirituality that Carlo Borromeo espoused, which in turn perfectly correlates with Paleotti’s own definitions for the sacred and profane in his Discorso. A selection of Caravaggio’s post-­Rome works are also considered, not only to elucidate how the example of Borromeo was imprinted on the mind of Caravaggio, but also to examine the changes in the artist’s style in response to his own spiritual transformation, as showcased in the numerous self-­portraits integrated into these late works. Franciscan humility and devotion underlies all of Caravaggio’s sacred works, from Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (1594; see Fig. 24) to his final canvas, David with the Head of Goliath (1610; see Fig. 55). The significance of Carlo Borromeo’s realm of influence on Caravaggio has been undervalued and relatively overlooked. This book hopes to contribute to the discourse on Caravaggio’s Roman sacred works by moving away from the prevailing preoccupation—the artist’s experience in Rome as fundamental to his formulation of sacred style—and toward his formative years in Borromeo’s Milan, where humility reigned supreme.

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1. Ottavio Leoni, Portrait of Caravaggio, ca. 1614, chalk on blue paper. Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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2. Anonymous, San Carlo Borromeo, seventeenth century, oil on canvas. San Carlone, Arona. Photo: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

·1· sacred art before the council of trent

Two pilgrims kneel before the doorway of the Virgin’s home in Loreto. They are poor, weary, and dirty, yet their eyes shine with hope and awe. The Virgin and Child have miraculously appeared before the pilgrims’ eyes as a reward for their prayers and devotion. The Madonna di Loreto (see Fig. 38) is among Caravaggio’s most powerful altarpieces. It intricately merges the immediacy of traditional icons with the narrative exigency of Renaissance istoria, the past with the present, and the devotional with the didactic. Caravaggio, however, did not arrive at this formulation of sacred style alone. His style is informed by the conflict between the traditional role of sacred imagery as devotional aid and its transformation into a vehicle for displaying narrative artistry during the Renaissance on the one hand, and the development of a tangible and affective style in Lombardy during the cinquecento on the other. Drawing upon the naturalistic tradition established by Leonardo during his Milanese years and the affective realism of the sculptural tableaux at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, Lombard sacred painting transformed into an experiential art by the end of the second decade of the sixteenth century. The development of a natural, affective, and tangible sacred style in Lombardy and the formulation of the Tridentine decree on images occurred independently. However, shortly after the closing of the Council of Trent in 1563, Lombard

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sacred style, I would argue, became a solution for the crisis of the image in Milan, reconciling the competing functions of the icon and narrative. It is the Milanese Archbishop Carlo Borromeo’s contribution to Caravaggio’s formation that requires consideration and inclusion into the dialogue on the origins of the artist’s sacred style. A broad overview of the historical context of image making and its desired functions are necessary to understand the crisis of the image in the years preceding Caravaggio’s birth.

The March toward Narrativity Religious instruction is by its nature narrative. Truth was made visible through the depiction of narratives of the life of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. Seeing these stories unfold visually reinforced the lessons worshipers heard during Mass. Narrative cycles played an important role in both the early Eastern and Western church. In Italy, Renaissance narrative imagery, however, was not reserved only for the side walls of chapels, but soon found a place also on the high altars of churches and the altarpieces of private side chapels. The transmission of narrative subjects to altarpieces required a merging of the didactic function of narratives with the devotional aspect of traditional icons. In the Byzantine world, icons served to convey intimacy by proximity to the viewer, and timelessness through the figure’s frontal placement against a gold background. The bust-­length, frontal orientation of the figure signified a direct address to the viewer; this was underscored by the gold ground, which not only connoted the divine, but also served as a visual device to increase the sense of proximity of the depicted sacred individual to the viewer. The gold denies the viewers’ eyes access to anything beyond the sacred portrait, and simultaneously pushes the figure forward toward the frontal plane. Narratives, on the other hand, require that visual stories unfold in space. Truth was made visible through the depiction of narratives of the lives of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints, serving to reinforce the lessons worshipers heard during Mass. Regardless of the importance of narratives in liturgy, the narrative subjects served a secondary and supporting role in the Byzantine world; the devotional and theological remained primary for the archetypal sacred portrait. This Byzantine formulation is retained in early Italian examples of narratives appearing in altarpieces both as secondary images—such as around a central sacred portrait, in the predella, or on the back of two-­sided altarpieces— and as the central (and main) panel of an altarpiece. As in their Byzantine



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prototypes, the narrative qualities are tempered to the exigencies of the icon. Bonaventura Berlinghieri’s (fl. 1228–ca. 1236) Saint Francis altarpiece (Fig. 3; 1235) appropriates the Byzantine “biographical icon.”1 According to Hans Belting, “the narrative element, which otherwise has no place in icons, annotates the physical portrait of the saint with the ‘inner’ portrait of his or her virtues. The privileged status of a saint was explained by the miraculous circumstances of his or her life.”2 Berlinghieri places a monumental, yet unsubstantial, figure of Saint Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order, in the center, flanked by scenes illustrating his miracles. The gold background behind Saint Francis is contiguous with the gold setting of the narrative scenes adjacent to him. Berlinghieri includes narrative elements, including buildings and landscapes, but the orientation of the figures, posed and angled with the viewer in mind, undermines the narrative charge of the scenes. Gold, flatness, frontal orientation, and relative inaction contribute to the timelessness and rigid formality that link it to its Byzantine predecessors. Early surviving painted altarpieces in Italy conformed to these formal characteristics and subjects of traditional Byzantine icons. These early panels retain the general formality of their Byzantine models, but already in the duecento, Italian artists were beginning to invest the sacred figures with a greater sense of naturalism in figural portrayal and in the articulation of drapery folds. With this growing interest in naturalism in Italy, narratives became the central subject of altarpieces and devotional paintings in the trecento, which saw a related greater loosening of the formality of iconic devices with the introduction of illusionism and gestural movement. Giotto’s (1267–1337) altarpiece of Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata (1300, Musée du Louvre, Paris), for San Francesco in Pisa includes a more substantial stage and landscape in which the event takes place. The rays of light that stream down from Christ on the upper right to the hands, feet, and side of Saint Francis indicate that the stigmatization is taking place. In fact, in his 1568 edition of Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (Lives),3 Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) singled out Giotto as the artist who first made a decisive break with the “crude” traditional Byzantine style. Giotto still retains the frontal orientation of the figures and the gold ground, key components found in the altarpieces of his predecessors, including his master, Cimabue (ca. 1240–1302). However, Giotto’s illusionistic space, which includes a rocky outcrop, trees, and oblique views of buildings, taken with the corporeal figures, decisively moves away from Byzantine models. Though the bodies of Saint Francis and Christ are angled toward the frontal plane, Giotto has placed the figures along a diagonal axis, which breaks

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the rigidity and frontal presentation inherent in Byzantine art. The altarpiece includes a predella with three smaller narrative scenes from the life of Saint Francis; however, it is already apparent here that narrative concerns are beginning to intrude upon the devotional and iconic space of the main panel. By the early quattrocento, the gold backgrounds of narrative icons are quickly replaced by natural settings that further distance Italian panels from Byzantine predecessors. Fra Angelico’s (ca. 1395–1455) altarpiece (Fig. 4; 1430–34) for Santa Trinita, Florence (now in the Museo di San Marco, Florence), places the scene of the Descent from the Cross within a unified, open, and natural (albeit stylized) landscape. Flat gold halos are still retained, as is the central and frontal orientation of the body of Christ. The figures are beautiful and idealized; they demonstrate restrained emotion. These, however, are the only iconic qualities that remain. Fra Angelico has embellished the scene with numerous figures, far exceeding the necessary protagonists present when Christ was taken down from the cross. They are depicted in various positions and views; one figure in gray in the left foreground is even shown from the back. Moreover, Fra Angelico has suggested a temporal sequence. The figures on the upper rungs of the cross bend downward, slowly releasing the body of Christ to a male bearer and Saint John the Evangelist below. Several figures in the foreground and middle ground, including the Virgin, kneel below the cross, signaling and recalling to the minds of viewers a subsequent moment: Christ’s Lamentation. While quietness and stillness still hover on the surface, the elimination of the gold background has unlocked the frozen quality of the figures. With the publication of Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404–72) Della pittura (On Painting) in ca. 1435, the significance and principles of painting, and particularly of painting istoria (history; historia in his Latin edition), were clearly articulated.4 According to Alberti, the understanding and application of linear perspective was essential for artists, who were advised to consider their canvas as an open window, in order to delineate space effectively.5 One of the central contributions of Alberti’s treatise is in his discussion of istoria. In Alberti’s opinion, history painting was the most important work of the painter, which required the appropriate expression of gestures and treatment of the bodies.6 The painter’s primary charge was to express feeling through movement. By the fourth decade of the quattrocento, the gold backgrounds of narrative altarpieces had largely disappeared, as well as the flat gold halos and many other iconic devices. By the conclusion of the quattrocento, the transformation of the icon to narrative in altarpieces is nearly complete. This transformation can be



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explained by the increasing Italian interest in naturalism and the narrative function of altarpieces—which was essentially a means to distance them from the Byzantine style and to create their own stylistic identity—and the rising use of the oil medium. Oil gradually began to replace tempera in altarpieces and small private devotional works as early as the mid-­fifteenth century in Venice. This new medium, introduced to Italy from the north,7 provided the artist a means of creating even more natural and affective effects in the rendering of human form and setting, further shattering the static timelessness of iconic paradigms. In Giovanni Bellini’s (ca. 1431–1516) The Resurrection of Christ (Fig. 5; ca. 1475–78) for the Zorzi Chapel in the church of San Michele in Isola (on an island between Venice and Murano), the gold ground and prominent gold halos have disappeared altogether. Light and color are rich but natural, and are of a different species from the jewellike, high-­value palette of tempera panels. Clarity of line is replaced by softness of form. The resurrected Christ may hover in an iconic manner at the top center of the altarpiece, but his strict formality is moderated by the billowing white shroud that conveys movement. Bellini has also included a temporal sequence within his altarpiece. The stone door of the tomb lies at a slight oblique angle in the foreground, while the soldier at the left conveys his surprise at the open empty tomb of Christ. A standing soldier at the right looks upward, noticing the resurrected Christ above. Meanwhile, the two soldiers between them are in states of slumber and awakening, both yet unaware of the event that has taken place. In the middle ground Christ is shown again before the Holy Women, a moment that occurred after Christ’s initial resurrection. The figures are ideal, but tangible. All of this takes place in a believable landscape filled with distant buildings, hills, and trees, rendered in natural effects of light and shadow, atmospheric perspective, and frolicking wild rabbits. Here, the only remaining vestiges of the iconic formula are the generalized features of the figures and the frontal orientation of the resurrected Christ. The early cinquecento was marked by the victory of the narrative over icon and the related perfection of the harmonious, rational, and beautiful achieved by the “masters” of Vasari’s Third Age. The High Renaissance saw the narrative as the subject of choice for altarpieces, and as the disavowal of the antiquated iconic principles. An interesting wrinkle began to take shape in altarpiece production, however: narrative altarpieces tended to rely on illusionistic devices (particularly perspective), whereas altarpieces with nonnarrative subjects—such as images of the Virgin, Child, and saints—were likely to adopt iconic pictorial devices.

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Altarpiece commissions were highly coveted. They not only served a central role in church liturgy, devotion, and tradition, but were also exceedingly visible. Already in the quattrocento, artists were becoming aware that this kind of commission could greatly boost their careers. Narratives altarpieces, however, provided an opportunity for artists to show their virtuosity and skill in conceiving effective and beautiful images within the constructs of Albertian istoria. Although unfinished, Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi (1481–82, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) for the Augustinian convent of San Donato a Scopeto, near Florence, represents a revolution in narrative altarpieces. Although there is some geometric regularity in the pyramid formed by the Virgin and Child at center and kneeling kings at left and right, the entire panel pivots around movement and the outward expression of emotion. The Magi and their retinue stand, kneel, and lean inward toward the Virgin and Child who are at the center of this vortex of motion and emotion. Viewers are captivated by the drama of the narrative. Each head is a study in psychology and physiognomy. Behind this foreground group is a beautifully sketched perspectival landscape that includes the erecting of a building at the left and a skirmish among horsemen at right. One of the greatest examples that visually proclaimed the victory of the narrative over the iconic in altarpieces is Raphael Sanzio’s (1483–1520) Entombment (Fig. 6; 1507), a panel commissioned by Atalanta Baglioni for San Francesco al Prato, Perugia. Here, all vestiges of iconic principles and pictorial devices are completely absent. Raphael completely departs from the tradition of altarpieces by unequivocally following Alberti’s precepts for istoria.8 For Alberti painting, and particularly istoria, must comprise three parts: circumscription, composition, and reception of light.9 The first component of any istoria is circumscription, which Alberti defines as the description of space in which a figure is placed. In Raphael’s altarpiece, there is a clear articulation of space—of foreground, middle ground, and background—formed by linear and atmospheric perspective as instructed by Alberti. Composition, the second of the three requirements for istoria, involves how “the parts of the things seen fit together in the painting.”10 This includes the planes (relief) and members (proportion) of the figures. The planes of a face, for example, should be rendered in relief without harsh angles, but joined fluidly by light and shadow. The members of figures must fulfill the appropriate function of its context.11 In istoria, it is critical to convey the movement of the soul in each figure in order that the beholder will be moved appropriately. In Raphael’s Entombment, the body of Christ aptly conveys lifelessness, and the weight of



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his body congruently burdens the two corpse bearers. The gestures and expressions of the figures surrounding Christ also express the sadness and despair inherent in the story. The final component of istoria, the reception of light, involves not only the copiousness and variety of colors, but, more important, how to use black and white to depict relief. While Raphael uses a broad range of colors, they are accurately tempered by white and black to create convincing relief and a natural modulation of color. Raphael’s altarpiece thus conforms to all of Alberti’s prescriptions for istoria. Moreover, there is a clear sense of movement. Raphael breaks the foreground group into two. The main group, which includes the dead Christ, the two corpse bearers, John the Evangelist, Joseph of Arimathea, and Mary Magdalene demonstrate a lateral movement to the left, where we see the opening to the tomb. The secondary group, pictured at right (and slightly behind the main one) includes the Virgin and the Holy Women into whose arms she swoons. Raphael has therefore included a temporal sequence: Christ, being removed from his mother, is carried to his tomb, resulting in the Virgin’s grief-­induced swoon. In the right distance too, the three crosses on which Christ, the Good Thief, and the Bad Thief were crucified are visible, thereby illustrating an earlier event. The absence of gold in Raphael’s Entombment, is also a key aspect that privileges the narrative over the icon, not only because the utilization of gold—and lots of it—was a prime visual ingredient of icons, but most especially because Raphael’s abstention from it is another response to Alberti’s text. Acknowledging that some artists use gold in istoria and believe it gives a painting majesty, Alberti did not praise this convention; he preferred that artists imitate rays of gold with colors.12 Even outside of Central Italy in the cinquecento, the narrative altarpiece took shape along more illusionistic and descriptive lines, rather than through a retrospective look at icons. Titian’s (ca. 1485–1576) altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin (1516–18) for Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice, while lacking in perspectival depth, abounds in drama and dynamism. The Assumption has no scriptural basis; it instead derives from third-­and fourth-­ century apocryphal texts, retold in Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend (ca. 1260). According to this tradition, three days after her death, the Virgin arose from her tomb and was assumed into heaven. Titian’s altarpiece does not show any recession into depth, which on a superficial level aligns it with iconic images. However, rather than including a perspectival view into the painting—foreground, middle ground, background—Titian has rather transposed this division vertically into lower, middle, and upper zones. If this does

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not adequately suggest space, it nevertheless is integral to the narrative focus of the altarpiece. After finding her tomb empty, the monumental apostles in the lower zone all dramatically respond, through expression and gesture, to the Virgin’s assumption into heaven. Most of them look up, and several even gesture upward toward the Virgin. Titian chose a composition for the apostles that moved away from mere “presentation.” They are not arranged frontally in a semicircular group, but are rather positioned with seeming haphazardness— some face forward, others are in profile, and one is seen completely from the back. The apostles in the center, moreover, are cast in shadow by the cloud-­ filled bank that carries the Virgin directly above them. Occupying a central zone in the altarpiece, the Virgin, with head and gaze uplifted, arms in an orans pose, is taken on a bed of clouds and putti up to God the Father—who is depicted in the uppermost zone. Titian has thus made plain the narrative sequence of the subject through the vertical division of his altarpiece.

In between Icon and Narrative The march toward narrativity during the Renaissance may appear as a linear development or progression, but there are certainly exceptions to any rule. Some artists remained outside the growing dominance of narrative constructs over iconic ones in Italy. During the Early Renaissance, examples can be found in private devotional works related to the Andachtsbild. The term Andachtsbilder (plural) was applied first by German art historians to describe a group of innovative German fourteenth-­century sculptures depicting themes of the Pietà and the Man of Sorrows—images that isolated holy figures extracted from narrative contexts. These were devotional images intended to function as aids for prayer and meditation, and characteristically they conveyed a profound religious sentiment. The origins of the Andachtsbild in Italy can be traced to painted images from the Byzantine world, such as the Man of Sorrows (Imago pietatis), which began to be imported to the West with greater frequency beginning in the twelfth century.13 The image draws from icons of the Crucifixion and of the Pantocrator, yet does not allude to a specific narrative moment from Christ’s Passion. It is neither a mere portrait nor a representation of a clear biographical moment; it stands in between an icon and narrative, serving both devotional and didactic functions. In 1927, Erwin Panofsky expanded the application of the term to include painting and widened its geographical scope to include all of Europe.



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The Andachtsbild was considered by Panofsky to combine the didactic and devotional (cultic) functions of images by either subtracting from a narrative or augmenting a representational image.14 An example of the former can be seen in Antonello da Messina’s (ca. 1430–79) Christ at the Column (Fig. 7; ca. 1476). Here Antonello has extracted Christ (from head down to his shoulders) from a scene of the Flagellation. By isolating the main figure of a narrative (sometimes in close-­up), it freezes the action. This isolation, combined with the bust-­length format associated with ancient icons, provides a unique and powerful opportunity for direct communication with the viewer, urging further meditation and contemplation. In this manner, the mixing of the iconic and the narrative served as an alternative to the classicizing trend of narrative paintings, while still presenting itself as modern. An example of the second method in which an Andachtsbild could be produced—by augmenting a representational image—can be seen in Lorenzo Monaco’s (ca. 1371–ca. 1425) Christ as the Man of Sorrows (1415–17), in which the gold ground and halo, and the frontal, close-­up view of the dead Christ invoke traditional icons. However, the downward slump of Christ’s head, his visible wounds, the vertical orientation of his body, and the arms of the cross behind Christ’s head allude to his Crucifixion. Simultaneously, Christ’s truncated body emerges from what appears to be a sarcophagus, thereby suggesting his Entombment. He thus appears to be both alive and dead. Christ’s verticality and the frontal and close-­up orientation of his body evoke presence and presentation (like icons), while at the same time, the sarcophagus and figural details allude to various moments from the Passion narrative. In 1965, Sixten Ringbom published his study of fifteenth-­century images in the Netherlands and Northern Italy that emerge from this tradition.15 According to Ringbom, the demand for images of private devotion in the late fifteenth century “resulted in a form which combined the vividness of the narrative… with the portrait character and direct appeal of the traditional icon.”16 Unlike the contemporary narrative altarpieces discussed above, therefore, these private devotional images of the late fifteenth century equally balanced the didactic and devotional significances. Ringbom focuses his attention primarily on narrative images that take up the devotional format—close-­up and half-­length—of traditional icon portraits. The first-­known example of a half-­length, close-­up image of an actual narrative subject is generally acknowledged to be Andrea Mantegna’s (ca. 1430–1506) Presentation in the Temple (Fig. 8) of ca. 1460. Mantegna creates an illusionistic opening—much like the frame of a window—through which we see the Virgin embracing a swaddled

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Christ Child, the high priest Simeon who is about to receive him, and behind them (from left to right) a female attendant, Joseph, and a male attendant. These protagonists, extracted from the story of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, are portrayed half-­length and close to the frontal plane, pushed forward visually by the inky blackness of the background, which serves as what I argue should be considered a “modernized” version of the traditional gold background. Mantegna uniquely balances the function of narrative and icon, the didactic and devotional. He draws from the half-­length, close-­up formula of traditional icons where presence (with its special reality and significance), stillness, and timelessness are effectively conveyed while the necessary figural coordinates are provided to understand the narrative context. The Virgin and Simeon communicate: their heads and eyes are directed toward one another, and their gestures indicate the act of presenting and receiving, respectively. Some artists found other means to reconcile the respective iconic and narrative principles in altarpieces. Absent from Sandro Botticelli’s (ca. 1444– 1510) altarpiece of The Dead Christ Mourned (Fig. 9) of 1495–1500 for Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence (now in Milan) is the Albertian perspective practiced and utilized by his near contemporaries. Christ’s body reclines across the lap of the Virgin, but his body is angled toward the viewer for presentation. At the left, Mary Magdalene kneels forward, pressing her cheek to the feet of Christ, while another Holy Woman lifts and cradles Christ’s face toward the viewer. At the apex of the composition, Joseph of Arimathea stands holding aloft the implements of Christ’s Passion. Botticelli places the lamenters directly before the opening to the tomb, beyond which the viewer cannot penetrate. The tomb thus serves very much like the gold ground of icons by focusing attention on the figural group restricted to the foreground, pushed close to the viewer. Even though the viewer is made aware of this future destination of Christ’s body, there is no recessional movement, no inclination backward. Stillness pervades, and the quality of presentation and timelessness is foremost, yet the story is still recognizable. Botticelli’s The Dead Christ Mourned was produced within the cultural orbit of the fervent, reform-­minded Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98). Savonarola’s sermons in the late quattrocento are replete with references to the need to reform not only the church but art as well. Savonarola upheld the long-­established function of sacred images as Bibles of the poor and illiterate (biblia pauperum). He therefore derided contemporary religious images in which real people were depicted as saints, inducing youths to proclaim when they pass someone on the street, “there goes the Magdalene” or



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“that one is Saint John.” He voiced his concern for artists who painted the Virgin dressed and ornamented as a harlot, when she should be portrayed simply as a poor woman. The effusive expression of emotions was to be curtailed. Above all, he stated, sacred works should incite one to devotion not laughter. In Botticelli’s religious paintings of the early 1490s, one can detect an overt archaizing trend that draws parallels with Savonarola’s yearning to return to the simplicity and purity of the early church. Similarly placed between icon and narrative is Michelangelo Buonarroti’s unfinished The Entombment (Fig. 10; ca. 1500) for Sant’Agostino, Rome (now in London). While there are certainly several formal differences between the works of Botticelli and Michelangelo, these are superseded by inherent similarities in archaism. Both Botticelli’s Milan The Dead Christ Mourned (see Fig. 9) and Michelangelo’s Entombment are vertical altarpieces, though they treat space differently. Botticelli’s lack of perspectival depth is contrasted in Michelangelo’s altarpiece by a more ample background behind the protagonists, even despite its unfinished state. Unlike in Botticelli’s panel, in which the dead Christ lies immobile in the lap of the Virgin before the tomb, the dead Christ in Michelangelo’s painting is being carried backward to his tomb, located in the right background (roughly sketched among the rocks). What is extraordinary is that, while Michelangelo suggests an action taking place, there is a complete lack of movement that draws a close parallel to Botticelli’s fixed figural grouping. According to Alexander Nagel, “The frontal orientation and symmetrical structure [of Michelangelo’s painting] interfere with the impression of movement, an effect that is strongly reinforced by a studied avoidance of figural overlapping.”17 Nagel argues that Michelangelo was very much aware of both the contemporary religious crisis and the new developments in art, which ultimately led him to attempt to reconcile the two. Nagel interprets Michelangelo’s altarpiece as a representation of the subject’s “dual nature as historia and figura.”18 Christ is in the middle of being carried backward, the tomb to which he is being taken is clearly visible, and the three figures directly flanking Christ are clearly exerting effort at their task—all of which points to a narrative or istoria. Countering these narrative aspects, however, is the frontality and weightlessness of Christ, which belie the appearance of a lifeless being. Michelangelo has conceived the carrying or hoisting of Christ, upward and backward, as an act of presentation that invites veneration as in icons. This is the figura aspect of Nagel’s reading, which relates to a spiritual meaning or significance that is outside the realm of history.

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Michelangelo has not only taken liberties with the traditional iconography of Christ being taken to the tomb, but has also demonstrated his artistic virtuosity without undermining the pervasive iconic quality of his altarpiece. His understanding of the human anatomy is clearly being exhibited, with his characteristic muscular forms. He has used an unusual high-­value palette and color juxtapositions that elevate the scene beyond the ordinary. We even see what will become one of his signature figural compositions, the figura serpentinata (“serpentine pose”), in the body of Christ and the corpse bearer at right. (All of these formal qualities are more clearly visible in his slightly later completed private devotional tondo of The Holy Family for the wealthy Florentine Agnolo Doni, and on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.) In Michelangelo’s Entombment, which is his only painted altarpiece, the artist addresses the dilemma between tradition and change, between the authority of the icon and the artistic potential of narratives, between devotion and art, and, ultimately, between the affective and the intellectual. An icon addresses and communicates with viewers directly. A narrative, on the other hand, tells a story. It requires the viewer to recognize and read the biblical tale the artist has depicted. It demands a viewing point at a distance—particularly with the introduction of linear perspective—in order for the scene(s) and the numerous figures to be apprehended rationally by the eye. Traditional altarpieces in which the objective was presentation (and iconic devices therefore remained) were still being produced on a grand scale. It is significant, however, that altarpieces in the early cinquecento that depict a subject from the life of the Virgin, Christ, or the saints largely explicate the story rather than conform to the tradition of icons and early altarpieces in Italy. The march toward the Renaissance saw these simple and plain icons either transformed into artistic demonstrations of narrative prowess or ambiguously placed between the icon and narrative made possible by the artist’s ingenuity. It is only after 1517, with the posting of the Ninety-­Five Theses by Martin Luther (1483–1546) that the crisis between icon and narrative, between religion and art would come to a head. Savonarola’s isolated Bonfires of the Vanities in Florence—in which objects deemed to provoke sin, including art, were burned—would reach epic proportions during the Protestant Reformation under Luther and his contemporaries, with widespread outbreaks of iconoclasm (lit.: image breaking).19 Already in 1522, the Wittenberg iconoclast Andreas Karlstadt (1486–1541), penned a dogmatic tract On the Removal of Images, defining idolatry as the primary error of Christians. That same year, the German Catholic theologian Hieronymus Emser (1477–1527)



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expressed a yearning to return to more archaic traditions of image making. In his That One Should Not Remove Images, aimed at countering Karlstadt’s tract, Emser defends not only sacred images, but also “simple images” that may be perceived to be made due to a decline in art.20 Emser argues that these “simple images” are the result of the fact that money was given to the poor rather than to art, and because these painters realized that “the more artfully images are made the more their viewers are lost in contemplation of the art and manner in which the figures have been worked.”21 It is during this period that merging of the icon and narrative reached its height, but in a form that tipped the scales toward artful devotion.

The Return to Icons through a Mannerist Lens Mannerism or maniera is a name given to a style and period in sixteenth-­ century Italian art. Although mannerism remains the subject of much scholarly debate (centering on questions of the precise date parameters for the style, its primary formal characteristics, its application, and meaning), there is a general agreement that it was formulated by a younger generation of artists who professionally matured in the wake of Raphael’s death in 1520 and that it presented a clear departure from the order and rationality of High Renaissance classicism.22 Among the key formal characteristics of maniera style are exaggerated form and expression, artificial coloration, disjunctions in (or lack of) space, and unbalanced and crowded compositions. Many plausible explanations have been proposed for the emergence of this seemingly prevalent anticlassical style in the second decade of the cinquecento, ranging from simple biological paradigms (birth–maturity–decline) to events such as the Sack of Rome and outbreaks of plague that purportedly affected the stability of artists’ psyches. Yet it was the catalyst of reform sparked by Luther and his fellow Protestants that seems to inform one particular post-­1517 narrative altarpiece by Jacopo da Pontormo (1494–1556). Pontormo’s altarpiece for the Capponi Chapel (Fig. 11; ca. 1525) in Santa Felicita, Florence, represents what I believe to be a turning point in narrative altarpieces. It has been variously identified as a Deposition, a Pietà, and an Entombment.23 The conflicting interpretations are indicative of Pontormo’s choice to remove his protagonists from their narrative context. His figures are placed before a plain, nondescript background occupied only by a curious cloud in the upper left corner and some rocks in the foreground. He has

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depicted what Nagel calls “a moment between stations.”24 The altarpiece appears to be a depiction of an Entombment, with the two load-­bearing figures carrying the body of Christ in the foreground. There is, however, no indication of a tomb. Nor is there any clear indication of the direction the body of Christ is being carried. The two figures carrying the body of Christ, in fact, appear to be immobile. The Christ bearer on the right is in a crouching position, and thus possibly hoisting the body up, not specifically transporting the body in a particular direction. Moreover, both carrying figures, whether standing or crouching, are shown on their toes, suggesting they are not really bearing any weight at all. This feature suggests the contradictory states of “death” and miraculous “signs of life,” showing Christ as both man and God, a quality already present in Michelangelo’s Entombment of ca. 1500 (see Fig. 10).25 Pontormo also suggests, but does not literally depict, the earlier moment of the Deposition. The vertical emphasis of the altarpiece implies that Christ has just been removed from the cross. A preparatory drawing at Christ Church, Oxford, supports this reading, as Pontormo had initially incorporated a ladder into his composition. In the altarpiece, however, the ladder disappears; yet Pontormo retains the same vertical structure of his composition, evoking the antecedent episode. Leo Steinberg states that Pontormo clearly evokes Michelangelo’s sculptural Pietà in San Pietro in Vaticano through the position of the Virgin and the shape of her Son.26 Pontormo places significant emphasis on the darkened void of the Virgin’s lap. The light accenting her knees makes it seem as if the body of Christ has just been lifted from there, and this is further emphasized by the grouping of hands (particularly one of Christ’s, lifted by the youth supporting his torso as well as by the figure behind him). Both these hands and the highlighted, strategically placed arm of Mary Magdalene draw our eyes to the Virgin’s empty lap. The viewer standing before the altarpiece is directly confronted with the main figure of Christ, whose body glows from the light falling from the upper right in front of the picture plane. The figures bearing the body of Christ are static. They are not in fact moving the body, but presenting it to the viewer, whose presence and relationship with the image is implied by the direct outward gazes of the carriers. Christ’s body is brought forward toward the viewer, his head purposefully cradled into a frontal position. The presentation of the body of Christ to the worshiper is further underscored by the figure of Mary Magdalene: facing away from us, she visually holds the other figures back, simultaneously offering Christ forward. We are confronted with the dead body of Christ and are reminded of his sacrifice.



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The manner in which the body of Christ is purposely positioned confirms the liturgical function of the altarpiece. Christ is in the Eucharist. The host that would have been raised above the altar during Mass symbolized the body of Christ, which is also raised and presented by the carriers in the altarpiece. The worshiper could not escape the emotional implications of this relationship. Furthermore, the empty lap of the Virgin and her right arm raised in a gesture of farewell would have called to mind the moment of separation. Pontormo’s altarpiece reconciles the narrative and icon dilemma in a new way. He suggests the Deposition, Pietà, and Entombment by subtle visual clues without clearly representing any one moment. Pontormo therefore requires each viewer to visualize the sequence of moments in his or her own mind. Paired with this narrative compression is an unquestionable emotional appeal to the viewer. The figures are isolated from any narrative setting, appropriating a plain blue background that serves much like the gold ground of icons and early Italian altarpieces. By suppressing movement and narrative action, and by taking the figures out of their narrative context, Pontormo removes any temporal borders. Christ’s death and sacrifice occur not only in the historical past, but also in the present; they are taking place before the worshiper and for the worshiper. Pontormo’s altarpiece deliberately includes and involves the viewer on an emotional level, not only through the visual proximity of the figures, but even more so by the emotional entreaties marked by their gestures and facial expressions. We are intended to honor and venerate the body of Christ and to contemplate and meditate on the story of his Passion by visualizing its scenes in our minds. Here is an example of Nagel’s “historia and figura” intertwined on a more profound level, perhaps even too profound. In addition to the narrative complexity that Pontormo has conceived, he has found a further means to demonstrate his artistic virtuosity without undermining the iconic appearance of his altarpiece. Nearly a century earlier, Alberti had proclaimed that the rendering of space through perspectival systems, and a natural treatment of the body and color, were marks of any good painter. I would argue, however, that the inclusion of space and perspective would not only add an intellectual and rational structure to the painting, but would also remove the critical focus on the figures. The direct address between painting and viewer based on proximity and presentation would be entirely lost. Pontormo found a way to demonstrate his artistic ingenuity while signaling the otherworldly reality of the divine. Rather than appropriating a liberal use of gold to embellish his panel in heavenly splendor, as in

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traditional icons, Pontormo expertly employed brilliant and dissonant colors in cangiantismo (the use of contrasting hues for modeling, instead of varying tones of one color) to mark the beauty and brilliance of a divine realm. The colors are high in value, tempered by white, with a complete absence of black. As Vasari noted in his life of the artist, Pontormo “executed it [the altarpiece] without shadows and with a colouring so bright and so uniform, that one can scarcely distinguish the lights from the middle tints, and the middle tints from the darks.”27 Pontormo’s mastery is established not by his expert understanding of the principles of perspective, nor by his naturally rendered landscapes and figures that point to a study of nature and experience with anatomical form, but rather by his expertise in creative artificiality. Pontormo’s figures, in their wonderfully exaggerated proportions, contrived poses, and brilliant color, could never be mistaken as inhabitants of the living world. Although the altarpiece succeeds in its iconic and artistic display, it is at the expense of narrative clarity. The transition from icon to narrative that began in the trecento started to break down completely with the works of the mannerists, beginning in the second decade of the sixteenth century. While there were instances of archaism in narrative altarpieces throughout the quattrocento and early cinquecento, they remained isolated, and particular to artists touched by the reform-­minded Savonarola in Florence. The proximity of figures to the viewer and the lack of movement of icons, however, were largely retained by the mannerists. The merging of narrative and icon in mannerist works may in fact be seen as a symptom or response to the Protestant Reformation. In the controversy over images, some Protestant writers offered that images were tolerable as long as they were not venerated, but read as narratives.28 When an image is read rather than worshiped, transgressions into idolatry would be curtailed. Yet mannerist abuses of artistic license largely negated not only the iconic but also narrative qualities of their altarpieces, rendering them artistic demonstrations serving the artist rather than works of devotional or didactic utility for the faithful. This would further fuel the Protestant attack against the Catholic tradition and use of sacred art, evidenced by the series of tracts on the removal of images in churches and charges of idolatry emanating from the Protestant north. Beginning in the second decade of the cinquecento in Lombardy, however, artists began to draw from the heritage of Leonardo’s natural and tangible style during his Milanese years and the affective realism of the sculptural tableaux at the Franciscan-­founded Sacro Monte di Varallo. They formulated



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a new and less artificial means to address the conflicting functions of icons and narratives that would contribute to the development of Caravaggio’s sacred style.

Lombard Sacred Style and the Sacro Monte di Varallo The geographic location of Lombardy encompasses a large area in north central Italy, whose borders frequently changed in accordance to political divisions. In the consideration of style, however, Lombardy’s geographic parameters were more elastic and the word “Lombard” was utilized more broadly by art writers, such as Giorgio Vasari, who made his distinctions between regional styles based on formal qualities. In his Lives, Vasari included painters from Ferrara, Cremona, Brescia, and Milan in a chapter entitled “The Ferrarese Artists Benvenuto Garofalo and Girolamo Carpi and Other Lombards.”29 Nearly half a century later, Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1570–1632), secretary to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, identified four primary schools of painting in his unfinished Trattato della pittura (1607–15): Roman, Tuscan, Venetian, and Lombard.30 For the Lombard School, Agucchi named the Parmese artist Antonio da Correggio (1489–1534), “the first of the Lombards” (“il primo de’ Lombardi”).31 Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), according to the account of Paul Fréart de Chantelou, had a more expansive definition, considering Correggio, Titian, and Veronese among the Lombards.32 The appellation of these artists as “Lombard” is significant, as the diversity of the natal origins of these North Italian artists seems to suggest that the Lombard quantifier was not geography, but a shared stylistic component. The modern tendency is to think in terms of absolutes. The words and opinions of late sixteenth-­and early seventeenth-­century writers, however, indicate that the methodology for discerning style was quite different during the late Renaissance. Frequently, common intentions and the artistic means through which they were achieved overrode easy regional identification on the basis of birthplace or nuances in style. It is necessary, therefore, to identify and clarify the stylistic characteristics used to qualify this divergent group of North Italian artists as “Lombard” by examining the textual sources of the period alongside careful analyses of works of art. In 1568, Vasari republished his Lives, correcting the errors and oversights that appeared in the 1550 edition and expanding the geographical parameters

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of his biographical profiles.33 The expansion of the Lives was certainly made in response to the criticism for his Tuscan–Roman partiality, which was evident through his focus on primarily Central Italian artists in his 1550 edition. The 1568 edition, however, while including more artists from Northern Italy, still bespoke Vasari’s own taste and estimation, as these new biographies were rather short. Mere brevity, however, does not explain why Vasari gathered the biographies of artists from Ferrara, Cremona, Brescia, Novara, and Milan in a chapter on Lombard artists.34 Vasari’s remarks on the various painters discussed in his chapter of Lombard artists, however, clearly pointed to a shared stylistic quality: tangible, lifelike naturalism. The most important figure of Lombard thought and style, however, was Leonardo da Vinci. While not Lombard born, Leonardo spent the years 1482– 1499 and 1508–1513 in Milan and its environs. Leonardo also figured prominently in Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo’s Trattato dell’arte della pittura of 1584.35 Milanese by birth, Lomazzo (1538–1600), was not only a painter, but also an important source for Lombard theories on art. In fact, his theories were primarily derived from Leonardo, whose style and theoretical positions were still fully entrenched within the artistic sphere of Lombardy more than six decades after his death. Significantly, Borromeo died in 1584, the year that the Trattato was published. Lomazzo’s advocacy for naturalism in painting was inflected with a strong Counter-­Reformatory tone, a clear legacy of the archbishop’s latent spiritual and intellectual realm of influence in Milan. Lomazzo’s definition of painting, in fact, encapsulated the Lombard adherence to naturalism and Counter-­Reformatory ideals. For Lomazzo, painting was an art in which proportionate lines, natural colors, and light imitate corporeal things, not only in the relief of bodies, but also in movement, which visibly demonstrates to our eyes “great affections and passions of the soul.”36 This convergence of Counter-­Reformatory thought and Lombard, or Leonardesque, theory is further explored in Lomazzo’s chapter on “Motions in Painting.” There, Leonardo’s ideas on empirical observation in the representation of physical motion were related by Lomazzo to the Counter-­Reformatory emphasis on spiritual incitement or “moving” of the viewer’s soul. Lomazzo’s integration of physical and spiritual movement should be considered a descendent of Leonardo’s (and Leon Battista Alberti’s) principle that demanded the actions of the body express the “passion of its mind.”37 In the Trattato, however, this merging of meanings was more intricately tied to the Tridentine decrees on art and Counter-­Reformation thought, where the emotional incitement of the viewer was deemed a necessary precursor to spiritual transformation.



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According to Lomazzo, motions in painting should be similar to those observed in life. By neglecting this observation, the painter commits a discord in nature, similar to playing untuned strings on an instrument.38 The prestigious status given to empiricism in Lomazzo’s Trattato in capturing the emotions of figures, and eliciting reciprocal emotions in the viewer, was closely tied to the Catholic doctrine of excitatio, as well as to Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti’s emphases on nature and verisimilitude as means of exciting devotion and piercing the hearts of viewers.39 According to Lomazzo, the means by which painters effectively capture the motions and emotions of their subjects was primarily through color and light, which made the figures appear natural rather than artificial. Lomazzo singles out Leonardo and Correggio, among other artists, as exemplars in this quality. The Lombard interest in nature began to flourish during Leonardo’s Milanese years. His extensive interest in empiricism, the study and observation of nature, is well documented in his numerous preserved manuscript drawings and writings, as well as in his altarpiece of the Virgin of the Rocks (ca. 1483–86, Musée du Louvre, Paris) painted for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception in San Francesco Grande, Milan. It was not merely the vibrant presence of nature itself, however, that defined the naturalism of Leonardo’s works, but the rendering of tangible figures, through the capturing of the affetti, and a carnal quality, a morbidezza, in the flesh. In his description of Leonardo’s Last Supper (1495–98, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan), Vasari commented on the masterful rendering of the Apostles’ affetti: their love, fear, disdain, and pain.40 In 1584, Lomazzo similarly singled out the exquisite “movements of the passions of the souls” (moti delle passioni degli animi) expressed in the faces and bodies of the figures in the Last Supper,41 and in his 1625 Musaeum, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Carlo Borromeo’s younger cousin, praised Leonardo’s mural for the very same qualities.42 For Leonardo, shadows were integral to the impression of perspective and to the rendering of three-­dimensional form. Shadows may vary in degree of darkness from the most subtle to the darkest shadow (ombre oscure sfumate), but they were closely aligned to properties of light and color, and thus essential to the imitation of nature and natural forms. Leonardo’s portraits of Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine; Fig. 12) and an unknown woman (La Belle Ferronnière, Musée du Louvre, Paris) further express the artist’s interest in representing the affetti and vivacità of his sitters. The sfumato (blended shading) of the background vista in the Virgin of the Rocks is accentuated in these two portraits by the deeper sfumato, or pre-­Caravaggian tenebrism

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(a dramatic contrast of light and dark, typically where the darkness dominates), in the backgrounds, undoubtedly influenced by Flemish precedents. The contrast of deep shadow and light enhanced the presence of the sitters by pushing them forward toward the viewer, breaking the Albertian window. One could argue that the Albertian window provided a rational extension of the viewers’ space, giving them the impression that they could walk into the picture. The “window,” however, also simultaneously served as a boundary, spatially and psychologically distancing the viewer from the painted figures and scenes.43 Leonardo’s impenetrable dark background eliminated this distance, focusing rather on tangible presence; the viewer is not intended to be present in the painting, but his or her presence is made implicit by the immediacy and tangibility of the figures—an effect similar to that of viewing traditional icons. The darkness not only pushed the figure closer to the pictorial plane, but also augmented the rilievo of the figures. The manner in which Leonardo used light and shadow is precisely one of the distinctive elements that contribute to his figures’ presence. According to Vasari, Leonardo’s “pictures had rather the character of things made to represent an effect of night, than the clear quality of daylight; which all came from seeking to give greater relief, and to achieve the final perfection of art.”44 The naturalness and oscurità (darkness) of Leonardo’s style were widely disseminated, not only in Milan, but in many North Italian cities. Leonardo’s influence in Lombardy, in particular, may be explained by his reputation established during his Milanese years. One cannot discount, however, the fact that the artist’s notes on painting and his drawings were preserved and therefore available in Lombardy.45 The foundation of Lombard style, however, draws not merely on Leonardo’s naturalism, but on the means by which he achieved this naturalism. The wide dissemination of the Lombard practice of painting dal naturale, and the utilization of variants of Leonardesque sfumato in the years leading up to the Council of Trent, are extremely significant, in my view. The artificiality or “artfulness” of maniera in sacred painting was, as will be seen in Chapter 3, a primary target of criticism for post-­Trent theorists, particularly Gilio and Paleotti. Around 1564 the display of creativity, and its visual manifestation in complex poses, bright, unnatural color, and convoluted compositions, began to be perceived as artistic independence, which translated into an exhibition or flaunting of an artist’s skill. Painting dal naturale, however, restricted the artist to empirical and scriptural truth, and thereby limited flagrant creativity and artfulness. Shadows, from delicate sfumato to deep



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tenebrism, served a threefold purpose: artistic, theoretical, and theological. From an artistic standpoint, shadow was integral to empirical naturalism. Its interaction and effects with light and color were essential in creating three-­ dimensional forms, rendering the verity and tangibility of figures and scenes in a two-­dimensional medium. Regarding the talent of Leonardo, Vasari proclaimed: “In the art of painting, he added to the manner of coloring in oils a certain obscurity, whereby the moderns have given great force and relief to their figures.”46 Moreover, the 1586 De’ veri precetti della pittura of historian-­ critic Giovanni Battista Armenini (1530–1609) pointed to the enlivening effect of varnishes (intrinsic to the oil medium and to the effects of color, light, and shadow), a practice he associated with Lombard artists.47 Thus not only were the characteristics of naturalism—relief, verity of colors and tints, overall lifelikeness, emotions, and tangibility—recognized as distinctly Lombard and intrinsic to the heritage bequeathed by Leonardo, but also the means by which these effects were achieved, through the oil medium, were credited to the Lombards. Leonardo’s interests in conveying tangible presence through expressive and naturalistic means coincided with the popularization of Franciscan spirituality, particularly Franciscan and Franciscan-­inspired texts centering on Passion-­oriented meditations (see Chapter 2). These urged the Christian faithful to imagine the settings, people, and events of Christ’s Passion as occurring in the present. It is therefore not surprising that, around this time of Franciscan efflorescence (and shortly after Leonardo’s arrival in Milan in 1482), the series of realistic, polychrome sculptural groups began to emerge throughout the Lombard plain, particularly at the Sacro Monte di Varallo. Founded in 1486 by the Franciscan friar Bernardino Caimi (1425–99), the Sacro Monte di Varallo reconstructed the holy places of Palestine through extreme realism.48 Each chapel interior was filled with illusionistic frescoes, objects, and realistic life-­size, three-­dimensional, polychrome sculptures of figures acting out events in their recreated original settings. These figures were primarily made of wood or terra-­cotta, were painted with naturalistic colors, and included real clothes, real hair, and glass eyes to enhance their realism. After Caimi’s death in 1499, his followers continued to expand on his scheme. The early sixteenth-­century contribution included figures modeled in relief and placed against backdrops of realistic painted walls, both by Gaudenzio Ferrari (ca. 1475–1546); these combined to create palpable environments that made pilgrims feel as if they were actually present at the places and events portrayed. According to Gottardo da Ponte’s 1514 guidebook of

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the complex, the first three chapels were dedicated to scenes from Christ’s infancy, the next seventeen were devoted to Christ’s Passion, and the final four chapels dealt with the life of the Virgin.49 By Borromeo’s time, however, the scheme had expanded so that nearly two-­thirds of the chapels depicted scenes from the Passion or related events.50 Portraying personages from the holy places of Palestine, the life-­size figures in these groups were not only realistic, but even looked like everyday people. It was the Lombard painter and sculptor Gaudenzio Ferrari who was given the task to transform Fra Bernardino’s vision for the sanctuary into reality. Lomazzo had recognized Ferrari’s skill in expressing the emotions in his 1584 Trattato, but in a 1566 guide to the Sacro Monte di Varallo by Francesco Sesalli, Ferrari’s naturalism is given special note. Ferrari’s “excellent” statues and painting at the sanctuary are recognized by Sesalli as “natural… as if Nature herself not art had formed them.”51 One of Ferrari’s most powerful works appears in the Chapel of the Crucifixion (Fig. 13). Here, Ferrari represents Christ crucified between the two thieves, with the Virgin, Holy Women, Saint John the Evangelist, and the soldiers and people who had accompanied Christ to Calvary in life-­size, polychrome terra-­cotta sculptures. They are not merely painted, but each figure is clothed and adorned to suggest living figures. The wooden crosses, lances, and shields further enhance the immediacy and tangibility of the story. Moreover, the sculptures are placed before illusionistic frescoes that continue the scene, further enriching the experience of the viewer. This affective dialogue between viewer and scene hinges significantly on the cast of characters that Ferrari has chosen to populate the chapel. They appear as everyday people; each is individualized and expressive, and evokes parallels to studies of Leonardo.52 The convergence of Leonardo’s affective naturalism with the intense, tangible realism of these polychrome sculptures would prove essential not only to the development by other Lombard artists of a more profoundly experiential painting style in the cinquecento, but also to the formation of Caravaggio’s own sacred style in the seicento. For example, the psychologically charged Road to Calvary with Veronica’s Veil (1523–25, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia) by Giovanni Cariani (ca. 1485–after 1547) displays the deep chiaroscuro and naturalistic handling of form of Leonardo, coupled with the realistic details that contribute to the painting’s authenticity to the eyes of the faithful. Cariani had moved to Venice with his family around 1505, but had later spent nearly six years (1517–23) in Bergamo, where he was exposed to



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Lombard style. (Bergamo had been part of the key Lombard duchies from the early sixth century, and though it was under the control of the Venetian Republic by 1428, its ties to Lombardy remained strong.) Cariani’s portrayal of the legend of the Veil of Veronica is set against a dark background, pushing the figures close to the picture plane. Veronica kneels at the lower left holding the veil upon which the dark form of Christ’s face is imprinted. Christ struggles under the weight of the cross, he wears the crown of thorns, and his face and white garment are marked by his blood. The figures of Christ and his tormentors powerfully exploit the examination and depiction of the affetti characteristic of Leonardo’s head studies and paintings, while the roughness of the wood of the cross and the gleam of the soldiers’ armor are pictorial equivalents to the real props used in the Sacro Monte di Varallo chapels. The sacred paintings of Brescian artist Girolamo Romanino (ca. 1484–ca. 1560) display similar references to Leonardo and the Sacro Monte. (Brescia was also a Lombard duchy from the late sixth century.) In a powerful painting from 1542, Romanino confronts the viewer with a scene of Christ’s road to Calvary. In Christ Carrying the Cross (Fig. 14), Romanino extracts the figure of Christ and one soldier from its narrative setting, transforming it into a devotional aid to meditation. The composition is cropped and deep pockets of darkness fill the spaces behind the figures, making them tangible. Christ seemingly looks down at the viewer with resignation. The menacing soldier with teeth bared tugs at the rope around Christ’s neck. Christ wearily carries the cross across his right shoulder as blood trickles from the wounds made by the crown of thorns on his head. Christ’s expression is not only similar to that seen in Leonardo’s figure of Christ in the Last Supper, but also conveys the masterful handling of gesture and “motions of the mind” seen in his Head and Shoulders of Christ (Fig. 15; ca. 1490). The viewer’s attention is moreover captured by the crown of thorns and the wood grain of the cross, both rendered realistically and meticulously, calling to mind the experiential sculptural tableaux at the Sacro Monte di Varallo. Lombard sacred paintings of the mid-­cinquecento acutely confront viewers with scenes that are not only emotionally charged and tangible, but also realistic. There are an extraordinary number of works centering particularly on Christ’s Passion that challenge viewers with the palpable and wrenching suffering of Christ. These images do not invite viewers to enter the painting, but rather invite their empathy, their participation in Christ’s agony. The pictorial device of placing figures close to the frontal plane, pushed by the chiaroscuro of the setting, posits the viewer clearly outside the sacred space

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of the painting, yet simultaneously close to the figures, an intimacy enhanced through their corporeality and their humble and plebeian appearance. In an imaginary dialogue in his 1563 Libro de sogni, Lomazzo interestingly had Leonardo state that, were he to paint his Last Supper “today”—that is in the mid-­sixteenth century—he would show the apostles with suntanned faces and dusty feet, as this was how they really looked.53 This statement poignantly encapsulates the Lombard aesthetic in which Caravaggio’s sacred style was fermented. Ever since Roberto Longhi’s “I precedenti” study of 1929, modern scholarship has identified Lombard artists—particularly the Campi—as early influences on the dramatic and realistic style of Caravaggio.54 This correlation is irrefutable based upon stylistic examination. In fact, Caravaggio was studying in Milan in the workshop of Simone Peterzano at the height of the Campi’s careers in the city. It is, however, the ties that the Campi and Caravaggio both had in Milan under the spiritual aegis of Carlo Borromeo that are particularly significant. The Bolognese writer Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–93) characterized Lombard art as the embodiment of an “inerudita semplicità” (inerudite simplicity) in his 1678 Felsina pittrice.55 Aspects of this affective versus intellectual approach to painting—particularly, as Malvasia noted, the more noteworthy Lombard quality of softness and fleshiness—had already been remarked by Vasari in 1568 in his description of the formal qualities of works by Leonardo and his circle. Malvasia’s “inerudite simplicity,” however, seems to imply something beyond tangible, carnal flesh and the portrayal of the affetti. It also implies a straightforward style that would appeal more to the common man; an objective promoted in the Council of Trent decree on images. The Counter-­Reformation is officially marked by Pope Paul III’s opening of the Council of Trent in 1545.56 It is not, however, until 4 December 1563, during the Council of Trent’s final session, that a validation of images and response to Protestant criticisms was formulated.57 The decree confirmed the function, value, and efficacy of images, by reiterating the tradition of images functioning as biblia pauperum, as memoria, and producers of excitatio: Moreover, let the bishops diligently teach that by means of the stories of the mysteries of our redemption portrayed in paintings and other representations the people are instructed [i.e., biblia pauperum] and confirmed in the articles of faith, which ought to be borne in mind and constantly reflected upon; also that great profit is derived from all holy images, not only because the people are thereby reminded [i.e., memoria] of the benefits and gifts bestowed on them by Christ, but also because through the saints the miracles of God and salutary examples are set before the eyes of the faithful,



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so that they may give God thanks for those things, may fashion their own life and conduct in imitation of the saints and be moved [i.e., excitatio] to adore and love God and cultivate piety.58

The decree and post-­Tridentine discursive treatises on sacred images ignited the desire for sacred images that were natural, tangible, and moving, qualities already inherent in Lombard style. The affective power and impact of Lombard sacred style would prove to be instrumental in the individual sacred style reform of artists in the years after the closing of the Council of Trent by providing a promising and effective alternative to maniera style. These artists include the Carracci (Lodovico, 1555–1619; Agostino, 1557–1602; Annibale 1560–1609) in Bologna, Federico Barocci (ca. 1535–1612) in Urbino and Rome, and Santi di Tito (1536–1603) in Florence, all of whom were exposed to Lombard style directly or indirectly.59 In Borromean Milan, the maniera style, which never had a strong following, quickly fell from favor. Post-­Tridentine religious paintings largely incorporated dramatic chiaroscuro, intense emotion, and realistic details that contributed to the magnification of the pathos of the scene, in turn exciting the viewer’s own emotions. In the work of Simone Peterzano and Antonio Campi—artists who enjoyed Borromeo’s patronage (see Chapter 2)—dark scenes that suggest a nighttime setting combine with emotion and realism that bespeak the Lombard heritage bequeathed by Leonardo and the Sacro Monte di Varallo. The inerudite Lombard style flourished in Milan, based as it was on the affective not the intellectual, realism not idealism, the everyday world rather than a world of perfected abstraction. With Carlo Borromeo as its ardent promoter, the Lombard style seemed tailor-­made for the kind of experiential meditations informed by Franciscan spirituality and, ultimately, for the Tridentine church’s desire to reach the common and uneducated faithful.

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3. Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Saint Francis altarpiece, 1235, tempera on panel. San Francesco, Pescia. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.



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4. Fra Angelico, Descent from the Cross, 1430–34, tempera on panel. Museo di San Marco, Florence. Photo: Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

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5. Giovanni Bellini, The Resurrection of Christ, ca. 1475–78, oil on panel transferred to canvas. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie/Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY.



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6. Raphael Sanzio, Entombment, 1507, oil on panel. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Scala/ Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.

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7. Antonello da Messina, Christ at the Column, ca. 1476, oil on panel. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-­Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.



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8. Andrea Mantegna, Presentation in the Temple, ca. 1460, oil on panel. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie/Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY.

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9. Sandro Botticelli, The Dead Christ Mourned, 1495–1500, tempera on panel. Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.



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10. Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Entombment, ca. 1500, tempera on panel. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

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11. Jacopo da Pontormo, Descent from the Cross, ca. 1525, oil on panel. Capponi Chapel, Santa Felicita, Florence. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.



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12. Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, ca. 1490, oil on panel. Czartoryski, Museum, Kraków. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

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13. Gaudenzio Ferrari, Chapel of the Crucifixion, ca. 1515–20, polychrome terra-­cotta and fresco. Chapel 38, Sacro Monte di Varallo. Photo: Marco Riccardo and Paolo Gonella/ Archivio Riserva Speciale Sacro Monte di Varallo.



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14. Girolamo Romanino, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1542, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

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15. Leonardo da Vinci, Head and Shoulders of Christ, ca. 1490, pen and ink drawing. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Photo: Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY.

·2· carlo borromeo ’ s milan Building Bridges to the Sacred via Word, Deed, and Image

Born in 1571, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio did not witness the upheaval caused by the Protestant Reformation, nor the Catholic Church’s response in the establishment and closing of the Council of Trent. Yet Caravaggio’s sacred images reflect a profound understanding of the debate central to the efficacy of images, which also defined the line separating the Protestant credo sola fide (faith alone) and the Catholic “faith and good works.” The relationships the artist established with ecclesiastical cardinal-­patrons and religious orders during his sojourn in Rome from 1592 to 1606 is still considered instrumental in his awareness of Counter-­Reformation prescriptions and devotion. Many scholars have directed their studies on the subject of Caravaggio’s sacred works as expressions of Counter-­Reformation ideology. Those who see a positive correlation between these two seemingly anomalous subjects often draw parallels between Caravaggio’s sacred scenes and his Roman exposure to the spirituality of the Oratorians, the Spiritual Exercises of the Jesuits, the Augustinian light of grace, or a combination of these.1 One significant source of inspiration for Caravaggio’s formulation of a post-­Tridentine sacred style, however, remains relatively unexamined. His fundamental understanding of the intersection between Counter-­ Reformation art and devotion occurred not in Rome, but in Lombardy, under the spiritual and pastoral aegis of Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo (see Fig. 2).

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Although the influence of the Borromeo family on Caravaggio, particularly Carlo’s younger cousin Federico, had long ago been proposed by Maurizio Calvesi, the significance of Carlo Borromeo as a spiritual model during the artist’s formative years in Milan has been undervalued.2 Beatified in 1602, a mere eighteen years after his death in 1584, and canonized in 1610, Borromeo was considered the embodiment of the Counter-­Reformation. Although modern day scholarship has rightly presented Borromeo as dogmatic in his official views and instructions, this chapter (and the book as a whole) provides a more sympathetic portrait of the future saint, by examining what Borromeo meant and represented to the general populace—not just prelates—of late-­cinquecento and early-­seicento Italy.3 Borromeo’s emulation of Saint Francis of Assisi is particularly significant in this respect, and it explains the archbishop’s participation in humbling processions through the streets of Milan, his pilgrimages to the Sacro Monte di Varallo, and his utilization of images as aids in meditation. Textual and visual evidence presented in this chapter provides compelling evidence that Borromeo consciously and concertedly emulated Saint Francis. In fact, the 1638 Martyrologium Franciscanum by Father Arturo a Monastiero (Arthur Du Monstier, b. 1586, Rouen) placed Carlo Borromeo among the Franciscan Santi e Beati (Saints and Blessed).4 In his 1929 biography of the archbishop, Cesare Orsenigo even claimed that Borromeo joined the Third Order of Saint Francis.5 Moreover, Paolo Maria Sevesi has also noted a 1572 bozzetto (sketch) depicting San Carlo Borromeo Distributing to the Poor by Isaia da Milano of the Capuchin Order, where the archbishop is depicted in a Franciscan habit and belt.6 These, according to legend, were taken from his body after his death, and held as the most precious relics by the Barnabites in Milan.7 Cardinal Federico Borromeo donated the relics to Don Carlo Bossi, a respected Barnabite priest and Knight of Malta known for his piety, learning, and devotion to San Carlo Borromeo.8 To be sure, other religious orders—the Augustinians and Dominicans, for instance—embraced similar “pauperistic” ideas; but this attitude was most significantly associated with Saint Francis, and for Borromeo, Saint Francis and Franciscan devotion were the exemplars.

Carlo Borromeo in Rome Carlo Borromeo was born in 1538 to Count Gilberto II Borromeo of Arona and Margherita de’ Medici, sister of Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici, a future pope. At the age of seven, Borromeo received the clerical tonsure and was educated at



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the Benedictine abbey of SS. Graziano e Felino at Arona. From 1552 to 1559, he studied at the University of Pavia, where he received his doctorate in civil and canon law. One month after Giovanni was elevated to the papal throne as Pope Pius IV (r. 1559–65), he called his twenty-­two-­year-­old nephew Carlo to Rome, naming him secretary of state, administrator of the archdiocese of Milan, and cardinal deacon (January 1560). Later he would appoint him protector of the Franciscans (May 1564) and grand penitentiary (November 1565). During his five-­year sojourn in Rome (1560–65), Borromeo also founded the Accademia delle Notti Vaticane (Academy of the Vatican Nights, ca. 1560). The Accademia comprised an assembly of important bishops, cardinals, and lay individuals who met four nights a week in the Palazzo Apostolico near Santa Marta to discuss classical and sacred literature.9 The meetings were intended to cultivate the study of secular literature and moral philosophy. It was during this period that Borromeo began his long friendship with Filippo Neri (1515–95), future saint and founder of what would later become known as the Oratorians. Neri, a Florentine, had relocated to Rome in 1533 after a religious conversion. Upon his arrival, he began to tend to the sick and poor and to engage in simple conversation with people. In 1548 he founded the Confraternity of the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini e Convalescenti (Most Holy Trinity of Pilgrims and Convalescents), officially recognized by Pope Paul III in 1548, and as an archconfraternity by Pope Pius IV in 1562. Devoted to the care of pilgrims, humility, and charity, SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini embodied Franciscan ideals. According to Neri’s earliest biographer, Father Bacci (1622), the confraternity held spiritual exercises and familiar conservations, “inflaming one another by words and example with the desire of Christian perfection.”10 Key patrons and associates of Caravaggio (including Ottavio Costa, Vincenzo Giustiniani, Ciriaco and Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, Ermete Cavalletti) count among the confraternity’s members and benefactors, as does Carlo Borromeo, to whom a chapel is dedicated in the archconfraternity’s church of SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini. Borromeo visited the confraternity frequently, and in 1575, he assigned it a monthly income of 25 scudi.11 The exact date that Borromeo came into contact with Neri and his disciples is unknown, but the meeting likely occurred during the early years of Borromeo’s first Roman sojourn under the pontificate of his uncle. Borromeo and Neri were alike in many ways; both ministered to the poor, the sick, and pilgrims, both were deeply dedicated to the reform and spiritual renewal of the church and the Christian fold, and both were invested in educating and reaching the common man. Already in 1561, Borromeo founded and endowed

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the Collegio Borromeo in Pavia, in order to provide education for promising young, poor students—a goal that endures today. Borromeo was instrumental in convincing his uncle to reconvene the third series of sessions of the Council of Trent (1562–63), and the younger man played an integral role in the implementation of its decrees, particularly the decree on images. The years 1562–63, it seems, were pivotal in Borromeo’s ecclesiastical career. According to his biographer and close disciple, Giovanni Pietro Giussano (1553–1623), the death of his elder brother, Federico, in November 1562 caused a spiritual transformation in Borromeo.12 He began to demonstrate greater austerity in life, and with grand fervor and frequency, he gave exercises on orations and saintly virtue.13 Borromeo became stricter and more dedicated in following the perfect Christian path. In 1563, the same year in which the council closed, he received holy orders (4 September). His rise in the church hierarchy was meteoric. Borromeo was consecrated a bishop in the Sistine Chapel on 7 December 1563, and he was formally appointed archbishop of Milan on 12 May 1564, although it was not until 23 September 1565 that he entered his diocese. While Borromeo remained in Rome, Pope Pius IV put him in charge of the elaboration of the Roman Catechism, and he worked on the revision of the Missal and Breviary. Moreover, it was in 1563 that the Accademia delle Notti Vaticane became almost exclusively a religious academy, aiming to respond to and to serve the needs of the people, a purpose consonant with Neri’s Oratory and with the Tridentine decrees.14 Determined to broaden, strengthen, and implement the Tridentine reforms in Rome, Borromeo sought to persuade Neri to return with him to Milan to assist him in the reform and spiritual renewal of his diocese. Borromeo’s entreaties were ultimately in vain, but the two formed a close bond. Neri became Borromeo’s confessor, and it cannot be deemed coincidental that it was under the pontificate of Pope Pius IV that the Oratory’s presence within the spiritual fabric of Rome was expanded. Borromeo’s involvement in the Council of Trent and his experiences during his first sojourn in Rome, particularly his interactions with Neri and his disciples, would shape his dedication to reforming the spiritual life of his diocese.

The Life and Devotion of Saint Francis of Assisi and Borromeo In the sixteenth century, Milan lost its agreement of political independence with the Habsburg Emperor Charles V when he abdicated in 1556 and



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gave his son Philip II of Spain the Duchy of Milan. Thereafter, Milan and its territories were under Spanish rule. Carlo Borromeo, however, served as the spiritual and moral head of the Catholic Church in Milan, tempering the power of the Spanish throne in matters of faith. The geographic position of Lombardy at the northern borders of the Italian Peninsula made it the first line of defense against the Protestant north across the Alps. Religious orders provided Lombardy with one of its most effective shields. The second half of the cinquecento witnessed the expansion of the Milanese Observant Friar Minors of Saint Francis, with the construction of convents in Lodi, Maleo, Bellinzona, Varese, and Como.15 The growth of the Observants in the Diocese of Novara resulted in small settlements in Pallanza, Oleggio, Trecate, Cerano, Galliate, Romagnano, Borgomanero, Orta, and Mercurago.16 The Franciscan practice of visual and sensory meditation certainly underscored the importance of visual aids, and the Franciscan presence in Lombardy beginning in the mid-­cinquecento undoubtedly challenged the Protestant proscription of external forms of devotion, particularly images. On 4 December 1563, the very day on which the Council of Trent closed, Borromeo wrote a letter to Cardinal Giovanni Gerolamo Morone (1509–80) expressing his determination to follow the council’s decrees.17 In 1564, just one year after its closing, Borromeo was appointed archbishop of Milan. Rigorously adhering to the council’s demand for all bishops to dwell within their dioceses, as they were affirmed to be the successors of the apostles, Borromeo became the first resident archbishop of Milan in more than a century. Committed to the pastoral care of his diocese, Borromeo established many initiatives to uphold the Tridentine decrees and cultivate piety among all members of society. He publicly professed himself as a pilgrim of the Sacra Sindone of Turin, the Virgin in Varallo, Saronno, Rho, Tirano, and Loreto.18 These towns were noted for the venerable relics and miraculous images housed within their city walls: for instance, the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin was home to the linen cloth bearing the imprint of Christ, the Holy Winding Sheet (Shroud of Turin), believed to be the actual shroud in which he was buried; and in the basilica of the Santa Casa in Loreto, one could find the house in which the Virgin lived, which had miraculously been transported from the Holy Land to Loreto by angels.19 As the Jubilee of 1575 was quickly approaching, Carlo Borromeo published a pastoral letter to his diocese in September 1574 explaining its origins, purpose, and importance, exhorting those in his care to make their pilgrimage to Rome.20 Although he had planned to visit Rome in the fall of

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that year, Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–85)—a former member of Borromeo’s Accademia—requested his presence in 1574, before the Jubilee’s inauguration, in order to consult with him about the celebration. This was a pivotal Jubilee, since it was to be the first after the closing of the Council of Trent. Borromeo therefore left for Rome immediately; but despite the urgency of the pope’s request, he visited all the holy sites associated with saints and their holy relics along the road from Milan to Rome, including Camaldoli, Vallombrosa, Monte Oliveto, and La Verna and Assisi.21 Carlo Bascapè (1550–1615), bishop of Novara and a close associate and early biographer of Borromeo, recounts that Borromeo visited La Verna (where Francis in 1224 received the stigmata) and Assisi specifically because they were celebrated for the holiness and memory of Saint Francis.22 At these holy places Carlo stopped, often spending whole nights in prayer, in order to renew the memory of those glorious saints who had dedicated themselves to living a divine life in their desire to imitate Christ. On one such visit in October 1578, the Jesuit Father Francesco Adorno records that Borromeo traveled from Milan to Turin—some eighty miles—by foot. He was given a private viewing of the Shroud and “broke down in tears at the sight of Christ’s image.”23 Borromeo then participated in the first public unveiling of the relic after it was moved to Turin from Chambéry, France. Borromeo arrived in Rome on 8 September 1574 to the great joy and relief of the pope. He fulfilled his duty in holding counsel with the pope regarding the approaching Jubilee celebrations; but as soon as these discussions were concluded, he retired to the convent at Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, a church he had been instrumental in building.24 There he remained, devoting himself to holy meditations and spiritual exercises until the official commencement of the Jubilee.25 Once the Jubilee was under way, Borromeo visited the seven pilgrimage churches always by foot, sometimes barefoot, but at all times with great humility and devotion. As he made his pilgrimage through the streets of Rome, he prayed out loud, merely acknowledging the prelates and princes who came to greet him. Borromeo was so intent in prayers that even those closest to him, such as Duke Ottavio Farnese of Parma, Prince Marcantonio Colonna, his son Fabrizio Colonna, and Anna Borromeo (the archbishop’s sister and Fabrizio’s wife), were met with similar disengagement.26 He visited not only the established pilgrimage churches, but also others with noted holy relics. The most prominent of these relics to which Borromeo demonstrated particular devotion was the Scala Santa (Holy Stairs) next to the pilgrimage



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church of San Giovanni in Laterano. According to Christian tradition, these were the very steps that led to the praetorium of Pontius Pilate and on which Christ stood trial.27 They were reputedly brought to Rome by Constantine the Great’s mother, Saint Helena, in the fourth century. Borromeo visited this relic almost every day, climbing the steps on his knees, providing a tangible example of humility and devotion for all of Rome. Moreover, in an act of open generosity and charity, Borromeo offered pilgrims his new cardinal’s residence attached to his titular church Santa Prassede. He not only assisted these poor pilgrims, but like Christ had done for his disciples after the Last Supper, he washed their feet: [H]e putteth water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded…. “You call me Master and Lord. And you say well: for so I am. If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.” (John 13:5–15)

Borromeo, of course, was not singular in this practice of ritual humility. As Pamela M. Jones has indicated, the ritual of washing the feet was incorporated in Maundy Thursday celebrations at the Palazzo del Laterano and by princes and bishops in their own dioceses.28 In respect to bishops, it was deemed a greater demonstration of humility and charity if they washed the feet of the poor. This is what Borromeo chose to do, not only in Rome, but in Milan. Borromeo’s abundant display of humility, charity, and devotion did not go unnoticed, as news of this pious cardinal and archbishop spread throughout Rome. Upon his return to his diocese, Borromeo vigorously resumed his spiritual reform, aiming to make Milan the new Catholic beacon of reform and devotion. In 1576, after receiving papal approval, Borromeo initiated a local version of the Roman Jubilee where, as he had done in Rome, he washed the feet of male pilgrims.29 He even published a pilgrim’s guide to Milan that described the devotion of the principal churches of the city in order to increase their pious ardor.30 During the 1570s, the diocese of Milan was a hotbed of spirituality, with 753 parish churches, 106 convent churches, and the significant presence of older mendicant orders, as well as newer ones such as the Theatines (formed in 1524), the Barnabites (1533) and the Jesuits (1550).31 During 1564–72, Borromeo served as the protector of the Franciscan Order, but he went beyond such service, even after his tenure of protection ended. He vigorously addressed the growing divide within the order—between the

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Conventuals and Observants—and promoted the return to the ancient observance of their founder.32 Borromeo fully embraced Franciscan devotion by espousing the example of Saint Francis in three significant ways: Saint Francis’s profound humility and charity; his utilization of tangible images as meditative aids; and, correlated with the latter, his belief in the earthly as a means of ascending to the spiritual. While all those who encountered Borromeo saw him as being a man blessed with spiritual graces, the archbishop saw himself as a vessel of impurity, full of imperfection. He advised his flock, rather than dictating to them. Everything about his person, his actions, and even his home reflected modesty and humility. In Bascapè’s biography of Borromeo, the Barnabite priest and bishop of Novara underscored the fact that Borromeo consciously shaped his outward appearance and deportment of humility; these reflected the fact that he was the inner vessel, a mirror of Christ’s own humility. According to Bascapè, Carlo took exquisite care to preserve ecclesiastical decorum in everything. In his own hosiery and shoes, in every part of his dress, in every act and gesture he always observed sacred dignity [but] in such a way that nothing ever appeared to demonstrate studied elegance or profane frivolity, nothing that could contrast with the gravity and sanctity of his rank.33

Both Bascapè and Giussano emphasize that although Borromeo wore his ecclesiastical garments in public, in private he wore a simple, rough robe.34 Giussano, moreover, explained that even in public, Borromeo wore very poor clothes underneath his ecclesiastical garments.35 Borromeo avoided vain ornament and decoration, and delighted in simplicity. He renounced many benefices and wealth. In his funeral oration for the archbishop, the Franciscan preacher Francesco Panigarola noted that “he took from his wealth only what a dog has from his master—bread, water, and straw.”36 Even the interior of his palace bespoke his humility, with its bare furnishings and plain, white walls. While he had numerous individuals in his household, he did not allow them to serve him; rather, he served them. When he traveled, he chose to stay in the houses of the poor, declining invitations from the rich to lodge in palatial splendor. According to Giussano, “St. Charles was always much pleased to serve the poor at table, and to wash the feet of pilgrims in holy week, and performed these offices not as mere ceremonies but out of devotion and humility.”37 Borromeo exhorted the same to the prelates of his diocese as much to his flock.



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Giussano described Borromeo in much the same way as Saint Francis was spoken of by his own biographers. Like Francis, Borromeo was infused with the living flames of love for Christ, and this love was emblazoned into the “hearts of men from the fire that burnt in his own heart.”38 He preached with “heart all on fire with love.”39 Like Francis, Borromeo lived his life striving to conform to Christ’s example, and divested himself of all possessions in order to bestow them upon his flock. He was never satisfied with his suffering, and considered ways in which he could suffer more. According to Giussano, the archbishop’s embracement of his own suffering was proof that he was eager for martyrdom; as his friend and associate (and biographer) Cardinal Agostino Valier had once said, “martyrdom stopped short of him, not he of martyrdom.”40 Whereas people normally try to avoid suffering at all costs and to relish in every comfort, Borromeo avoided every comfort and habitually sought greater suffering and bodily affliction.41 All his biographers recount the archbishop’s desire to suffer for his flock, through the mortification of his body and his processions through the streets of Milan.

Outward Devotion: The Importance of Visual Apprehension in Borromean Milan Borromeo, who had made a pilgrimage to the Franciscan site of La Verna, embraced Saint Francis’s belief not only in striving for conformity in Christ, but also in adopting the apostolic poverty and humility that cast all men as products of God’s creation. He did this publicly, not privately, in the numerous public processions (Fig. 16), including a series of vivid reenactments of Christ’s road to Calvary. Penance formed the central core of Borromeo’s spirituality, rooted as it was in the asceticism, humility, and spirituality of Saint Francis. Borromeo encouraged public acts of penitence and prayer through the erection of crosses throughout Milan, the promotion of the Forty Hours’ (Quarant’ore) Devotion, and the procession of honored relics of Milan. Images played a central role in promoting penitence and prayer in Borromeo’s spiritual reform, and particularly in supporting the Tridentine position of the cult and veneration of images and relics in response to Protestant opposition.42 He began to erect crosses at major crossroads beginning in 1573, tangible and visible reminders of Christ’s suffering for the salvation of mankind. In essence, Borromeo brought the church outdoors as permanent memory aids to supplement the more ephemeral celebrations and processions. Altars were set

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up below these crosses in 1573 and 1579, providing not only a visual means of effectuating penitence and piety, but also allowing the words of the Mass held at these altars to echo throughout the city.43 Borromeo was also a fervent supporter of the Forty Hours’ Devotion. Forty hours has significant scriptural import in both the Old and New Testament: during Noah’s time, it rained for forty days and forty nights; the Israelites wandered through the desert for forty years before arriving at the Promised Land; and Christ fasted for forty days in the desert before embarking on his ministry. Most significant, however, forty hours corresponded to the number of hours between Christ’s burial and his Resurrection. The devotion was approved by Pope Paul III in 1539, twelve years after its introduction at Santo Sepolcro, and would later be promoted by Carlo Borromeo in his Milanese diocese.44 To be sure, the Forty Hours’ Devotion was intended as an exercise of piety; but one cannot underestimate the fact that its popularity and dissemination throughout Italy was likely a public response to the Protestant attack on Catholic veneration and the true presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. In his 1577 Avvertenze per l’oratione della quaranta hore, Borromeo outlined that processions should be made before and at the end of the devotion. At the start of the Oration the Priest, kneeling, shall incense the most holy sacrament three times, as soon as it is taken out of the main tabernacle. Thereafter the procession with the sacrament is made to which appropriate antiphons are sung. When the procession is finished the most holy sacrament is taken up to be shown to the people: thereafter the litanies, prayers and orations are recited while kneeling. At the end of the said Oration first the same litanies, prayers and orations are recited: when they have been finished, the priest, kneeling, shall incense as above after which incensing, as above, the procession is made: and when that is finished, the said priest shall bless the people with the small tabernacle containing the most holy sacrament: thereafter he shall put it back in its place in the main tabernacle and incense it as above; then he shall straight away close the said main tabernacle.45

Processions also played a central role in engaging the public with holy relics and models of penitence and piety. In July 1576, an outbreak of the bubonic plague ravaged the city of Milan. Borromeo immersed himself in tending to the sick and dying (Fig. 17) and urged the clergy to contribute to the relief efforts. He ministered to plague victims not only in Milan’s lazaretto (plague hospital) every day, but also in the makeshift camps set up in the countryside due to the overflow of victims. He organized public prayers and processions seeking divine mercy for the 900,000 faithful within his care, the sheep of his fold. Borromeo actively



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processed through the streets of Milan with the city’s most holy relic: the Sacred Nail, one of the nails reportedly used in Christ’s Crucifixion (see Fig. 16). The Jesuit Paolo Bisciola described one such procession in October 1576: His holiness performed the three processions dressed di mestitia, with a large rope around his neck, barefoot and hooded, dragging his clothes on the ground, and with a large Crucifix in his arms…. But that which most moved the people to tears, penitence and dolour was [the sight of] the illustrious Cardinal in such sad and mournful dress, that great black cross on which he carried the Holy Nail, the blood that was seen to issue from his feet. When the procession was finished he preached a public sermon almost three hours long, with such spirit and fervor that he was like another St. Paul. I believe there were few who did not weep. When the days of prayer were over he carried it all through the city once more, especially in those places where the disease was worst. On this journey he spilt much blood from his feet, and was accompanied by barefoot priests and monks, with ropes around their necks.46

Bisciola further describes how Borromeo ordered candles to be lit on temporary altars placed throughout the city “so that to walk in the streets was like walking in church.”47 Carlo Borromeo’s devotion to Christ’s Passion mirrors Saint Francis’s own. According to Giussano, “The Passion and Death of our Lord were so engraven in his heart, that he only seemed happy when meditating on them.”48 During the 1576–77 plague, Borromeo established seven periods of daily prayer, which corresponded to the seven hours of torment Christ endured. The archbishop even published his own little book of prayers for his diocese, in which as Pamela M. Jones notes, [He] entreated the faithful to meditate on the seven principal times that Christ spilled his blood for love of humankind: the circumcision, agony in the garden, flagellation, crowning of thorns, nailing of his hands to the cross, nailing of his feet to the cross, and when his side was pierced.49

He urged everyone to recite the seven (penitential) Psalms, Litanies, prayers from the Office of the Virgin, or the Corona. Jones argues that this Corona was probably the Corone spirituali (Spiritual Crowns) by the Capuchin friar Mattia Bellintani da Salò, which was written for Borromeo: according to the preface of the 1616 edition, the author notes that Borromeo had specifically asked him to write a “devout composition about prayer” for him.50 The prayer book, organized for use over the course of a week, was intended to take the faithful on a spiritual journey.51

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The new spirituality of the Counter-­Reformation revived and reinvigorated the very ideals of Saint Francis of Assisi. In fact, during the last decades of the sixteenth century and in the early seventeenth century, Saint Francis of Assisi became the most exemplary and most represented of all the saints. Why? The reasons can be found in the saint’s early biography by Tommaso da Celano (ca. 1190–ca.1260). Celano tells us that in the first twenty-­five years of life, Francis “squandered and wasted his time miserably,” was a “promoter of evil,” and reveled in foolishness.52 That is until the Lord looked down from heaven and changed something within him. Several episodes contributed to Francis’s conversion to the apostolic life, but it was Francis’s prayer before a painted crucifix in the ruined church of San Damiano (outside the gate of Assisi) that proved critical to his transformation. According to Celano, Francis had dropped to his knees before the crucifix “in devout and humble supplication” when the painted image of the crucified Christ suddenly moved its lips and spoke to him.53 It was at this moment that the stigmata of Christ deeply imprinted Francis’s heart, though not yet upon his flesh.54 As Celano recounts, Francis would serve as proof to all sinners and an example to all of conversion to God.55 Such a model of conversion was integral to the Counter-­ Reformation Church who not only sought a reform within, but spiritual reform among the general faithful faced by Protestant heresies. The flourishing of images of Saint Francis in the Counter-­Reformation can be understood in the context of Francis’s legend. The earliest biographies of Francis, by Celano and Saint Bonaventure (1221–1274), both record that Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) was persuaded to approve Francis’s Rule because of a vision he experienced. In Innocent’s dream a small man sustained the weight of San Giovanni in Laterano on his back and prevented its fall and ruin.56 According to Celano, Pope Innocent III recognized this man as Francis and that the Lateran basilica symbolized the Church at large: “Surely, this is the man who, by his works and by the teaching of Christ, will give support to the Church.”57 Innocent’s dream therefore not only led to the approval of the Franciscan Rule, but also to the casting of the Friars Minor as integral in the reform of the Church in the decades following the end of the Great Schism. Borromeo had scaled the Scala Santa (adjacent to San Giovanni in Laterano) on his knees during the Jubilee in 1575 nearly every day. Perhaps he was also particularly drawn to this site because of its association with Saint Francis and Pope Innocent III’s dream. Borromeo’s rigorous devotions at the Scala Santa, I argue, stem from his desire to become an alter Francis (“another Francis”); a critical support for the church.



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A successful reform of the Church, however, cannot occur in isolation, reserved to the spiritual renewal of the upper echelon of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but must also include the general populace. In this respect, Saint Francis also served as a vivid model for Borromeo. According to his biographers, Saint Francis dedicated his life to his belief in the spiritual edification of all people. He believed that all men were equal before God and that every man could develop a personal and direct connection to God. The Tridentine decree on images returned to these same ideas, underscoring that images could function as a means of instructing and touching the hearts of the illiterate. The importance of reaching the general populace was further supported by religious corporations such as the Oratorians. San Filippo Neri, founder of the Oratorians, developed prayer meetings using a simple mode of discourse in order to reach the unlettered members of the Catholic fold. The teachings and exercises of Neri and the Oratorians promoted not merely simplicity but immediacy, affectivity, and humble spirituality. Neri and his student Borromeo followed in the footsteps of Saint Francis in embracing apostolic poverty and humility, and in their unshakable belief in the equality of all men as God’s creatures. Moreover, they both regularly meditated before images in their practice of spiritual exercises, which required the vivid visualization of scenes from Christ’s life, incorporating realistic details to recreate those scenes in the theater of one’s mind. Borromeo’s biographers describe him as a profoundly spiritual person, given to constant prayer and meditation. Giussano proclaimed that the archbishop was “so given to prayer that it seemed to be his food and delight.”58 Borromeo spent numerous hours in mental prayer not only every day, but every night as well. On those occasions when a crisis regarding the church or the welfare of the faithful arose, he would remain all night in prayer.59 Spiritual exercises formed a part of what has been referred to as “pauperist” devotion, the origins of which can be traced to the devotion of Saint Francis of Assisi. This experiential manner of devotion opened the way for everyone to ascend the ladder to the divine through meditation that drew relationships to the everyday world. They were informed, therefore, by the late fourteenth-­century devotio moderna movement, which called for a return to such pious practices as humility, obedience, and simplicity of life, and particularly the devotional practices of Saint Francis. In 1223, Saint Francis had decided to recreate the scene of the Nativity of Christ in Greccio.60 Saint Francis is credited for creating the first presepio or crèche, which included a manger filled with straw and a real ox and donkey.

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In speaking to John Vellita of Greccio, one of the men close to his heart, Francis explains: I wish to do something that will recall to memory the little Child who was born in Bethlehem and set before our bodily eyes [my emphasis] in some way the inconveniences of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he lay upon the hay where he had been placed.61

Saint Francis, in short, created a tableau vivant, understanding that a direct, tangible, “living” scene would incite the worshipers to meditate on the birth of Christ in a profound way, employing all of their senses, particularly their sight. Although the manger was filled with real hay, and a live ox and donkey were used in Francis’s recreation, the child was not. The power of this “living” scene however, was so powerful that it caused a man to see Francis “rouse the child as from a deep sleep.”62 According to Celano: “This vision was not unfitting, for the Child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many; but, by the working of his grace, he was brought to life again through his servant St. Francis and stamped upon their fervent memory.”63 Borromeo’s 1577 Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, a treatise on the reform of church architecture and furnishings, seemingly provides little insight into sacred images beyond the intention to adhere to the Tridentine decree. It is clear, however, that Borromeo held a genuine interest in and concern for religious images as demonstrated in this passage: Now, with regard to the pious and religious representation of sacred images, not only must the bishop be attentive to the decree of the Council of Trent and the Provincial Constitutions, but also a heavy punishment or fine has been set for painters and sculptors so that their works do not depart from the prescribed rules. Penalties have also been determined in regard to pastors, who, contrary to the prescribed rules of the Tridentine decree, have permitted an unusual and offensive image to be painted or placed in their churches.64

As Evelyn Voelker has observed, this short chapter reads as a “veritable manifesto against artistic license.”65 Borromeo had already warned artists and clergy alike, at the First Provincial Council in 1565, that those who did not conform to the Tridentine prescriptions regarding paintings and sculptures would be punished.66 At the Third Provincial Council in 1573, Borromeo even went as far as recommending that “in order that bishops might more easily execute these and other like prescriptions of the Council of Trent, let them call together the painters and sculptors of their dioceses and inform all equally about



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things to be observed in producing sacred images.”67 Borromeo’s treatise most likely inspired Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, on which the cardinal was working at that time. During this same period, Carlo’s cousin Federico was studying under Paleotti in Bologna. Paleotti too had been present at the final session of the Council of Trent, and in 1579 he sent Carlo the index to his Discorso, followed by a completed draft of the first two volumes in 1581. The Instructiones may not reveal anything beyond the most basic Tridentine concerns, but passages from the treatise suggest a genuine concern for the Christian faithful. Among Borromeo’s prescriptions for the design of interior church spaces, the archbishop pronounced that the altar must be visible from all points in the church and that large windows with clear glass were required so that the faithful could see the ceremony.68 This concern for the congregant’s direct line of sight to the altar and Mass invokes the importance of engagement and tangibility that is central to the Tridentine demand for sacred images that move the viewer. The importance of reaching the general populace seems to have been paramount to Borromeo as an examination of the works of art commissioned and collected by the archbishop, in addition to biographical accounts, reveals parallels between the archbishop’s taste in sacred images and Saint Francis’s own esteem for the tangible and natural. The emotional connection between sacred image and viewer apparently even superseded Borromeo’s own dogmatic prescriptions for saints to be portrayed with halos and Christ’s halo to be distinguished by a cross, which based on the works the archbishop himself commissioned and collected, was not a critical issue.69 According to Giussano, Borromeo had a great devotion for sacred paintings, “having many of them in his rooms.”70 He particularly favored highly emotional and lifelike sacred images. In Borromean Milan, in fact, religious paintings largely incorporated dramatic chiaroscuro and realistic details that contributed to the magnification of the pathos of the scene, which in turn excited the viewer’s own emotions. The brothers Campi (Giulio, 1500–72; Antonio, ca. 1522–87; and Vincenzo, 1536–91) were particularly favored in Borromeo’s diocese and by the archbishop himself. The Campi were from Cremona, a city that rivaled Milan in its spiritual reform under Cardinal Niccolò Sfondrati (1535–1591), an intimate follower of Neri and close associate of Borromeo who participated in the final sessions of the Council of Trent.71 Giulio Campi, the eldest of the brothers, had prior to 1563 already demonstrated an interest in landscapes in his religious frescoes for Santa

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Margherita in Cremona, and an inclination toward tangible and more natural figures, as are evident in his Chess Players (Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, Turin) and portraits from the 1530s. Whereas Giulio primarily worked in Cremona, his younger brothers worked extensively in Milan. Vincenzo’s work, like that of his eldest brother (with whom he trained), displayed an interest in genre scenes painted in a direct and natural manner, and religious scenes painted from contemporary life. It was Antonio, however, who demonstrated a more expressive and realistic style. Antonio, in fact, is the only Campi brother who not only had direct correspondence with Borromeo, but who seemed attuned to the religious environment of Lombardy. In a letter of 1572, Antonio Campi wrote to Borromeo mentioning a work he was painting for him. An inventory of 1618, moreover, indicates that Borromeo owned a number of paintings by Antonio and Giulio Campi. The brothers are further mentioned in a letter (dated 9 December 1564) that Borromeo addressed to the fabbrica of Milan Cathedral in which he recommended that they choose either Bernardino Campi (no relation to the brothers) or Giulio and Antonio Campi to paint the organ shutters in the cathedral.72 According to an early seventeenth-­century source, Borromeo may also have commissioned Antonio’s Scenes from the Passion (Fig. 18).73 These documents and sources clearly suggest that Borromeo had a particular interest in the work of the Campi brothers, particularly Antonio. A careful examination of the Campi’s works for Borromeo not only sheds further light on the archbishop’s views regarding sacred style, but also underscores his influence on artists such as the Campi. All three brothers contributed to the decoration of the convent church of San Paolo Converso, a center for the Angelic Sisters of Saint Paul (Angeliche di San Paolo Converso) in Milan. The Angeliche was a religious convent of women that had been approved by Pope Paul III in 1535. They played an integral role in the reform movement in Northern Italy, Milan in particular, and held a special place for Borromeo, who referred to them as “the jewel in his miter.”74 His esteem for the Angeliche is supported by a letter of 1584 from Sister Agata Sfondrati, a prioress of the order (and niece to Niccolò, the bishop of Cremona).75 In this letter, written shortly after Borromeo’s death, Sister Agata not only expresses the pain felt by all the sisters at the archbishop’s death, but also mentions that Borromeo had bequeathed a work of art (will of 1576) to the Angeliche, identified as the “Mysteries of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, made with ​​ beautiful art from Messer 76 Antonio Campo.” Sister Agata describes Antonio’s painting as



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reputedly [Borromeo’s] greatest and most valuable. He kept it in his secret chamber, the shrine of his true joys and gathering place of angels, the key to which he always kept with him. It was there that he often celebrated the Sabbath, offering himself in the perfume of sanctity, in countless forms of sacrifice and harsh penitence.77

Valerio Guazzoni has related this painting to an earlier text by Bartolomeo Scalvo,78 the Rosariae preces ad gloriosam Dei genitricem Mariam virginem meditationibus auctae ad vitae Christi ejusdemque matris repetendam memoriam, published in Latin in 1569 and in Italian a month later with the title Le meditazioni del Rosario della gloriosissima Maria Vergine (Meditations of the Rosary of the Most Glorious Virgin Mary), dedicated to Borromeo. In the preface, Scalvo explains that it was because of Borromeo’s advice that his work was published in the volgare (Italian); a testament to Borromeo’s adherence to and personal belief in reaching the general populace. According to Scalvo, the archbishop believed that only through the “dark, cold, and dead” Christ does one become “a partaker of the glory of his great mercy, that ardent fervor of his divine love.”79 Guazzoni suggests that Antonio similarly strove to meet the devotional expectations of Borromeo, as reported in Scalvo, and that his Scenes from the Passion (see Fig. 18) can be interpreted as a complement to Scalvo’s meditational tract and the various Franciscan and Franciscan-­inspired meditational books on the life and Passion of Christ.80 Scalvo, in fact, also wrote the Meditationi infiammatorie (Venice, 1581) based on the Franciscan Saint Bonaventure’s Stimulus divini amoris, once again dedicating it to Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo.81 Of the 165 meditations in Scalvo’s Le meditazioni del Rosario, Antonio’s painting includes ten scenes from the “sorrowful Mysteries” or Christ’s Passion and two from the “glorious Mysteries,” the Resurrection and Ascension.82 To be sure, Antonio’s painting is not a rigorous and comprehensive illustration of Scalvo’s text. The Crucifixion plays a central role in Antonio’s painting, with seven meditations dedicated to Christ on the Cross, and the addition of two episodes, the Deposition and Lamentation, omitted from Scalvo’s text. Isolated in the center foreground, Antonio has confronted the viewer with an image of profound pity: Christ is depicted mocked and beaten while the Virgin, the Marys, and Saint John the Evangelist approach at bottom left. Christ is seated slightly right of center, head lowered upon his left hand, blood issuing from the wounds from the crown of thorns on his head, and a rope around his neck held by a menacing executioner standing above him. Two other male figures at Christ’s feet appear to mock him from the left. Here in the center foreground of the painting, in direct confrontation with the viewer,

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Antonio combines both the narrative and devotional. The scene of the Mocking of Christ is clearly depicted through the executioners’ gestures and the rope around Christ’s neck but there is also the suggestion of an ahistorical moment with the approach of Christ’s mourners from the lower left, cropped at midtorso. It is evident that they are grief-­stricken as they make their way toward the tortured Christ, but the artist’s decision to crop these figures also makes the scene more tangible: they appear to be emerging from our space. This tangibility is underscored by the direct address of the mocked Christ, whose position and gesture evoke devotional images of the Man of Sorrows. The importance of the didactic (thus narrative) and devotional (iconic) is here melded successfully, conforming not only to the Tridentine decree on images, but also to Borromeo’s own personal position on the function and efficacy of sacred images. The correspondences between Antonio’s scene and Scalvo’s text are striking. For the last ten “sorrowful Mysteries,” Scalvo prescribes the contemplation of the torment of Christ: his “harassment, strain, worries, troubles, calamities, misery, pain, tears, torments, suffering, sores, wounds… tolerated with admirable patience by the most innocent Jesus.”83 The centrality of the mocking of Christ in the center foreground allows the viewer to pause and meditate on the image, as it is strikingly similar to iconic images of the Man of Sorrows. The viewer is then visually directed to contemplate the Nailing of Christ to the Cross, which appears to the right of the central scene. According to Guazzoni, this scene follows Scalvo’s Meditation 46 in the Le meditazioni del Rosario, where the precise description of the executioners—who, like “angry dogs,” cruelly affix Christ to the cross—is matched by the brutal realism of Antonio’s painting.84 Significantly, halos are omitted throughout the canvas, further underscoring the realism of the episodes. The scenes continue to unfold in Antonio’s painting like discrete episodes, comparable to the kind of sequential mental pictures required for the practice of spiritual exercises. In his study on the Campi brothers, Bram de Klerck challenges Guazzoni’s argument that Scalvo’s Le meditazioni del Rosario had served as the primary source for Antonio’s painting. De Klerck contends that the parallels between Scalvo’s text and Antonio’s canvas are too general, and that Scalvo’s descriptions are not exclusive to the author, but permeate earlier and contemporary devotional and meditational tracts. To be sure, only five years earlier Giovanni Andrea Gilio had advocated that, in scenes of the Passion, artists should depict Christ “afflicted, bloody, covered in spit, depleted, festered, deformed, bruised, and ugly.”85 Nevertheless, meditative guides such as Scalvo’s



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certainly may have served as models for painters like Antonio Campi. (This is all the more likely for Scalvo and Antonio Campi in particular, as they were both closely associated with the archbishop.) It was, however, the artist who was responsible for adapting a text to pictorial form by omitting some scenes and adding others deemed necessary for painted meditations. The emergence and awareness of the potential of images to function as an alternative to the written word in guides to meditation at this time in Milan can, in fact, be ascribed to Borromeo, who identified a need to bring the great “secret” of the mysteries of Redemption to the populace.86 His early biographers, particularly Giovanni Pietro Giussano, provide a great deal of insight into Carlo Borromeo’s spirituality. Giussano was born in Milan and received a degree in medicine in 1572. After only a few years, however, he became an ardent devotee of the archbishop and devoted his life to him and to the ecclesiastic profession. He was received into Borromeo’s household and became a priest of Saint Ambrose. Giussano’s 1610 biography of Borromeo further reveals the archbishop’s meditation on the Passion: He frequently meditated on the Passion of our Lord, which had a singular attractiveness for him, and divided the subject into various points, and had a book printed with texts and pictures representing all the mysteries, to assist the memory, and place before the eye the matter for meditation.87

This description, combined with Agata Sfondrati’s report in 1584 of the particular value attached to Antonio’s canvas, demonstrates the archbishop’s awareness of popular contemporary methods of meditation.88 He was also equally aware of the patristic literature on the comparative merits of text and image. Borromeo insisted that images could imprint a scene or message into the hearts of the faithful, which words could not achieve: images must always be held like “a mirror in which we fix the eyes.”89 It is worth noting that Borromeo’s sentiments are echoed closely in Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso, which states an artist must paint images that, if placed before the eyes of a viewer, would serve like mirrors, thus moving the viewer by example.90 Well before Antonio’s Scenes from the Passion was bequeathed to the Angeliche, the Campi had been responsible for much of the decoration inside San Paolo Converso. They had begun the frescoes around the 1550s with scenes devoted, of course, to the life of Saint Paul. Of particular interest, however, are the four altarpieces painted by Antonio Campi for the lateral chapels of the church and the high altar. Two of the four portray nonviolent scenes: the fresco altarpiece Handing of the Keys to Saint Peter for the second chapel

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on the left and the oil on canvas Adoration of the Shepherds for the high altar. The remaining two, however, deal with martyrdoms—the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence and Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, for the second and third chapels on the right—and as such are shrouded in deep shadow. Handing of the Keys to Saint Peter (ca. 1577–80) further demonstrates Antonio’s desire to connect with the viewer. The scene references the episode as narrated by the Gospel of Matthew, in which Christ hands the “keys of the Kingdom” to Saint Peter. Christ stands slightly right of center, with several apostles at left serving as witnesses to the exchange, and Saint Peter kneels, keys in hand, in the immediate foreground below Christ. The figures are placed in a lush landscape that extends to a background vista at right. Antonio employs several formal devices here that call to mind Caravaggio’s work later in the century. There is an apparent naturalistic vein in Antonio’s fresco in the rendering of the landscape, the sheep, but most especially, the facial expressions of the men. These figures do not have the idealized and generic faces seen in Perugino’s famous fresco of the same subject in the Sistine Chapel; they each retain their own identity and convey emotions ranging from resolve to doubt, awe, or confusion. This naturalism is underscored by their tangibility and human versus divine appearance. Christ and the apostles are monumental, corporeal, and are placed in close proximity to the viewer. Their humanity is underscored by not only the lack of halos, but most especially by the prominent display of bare feet—an overt reminder of humility, one of the primary virtues of a good Christian, and one that served as Borromeo’s emblem. Similar naturalistic and human qualities can be seen in Antonio’s Adoration of the Shepherds (1580) for the high altar. Figures are once again placed close to the viewer. The cropping of figures at left and right further underscores the sense of immediacy and implies the viewer’s involvement. The most striking human qualities of this oil on canvas can be seen at the far left, both in the rather realistic-­looking old woman in the midground and (especially) in the dirty bare feet of the shepherd kneeling in the foreground. These bare feet certainly reference humility, but the decision to show them dirty also implies a desire to connect with everyday pilgrims and poor Christians. Antonio’s two martyrdoms in San Paolo in Converso function similarly to his other two altarpieces in formal devices and effect; but to these he has added a dramatic chiaroscuro that prefigures Caravaggio’s tenebrism (See Chapter 4). For the third chapel on the right, dedicated to John the Baptist, Antonio painted the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (ca. 1571), a



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representation of the subject unprecedented in its dramatic tenor. Saint John, with hands bound by ropes, is forced to kneel before a crate by the ominous executioner at right. The executioner is seen only from the back, his profile partly obscured as he is immersed in shadows. His hand presses John’s left shoulder as the saint looks up with tear-­filled eyes at the figures in the doorway: the emotionless Herodias and her smiling daughter, Salome. The dark and ominous prison interior is broken only by the light of the candle in Herodias’s right hand and the torch in the hand of the figure clad in green. These two sources of artificial light prominently highlight the white wrap covering Herodias’s head and upper torso, the face of the man in green, and the pale flesh of Saint John, visually linking the one who demanded the death sentence, the one who commands the execution, and the innocent victim. Antonio’s use of deep shadows that engulf the interior, broken by candle and torchlight, accomplishes three objectives: first, it focuses the viewer’s attention on the figures and the story at hand, obscuring all extraneous details of setting; second, it renders the figures more tangible and pushes them closer to the viewer; and third, it underscores the solemn scene and suggests the brutality to come. Death is imminent: Saint John is in position, and the executioner’s right arm, extended into the dark recesses of the prison, is about to deliver the fatal blow. Saint John’s dire fate is further emphasized by the empty salver in the foreground awaiting his head. The scene is profoundly dramatic, emotional, and tense, engaging the viewer in a profound way. Once again, Antonio has combined the didactic and devotional. The import of the story is clear and palpable, but the dramatic, violent chiaroscuro creates a focused stillness and proximity to the viewer similar to the experience of praying before an icon. The final altarpiece Antonio executed for San Paolo in Converso is the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (Fig. 19; 1581) for the second chapel on the right. Darkness pervades this canvas even more prominently than in the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. According to early hagiographic accounts, Saint Lawrence was martyred in 258, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Valerian, by being burned on a gridiron. Once again, Antonio adhered to the Council of Trent’s decree for simple, direct, and affective treatment of the narrative. Saint Lawrence lies nearly supine on the gridiron, foreshortened along the central axis of the canvas, in close proximity to the viewer. One executioner is placed at the bottom left, with a lit candle in hand. The fact that he’s seen only from the back and is cropped at midtorso by the bottom frame places him in the viewer’s space, thereby casting the viewer as a participant in

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the martyrdom. This suggestion demands penitence from the viewer, an effect that would have found favor with Borromeo. Surrounding the tortured saint at left are other participants in the martyrdom; one stokes the fire beneath Saint Lawrence, others gather bundles of wood. In the right background are figures who seem to be unmoved by the actions taking place before them. To the far right stands the Emperor Valerian, addressing Lawrence; he is accompanied by a young page holding a flaming torch that seems to serve as the primary source of light. The setting, however, is barely discernible, cloaked as it is in darkness. As in the Beheading, the dramatic contrast of light and shadow puts the central figure in relief and optically pushes him forward to the picture plane, unrelentingly confronting the viewer with the violence of the scene. By obscuring the setting, the profound darkness also lends an iconic quality to the painting. Viewers, urged to contemplate the martyrdom, reflect on their own sins and are moved to devotion. The realistic figures, including the agonized, haloless Saint Lawrence, enhance the tangibility of the scene to such an extent that the story is “fixed and stamped in the heart[s]” of the faithful.91 The profound realism and tangibility of Antonio can also be seen in the work of his younger brother. Vincenzo Campi’s Christ Nailed to the Cross (1577, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), though not a commission that can be connected to Borromeo, epitomizes the archbishop’s devotion to the Passion of Christ and his explicit belief in sacred images that are immediate and affective. Vincenzo presents the viewer with an uncomfortably realistic image of Christ’s suffering. Christ is shown in the midst of being nailed to the cross. His body is foreshortened in the immediate foreground, with the cross beneath breaking the limits of the pictorial frame. As his right hand is being affixed to the cross by a hammer-­wielding executioner, Christ, open-­mouthed, stares directly out at (and implicates) the viewer, conveying reproach, pain, and resignation, and demanding an understanding of the price he is paying on the viewer’s behalf. Borromeo owned, however, other works by the Campi besides Antonio’s Scenes from the Passion (see Fig. 18). These included Giulio Campi’s Agony in the Garden (late 1560s, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan), which the archbishop kept before him at his death. Both Bascapè and Giussano describe Borromeo’s final hours in vivid detail. According to Giussano, He accordingly had his bed removed to the audience-­chamber, commonly called the “Chamber of the Cross,” where an altar was made up, facing the bed, with a picture of the Burial of Our Lord over it. Another picture of the same mystery, which was



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brought down from his little oratory under the roof, was placed at the head of his bed, and one representing the Prayer in the Garden was placed at its foot, so that wherever he turned delineations of the Sacred Passion met his eyes.92

Giulio’s Agony in the Garden was bequeathed to the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan upon the archbishop’s death, but was purchased in 1618 by Borromeo’s cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, to include in his newly founded museum, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. The inscription on the painting confirms that it originally belonged to Carlo, and the inventory of the archbishop’s property likewise lists a picture of Christ on the Mount of Olives that was found near him on his deathbed.93 The Agony in the Garden is an episode recounted in all four Gospels (Matthew 26:36–46, Mark 14:32–42, Luke 22:39–46, and John 18:1): after the Last Supper, Christ took three of his disciples—Peter, James, and John— to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. The prayer expresses Christ’s doubt in his fate, and the episode therefore highlights both the divine and human sides of Christ: the divine in him is willing to make the sacrifice, but the human, his “flesh,” is weak. During his prayer, the disciples fell asleep, and according to Luke, an angel appeared to Christ on the mount to strengthen his resolve. It is a moment of profound humility and fragility. The three sleeping disciples are placed in the immediate foreground, only slightly illuminated by the heavenly apparition above them. On the elevated hill in the middle ground, Christ kneels with arms outstretched and eyes lifted to the angel who appears at the upper left bearing a cup. Placed before Christ, the cross and the crown of thorns appear as vivid reminders of Christ’s sacrifice. In the darkened background, the moonlight and torches subtly pick out the forms of Judas leading the Roman soldiers to arrest Christ. As in Antonio’s altarpieces for San Paolo in Converso, Giulio here addresses the prescriptions of the Council of Trent decree on images. The Agony in the Garden functions simultaneously as a didactic and devotional image. Here, naturalism and dramatic chiaroscuro abound, rendering the scene tangible and palpable for the viewer. The episode of Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is easily recognizable to the viewer, while the approach of Judas and the Roman soldiers in the right background spark the viewer’s memory of subsequent moments in Christ’s Passion. Christ is surrounded by darkness (with the exception of the angel), kneeling isolated on the mountain, body turned toward the viewer, calling to mind iconic images of devotion. This revered canvas belonging to Carlo Borromeo not only perfectly fulfills the three functions of biblia pauperum,

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memoria, and excitatio prescribed by the Council of Trent, but the figure of the kneeling Christ also calls to mind images of Saint Francis kneeling before the painted crucifix in San Damiano in perfect imitation of Christ. As Francis endeavored to live a life in perfect conformity with Christ, so too did Borromeo. According to Giussano, the selection of the images Borromeo chose to have before him on his deathbed was purposeful: when the Franciscan preacher Francesco Panigarola commented on the pictures in his room, Borromeo replied, “It gives me the greatest possible comfort and consolation when I am ill, to contemplate the mysteries of the Passion of our Lord, especially the Agony in the Garden, and the Burial.”94 As in life, nearing his death, Borromeo, like Saint Francis, strove to conform to Christ’s example.

Borromeo and the Sacro Monte di Varallo More than two centuries after Saint Francis’s Christmas celebration with the presepio at Greccio, a more elaborate series of tableaux were created in Lombardy at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, a place frequented by Carlo Borromeo. Borromeo made four pilgrimages to the site (1568, 1571, 1578, and 1584) and incited others to follow his example.95 (Pilgrimages to the Sacro Monte at Varallo increased during Borromeo’s time, and after his death they spread to new sacri monti built at Orta, Varese, and Oropa.) Borromeo’s esteem for naturalistic images as aids to meditation is exemplified by his devotional practices at the Sacro Monte di Varallo. These are captured in a painting by Giovanni Battista Crespi (known as il Cerano, ca. 1575–1632), San Carlo Borromeo Praying before the “Dead Christ” at Varallo (Fig. 20; ca. 1610), which portrays a nighttime visit by the archbishop. Borromeo spent days and nights at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, meditating at each chapel under the direction of resident Jesuit, Father Francesco Adorno. Carlo Bascapè vividly describes the archbishop’s practice when retreating to the sacro monte: Having arrived at the mountain, and having chosen for his room a little cell in the monastery, he began to treat his body very severely. He slept on a plank under a single blanket. He refreshed himself only with bread and water. He disciplined himself with great severity, shirtless so that one saw the lashes tinted with blood. And then he set himself to study, to prepare himself for confession, and to meditate…. Every day he meditated on certain themes at certain hours; and at night he went to meditate at that chapel, and before those images, that he thought would be the most fruitful…. In those days the Cardinal limited himself to six hours, partly by day, partly by night, of prayer and contemplation. The rest of the time he spent in preparing for confession,



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in bodily necessities (as briefly as possible) and in business that could not be put off. It was truly a grace-­filled sight, and full of devotion, to see that great prelate, without companion, carrying a little lantern under his cloak along the paths and at the summit, going by night to visit first one and then another of those chapels…. The fourth day after his arrival he made his confession with such devotion, remorse and tears, that his confessor was forced to weep.96

The importance of Bascapè’s description centers not merely on Borromeo’s piety and humility and his devotional practices, but also significantly on the fact that he would choose to meditate before a particular image “that he thought would be the most fruitful” and “at night he went to meditate at that chapel.”97 It seems that night, for Borromeo, was conducive to meditation and prayer, for Giussano too had recounted that this was his common practice.98 It is interesting to note that the works of the Campi, particularly Antonio, feature dark scenes that suggest a nighttime setting. Such darkness also appears in the work of Caravaggio, as is discussed in subsequent chapters. One of the chapels favored by Borromeo was the Cappella del Sepolcro, which contained the statue of the dead Christ by Gaudenzio Ferrari, before which he was known to visit at night, remaining there for a long period of time in prayer.99 In il Cerano’s painting (see Fig. 20), the Dead Christ before which Borromeo meditates is painted as if it were a real flesh-­and-­blood person—conveying the realism of the actual polychrome sculpture as seen by pilgrims (and Borromeo) visiting the chapel. Like the faithful moved by Saint Francis’s crèche at Greccio, Borromeo is visibly moved by the realistic physical presence of the Dead Christ at Varallo. His meditation has endowed it with a deeper reality, and its convincing truthfulness to nature has touched the archbishop’s soul. The memory of Borromeo and his experience before this statue was revisited by several other artists of the seicento, long after the archbishop’s death.100 Il Morazzone’s 1618 San Carlo Borromeo in Adoration of the “Dead Christ” at Varallo (Private collection), the archbishop is shown to have been suddenly disturbed from his prayers over the statue of the Dead Christ by the appearance of an angel above. Il Morazzone (Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, 1573–1626) includes two more angels, one at Christ’s head and the other at his feet. Only a single candle burns at right, illuminating the darkened chapel. The darkness, however, combined with the presence of the angels, evokes the idea that Borromeo actually kneels before the real Dead Christ in his tomb. The significance of these images centers on the realism of the subject of devotion, and thus the physical and emotional tie forged between subject and the meditator.

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Franciscan Meditation and Darkness It is clear that Borromeo intimately knew and practiced Scalvo’s Le meditazioni del Rosario, and was likely versed in other Franciscan devotional guides and texts, like Bonaventure’s Stimulus divini amoris, which Scalvo translated. The Franciscans had largely contributed to the dissemination and popularization of the devotio moderna, which involved imagining oneself present at the events of Christ’s life and death. Related to these mental exercises was a physical one, the Way of the Cross. This practice involved the faithful spiritually following Christ’s road to Calvary via images marking each respective station, and pausing at each to meditate upon Christ’s suffering, which Borromeo was known to practice. Borromeo’s erection of crosses throughout the city (beginning in 1573) was likely the result of his desire to transform the urban fabric of Milan into a metaphorical Via Crucis.101 These kinds of tangible devotional practice, in fact, were largely influenced by Franciscan and Franciscan-­inspired texts, such as the Pseudo-­ Bonaventure’s Meditationes vitae Christi (ca. 1300).102 This text focuses on Christ’s Passion, particularly his suffering, as these are the episodes that express his humanity. It was the Franciscans who popularized Passion-­centered spirituality and meditation, based on Saint Francis’s own experience at La Verna. According to The Little Flowers of St. Francis, Saint Francis retreated with three companions to fast and pray on the mountain of La Verna (Mount Penna; in Latin, Alvernia): [A]s St. Francis was standing beside the… cell, considering the conformation of the mountain, and marvelling at the huge chasms and clefts in those tremendous rocks, he betook himself to prayer; and then it was revealed to him of God that those wondrous fissures had been made miraculously in the hour of Christ’s Passion, when, even as saith the evangelist, “the rocks were rent.” And this, as God willed it, was singularly manifested in that mountain of Alvernia because it was foreordained that, in that place, St. Francis must renew the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his soul through love and pity, and in his body through the imprinting of the most holy stigmata.103

Another topic of significance in the manuals and tracts on meditation was the function of “darkness.” Darkness plays a pivotal role, for instance, in Minds Ascent to God, written by the Minister General of the Franciscans (Friar Minors) Saint Bonaventure. According to Saint Bonaventure: Thus our mind, accustomed to the darkness of beings and images of the things of sense, when it glimpses the light of the Supreme Being, seems to itself to see nothing.



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It does not realize that this very darkness is the supreme illumination of our mind, just as when the eye sees pure light, it seems to itself to see nothing.104

The increased interest in and value placed upon the visible world and the popular practice of meditation can, in this respect, be correlated to the Lombard “dark manner” of painting, such as we have seen in the works of Campi.105 The translation of religious themes into the visible truth of the earthly world provided a means by which the common worshiper could bridge the gap between past and present, between heaven and earth. Incorporating shadowy settings not only enhanced the three-­dimensional relief of forms, and thus their tangibility, but also had the element of the mystical, of revealing and concealing.106 The artificial cangianti (color shifts) of mid-­cinquecento painting, utilized to designate a divine or spiritual world, were replaced in the late cinquecento and early seicento by darkness and shadows—still alluded to the mystical and divine, but in a world that was now approachable. Darkness was a necessary stage in order to ascend to God. Carlo Borromeo, in fact, makes the process of darkness to light clear in his address to the bishops and priests during the Second Provincial Council of Milan in April 1569: If any be wandering in moral darkness, we ought to hold the light before them; for as the Supreme Creator of all things, when in the beginning He made the heavens which we behold, adorned them with a multitude of stars illuminated by the splendour of the sun to shine by night upon the earth, so in the spiritual renewal of this world He has placed in the church, as in the firmament of heaven, prophets and apostles, pastors and doctors, who, like stars, illuminated by the light of Christ our Lord, the everlasting Sun, preside over the darkness of this clouded world, to drive away darkness from the minds of men by the splendour of a noble and holy discipline.107

The “moral darkness” to which Borromeo refers points to the earthly world, the world of the material, the tangible. The Campi (and later Caravaggio) acknowledge these contemporary ideas, as within the darkness of their canvases are realistic and tangible figures that appear in this world. Darkness and realism in late cinquecento and early seicento canvases therefore play a dual role: they signify to the viewer the passage from the earthly to the divine through meditation, but at the same time render the scene immediate and palpable— qualities necessary in the first place to incite the viewer to meditate on and contemplate both his or her own sin and the sacrifice of Christ. This could explain Borromeo’s decision to visit and meditate in the chapels at the Sacro Monte di Varallo at night.

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Caravaggio’s Beginnings Caravaggio was born Michelangelo Merisi on 29 September 1571 in the midst of Borromeo’s reform in Lombardy. He was the firstborn son of Fermo Merisi, a master mason, and Lucia Aratori. The family came from a small town called Caravaggio—after which the artist would later be known—but owned property in Milan, which is likely where Caravaggio was born and baptized. Lucia’s father, Giovan Giacomo Aratori, held an important role in Caravaggio as a land surveyor and served as the custodian of Santa Maria della Fontana, an important pilgrimage site where an apparition of the Virgin had appeared to a young woman; in order to prove her appearance, the Virgin had created a gush of water, from which miracles of healing were said to have later occurred. A chapel was built at the site in the early 1430s, but due to the growing number of pilgrims, it was expanded beginning in 1571 under the support of Carlo Borromeo. The architect in charge of the project was Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527–96), who executed numerous architectural commissions for the archbishop. Giovan Giacomo Aratori was also closely connected to the Sforza of Caravaggio, Marchese Francesco I Sforza di Caravaggio and his young wife, Costanza Colonna, who had been present in 1571 at the marriage of Caravaggio’s parents, Fermo and Lucia. Costanza’s father, Marcantonio Colonna, was also a prominent figure: the commander of the papal fleet that defeated the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571. Lucia’s ties to the Sforza–Colonna families through her father also drew Caravaggio into this circle, a relationship that would prove invaluable later on his life. More important, Costanza Colonna was close to Carlo Borromeo, not only as friends (supported by their correspondence), but as in-­laws; Borromeo’s sister was married to Costanza’s brother.108 In 1577, at the age of six, Caravaggio lost his father, Fermo, and paternal grandfather, Bernardino, to the plague. Caravaggio’s younger brother, Giovanni Battista, would follow in the footsteps of his paternal uncle, Ludovico Merisi, and become a priest. In 1584, Giovanni Battista was tonsured in Cremona by Cardinal Niccolò Sfondrati, bishop of Cremona and close associate of Carlo Borromeo. By August 1596, Giovanni Battista was in Rome studying theology with the Jesuits. The profession of Caravaggio’s brother not only suggests that he was educated (and that it is likely that the older Michelangelo was too), but also provides another means by which the artist would have been exposed to the religious ideas of the time. In 1584, the same year in which his younger brother was tonsured, Lucia placed the twelve-­year-­old Caravaggio in a four-­year apprenticeship



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with Simone Peterzano (ca. 1535–99), a purported former pupil of Titian. Giovanni Testori notes the coincidence that the year in which Carlo Borromeo died (1584) was the very year that Caravaggio entered an artist’s workshop.109 Peterzano was born in Bergamo, and though he claimed to have studied under Titian, there is a lack of documentation to support this. Most of his work, which is largely understudied, was executed in Milan. His early work betrays a mannerist orientation, but gradually it became simpler, darker, and more realistic. Peterzano’s oeuvre also included paintings of musicians, allegorical depictions of music, and dramatic half-­length, close-­up narratives— which, like the work of the Campi, provide a possible source of inspiration for Caravaggio’s initial independent works in Rome. Peterzano also had a strong interest in meticulous studies of nature. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, painter and writer, had acquired a cache of Leonardo drawings in Milan with the help of the master’s pupil Francesco Melzi (ca. 1491–1570). Lomazzo had made these drawings available to artists, and these studies of nature were used as models in Peterzano’s workshop.110 In regards to religious paintings, the impact of Borromeo’s reform in Milan could not have left Peterzano untouched. In his Entombment (Fig. 21) of 1573–78 for San Fedele, Milan, Peterzano presents the viewer with a scene that suggests parallels with the work of the Campi. There are still traces of mannerist coloring, particularly in the paler pink and lavender hues of the garments of Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene. The primary figure group, however, is placed close to the picture plane, which is further emphasized by the darkness of the background. The faces of the figures, including Christ and the Virgin, are rendered realistically and affectively, worlds away from the subdued and idealized figures of Raphael’s own version earlier in the century (see Fig. 6). The setting is obscured by the darkness, but in the right background we see Veronica with her veil, which bears the face of Christ. According to legend, Saint Veronica had encountered Christ on the way to Calvary and paused to wipe the blood and sweat from his face with her veil, on which Christ’s image was imprinted. The importance of this image is marked not only by Peterzano’s adoption of a more immediate style paralleling those produced by his contemporaries, the Campi, but also that this painting was made for San Fedele, a Jesuit church commissioned by Carlo Borromeo from Pellegrino Tibaldi in 1559. Painted for a church tied to Borromeo, Peterzano’s altarpiece perfectly conforms to the Tridentine decree enforced by the archbishop. The narrative of Christ’s entombment is clear, simple, and affective. The inclusion of the

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earlier episode of Veronica’s veil both prompts the viewer to contemplate the preceding moments of Christ’s suffering on the way to Calvary and supports the Tridentine promotion of the validity and importance of the veneration of relics. This latter, as we have seen, was particularly important to Borromeo, who enacted his own ritual processions of the Nail of the True Cross in Milan and, during the 1575 Jubilee, visited such sacred relics as the Scala Santa, and the Veil of Veronica in San Pietro in Vaticano. Completing his painting just three years after the Jubilee, Peterzano could hardly have been unaware of the importance of the public display of such relics during that celebration. This was only the second time the Veil of Veronica had been put on public display since the Sack of Rome in 1527; this was the first time it had been displayed during a Holy Year since 1525; and this was the first Holy Year since the closing of the Council of Trent.111 Peterzano, however, was not the only artist from whom the young Caravaggio would have sought inspiration. He certainly would have seen and studied other artists whose works were on display in Milan, including those of the Campi in San Paolo in Converso (where Peterzano also contributed a work, the Pentecost—now in Sant’Eufemia—around the same time); Antonio Campi’s The Visit of Empress Faustina to Saint Catherine in Prison in Sant’Angelo (completed in 1584, the same year Caravaggio began his apprenticeship); and Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo’s Saint Matthew and the Angel (1534, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) in the ducal Mint. Caravaggio would have also known Ambrogio Figino’s Virgin and Child Crushing the Serpent’s Head (ca. 1590, Sant’Antonio Abate, Milan) in San Fedele, Milan, as his teacher had painted his Entombment for the same church. Scholars have remarked that Figino’s altarpiece likely served as the model for Caravaggio’s Madonna dei Palafrenieri (see Fig. 40). Figino was also known for his studies of carafes and still lifes, subjects that appear repeatedly in Caravaggio’s early work in Rome. The artist would have, moreover, certainly had the opportunity to travel to Brescia, Bergamo, and Cremona to study the works of Lorenzo Lotto, Moretto da Brescia (il Moretto), Girolamo Romanino, and other works by the Campi. The Lombard works of these artists all share sensitivity to communicating with viewers—in their immediacy, their incorporation of dramatic chiaroscuro, and their realism.112 Caravaggio’s formative years in Milan, therefore, presented the young artist with a complex fabric of Counter-­Reformation zeal and devotion, exercises on meditation, and a taste for the real and tangible in art promoted under the auspices of Carlo Borromeo. It is the Lombard environment in the closing decades of the cinquecento that served as a critical basis for Caravaggio’s



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understanding of the necessary and significant connection between art and devotion, an understanding evidenced in his religious work in Rome. Caravaggio is documented back in his parents’ hometown of Caravaggio on 25 September 1589, which suggests that he had completed his four-­year apprenticeship with Peterzano. There are no traces of the work Caravaggio executed in Milan, whether in or outside Peterzano’s studio, and there is little information regarding the artist’s activities after he completed his apprenticeship. The artist’s early biographers do shed some light on Caravaggio’s character and activities, but their writings are inflected by their own prior relationship with, or even bias against, the artist. Giulio Mancini’s (1559–1630) manuscript Considerazioni sulla pittura (ca. 1617–21) contains the earliest biography, which mentions that the artist studied four to six years in Milan.113 Mancini provides little else in respect to the artist’s beginnings in Milan, other than “now and again he would do some outrageous thing because of his hot nature and high spirits.”114 It is, however, in Giovanni Baglione’s (1566–1643) biography of 1642 that we find a vivid characterization of the artist’s personality. Baglione, himself a painter and a contemporary of Caravaggio, filed a libel suit against the artist in 1603. The veracity of his biography of Caravaggio is therefore questionable; but the writing must nevertheless be mentioned, as it forms a critical part of the discourse on the identification today of Caravaggio as a “nonconformist” to Tridentine prescriptions. Baglione too mentions that the young Caravaggio studied painting in Milan, but little else.115 It is his characterization of the artist, however, that has captivated the minds and imagination of scholars and viewers of Caravaggio: Michelangelo Merisi was a satirical and proud man; at times he would speak badly of the painters of the past, and also of the present… Michelangelo was quite a quarrelsome individual, and sometimes he looked for a chance to break his neck or jeopardize the life of another. Often he was found in the company of men who, like himself, were also belligerent.116

Following Baglione’s example, Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613–96) wrote a rather caustic biography of the artist in 1672. Like Baglione, Bellori was a painter and writer, but did not know Caravaggio personally. He does, however, provide more information on Caravaggio’s formative years in Milan than do his predecessors. According to Bellori, Caravaggio began as a mason with his father in Milan, and it was on an occasion when he was preparing glue for some fresco painters that he soon began a desire to paint.117 Caravaggio

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worked with these painters, “applying himself totally to painting.”118 The author then describes Caravaggio’s travels and paintings in Milan: He continued in this activity [among these painters] for four or five years, making portraits, and afterward, being disturbed and contentious, because of certain quarrels he fled from Milan to Venice, where he came to enjoy the colors of Giorgione, which he then imitated. For this reason his first works are agreeably sweet, direct, and without those shadows that he used later on.119

But it is Bellori’s joint physical and psychological description that is the most damning in coloring viewer reception of the artist’s work: Caravaggio’s style corresponded to his physiognomy and appearance; he had a dark complexion, and dark eyes, and his eyebrows and hair were black; this coloring was naturally reflected in his paintings…. [D]riven by his own nature, he retreated to the dark style that is connected to his disturbed and contentious temperament…. He was very negligent in washing himself.120

In Bellori’s estimation, Caravaggio’s dark looks and temperament were the reason why the artist’s canvases were likewise dark. There is no mention of the formal and symbolic function of the darkness that pervaded literature and paintings at the time—merely biographical reasoning. The recent discoveries of criminal proceedings involving Caravaggio bear out some of these descriptions of the artist’s character. Do these criminal run-­ins, however, automatically preclude the possibility that Caravaggio was religious, or that he was attuned to the ideas, prescriptions, and practices of the Counter-­ Reformation? My objective is to suggest not that Caravaggio was deeply pious, but rather that his profound experiences in Milan—his likely witnessing of Carlo Borromeo’s humble processions through Milan during the outbreak of the plague in 1576 that took the lives of his father and grandfather, and of the public display of crosses and altars throughout the streets of Milan; his apprenticeship with Peterzano, whose style shifted dramatically under the influence of Borromeo; and his exposure to the realistic, tangible, and dark paintings produced in Borromean Milan—had a lasting effect on the young artist.

The Impact of Borromeo’s Death No one can deny the powerful and moving presence of Archbishop Carlo Borromeo in Milan during the second half of the cinquecento. Caravaggio



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could not have been unmoved by the displays of Borromeo’s humility and piety (see Figs. 16, 17, 20, 22) as he was maturing in Milan. Borromeo’s charity in tending to the victims of the 1576–77 plague would have especially been noted by the young artist as the plague took the lives of Caravaggio’s own father and paternal grandfather. In fact, Carlo Borromeo’s prominent role in the care of the plague-­stricken (see Fig. 17) earned the naming of the outbreak after him: la peste di San Carlo.121 Carlo Borromeo’s special connection to Saint Francis of Assisi, which hinged on humility and devotion to Christ’s Passion, could not have escaped the notice of the faithful in his diocese, including Caravaggio. He emulated Francis and practiced Franciscan spirituality, even making pilgrimages to sites sacred to the saint. Borromeo’s admiration for Saint Francis is reflected in the final months of his life. Even in death, he yearned to maintain his humility: in his will, dated 9 September 1576, Borromeo ordered that his body be buried in the cathedral, not in an elaborate new chapel or ostentatious tomb, but under the pavement before the steps leading up to the choir.122 He also instructed that only six lights be made placed around his bier. This number may have been meaningful: as Saint Francis’s stigmatization on Mount La Verna, a seraph with six wings “all on fire” appeared to him, resulting in his union with Christ.123 Could Borromeo’s decision to have only six candles around his bier reflect his desire to honor Francis even in death? In October 1584, Borromeo made his last pilgrimage to the Sacro Monte di Varallo for his spiritual retreat and annual confession. He was known always to approach his spiritual retreats with fervor, but this time, according to Giussano, it seemed “as if he were redoubling his efforts in devotion and austerity of life,” likely in anticipation of his approaching death.124 Cesare Nebbia’s Carlo Borromeo at the Sacro Monte of Varallo (1604) was painted for the Collegio Borromeo in Pavia, founded by Carlo Borromeo in 1561 for young people with the promise, but devoid of means, to attend university. Here Nebbia (1536–1614) depicts Carlo Borromeo kneeling in prayer before an altar at the pilgrimage site of Sacro Monte di Varallo. Behind him, we interestingly find two Franciscan monks, kneeling. In the background, Nebbia depicts the archbishop twice more: first, making his way to the chapels at night by lantern, then once more kneeling before one of the chapels, hands in prayer, and looking up at the divine light that shines on him from above. This image of Borromeo, surrounded by the lush landscape of the Sacro Monte and bathed by divine light, calls to mind Saint Francis’s own retreat: after all, the Sacro Monte di Varallo had been established by Franciscans on a remote

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mountain top (like all sacri monti) and was modeled after Mount La Verna, where Saint Francis had received the stigmata in 1224. During his retreat, Borromeo was stricken with a severe fever, but he continued his prayers and exercises, never betraying his illness and suffering. Although feverish, the archbishop was adamant that he needed to return to Milan in time for the Feast of All Saints. He stopped at Ascona to oversee the opening of the seminary he founded there, and then went on to Canobbio. There, according to Giussano: He found a bed ready for him, but he ordered it to be taken away, and lay down on a little straw, wishing to continue the rigours of his penance. The fever ran high for some hours, and not wishing to waste time, he sent for the Capuchin Fathers of the place, and conversed with them upon the life and virtues of St. Francis.125

As Saint Francis had done before his death, Borromeo asked to be clothed in a hair shirt and requested that he be sprinkled with ashes.126 Although Borromeo’s presence was felt by all while he was alive, it did not abate during the archbishop’s illness in the last weeks of his life and after his death. Borromeo’s biographers recount how the whole city lamented the news that the life of their spiritual father was drawing to an end. Caravaggio, recently employed in the workshop of Simone Peterzano (since 1 April 1584), could not have been unmoved by the heart-­rending sadness that befell the city of Milan. According to Giussano: Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour many of the inhabitants rushed to the palace to see their Archbishop, and many others went at once to the churches to offer up prayers in his behalf. The schools of Christian Doctrine and the Confraternities of the Cross went in procession in the middle of the night to the seven churches chanting sorrowful litanies and psalms for his recovery. Many persons ran about the city calling out, “Pray, pray for our Pastor’s recovery!” while others went along the streets scourging themselves, clad in sackcloth, and barefoot. Indeed the whole town resounded with weeping and lamentations.127

When Carlo Borromeo expired on 3 November 1584, “voices were heard screaming for mercy in the streets, just as if Milan had been sacked and destroyed… so great was the sorrow that reigned in the city.”128 It is important to describe in detail the aftermath of Carlo Borromeo’s death (Fig. 23), for this is what Caravaggio certainly saw, heard, and experienced while working in Milan in Peterzano’s workshop:



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When the Saint’s body had been laid out, those who paid him the last rites, from the filial love they felt for him, could not be restrained from kissing and bathing it with their tears. There was left of him nothing but skin and bone, his shoulders were scored by the strokes of the discipline [i.e., his scourge], his flesh was worn rough and sore by his hair-­shirt…. White vestments were put upon the body, which was placed in the chapel, where watch was kept by his household and the Office of the Dead recited, although they considered it certain that his soul had gone to heaven, and they had already, in this belief, begun to possess themselves of relics as of a saint, one taking his rosary, others the Agnus Dei that hung from his neck, his skull-­cap, his alb, the discipline and hair-­shirt stained with his blood, his books, pictures, and vestments, and even the straw upon which he lay…. [T]he whole city, like one family, was in mourning as for a father. Nothing was heard but sobs and lamentation, and both men and women in the streets saluted each other with floods of tears. In the churches that morning might be seen priests who had to break off their masses, and preachers their sermons, for their tears, and the congregations joined perforce in their grief, as if each one had lost a father, a mother, or son, or daughter.129

The sheer number and continuous flow of mourners required the removal of the wall of the chapel in which his body was placed in order to accommodate the faithful.130 Caravaggio did not leave for Rome until 1592, which suggests that the artist was also witness to avid discussions of the likelihood of, and initial steps toward, Borromeo’s eventual beatification and canonization. In addition, he would have seen that many images of Borromeo were being made in the wake of his death, as Giussano recorded: The strong belief in the sanctity of the Cardinal, entertained both by the people of Milan and elsewhere, was increased by his holy death. The confidence in his intercession grew day by day; he was adopted generally as a particular patron, and his pictures and images were multiplied so rapidly that there was hardly a house or shop in Milan without some memorial of him. This devotion to him was not limited to grown-­up persons who had seen or known him while living, but was conspicuous also in the young, who lisped his name in their prayers, and took him with loving hearts for their father in heaven…. In testimony of their love and veneration they adorned their houses with pictures, tapestries, and lights, without any orders or suggestions from authority, and erected altars in honour of the Saint in different parts of the city, and had a general illumination at night-­time, with processions to visit his tomb in the cathedral.131

It is difficult to believe that anyone in Milan could have ignored the droves of the faithful that continuously traveled to Borromeo’s tomb to pay their respects. According to Giussano, “the streets and squares overflowed with the multitudes desirous of venerating his sacred body.”132

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Although Carlo Borromeo is recorded to have worked miracles while he was living, these began occurring more frequently after his death. One witness in the process of Borromeo’s canonization reported that those who were possessed by evil spirits were suddenly freed from them upon seeing the archbishop’s body.133 Other miracles were purported to have occurred at his tomb. Borromeo began to appear in the dreams among those who had been closest to him, such as Father Adorno (his spiritual director) and Giussano. Many who suffered from illnesses or disabilities were instantly cured when they invoked and prayed to the archbishop, or touched and prayed before his body;134 others merely by praying to images of Borromeo,135 or by means of clothing or other objects used by the saint.136 Because the artist is last documented residing in Caravaggio on 1 July 1592, that is generally held to be the year in which he embarked for Rome, perhaps still encouraged by the fact that a Lombard had recently sat on the papal throne: Niccolò Sfondrati, who had tonsured Caravaggio’s brother in 1584 and been a close friend of Carlo Borromeo, had been elevated to pope in December 1590, taking the name Gregory XIV (d. 16 October 1591). On 30 January 1592, however, Ippolito Aldobrandini had been elevated to the papacy as Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592–1605). Although not a Lombard, Pope Clement had studied under a close friend and associate of Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti in Bologna, and evidently knew of and admired the recently deceased archbishop. Personal associations aside, the young, ambitious artist may have been optimistic about the prospects of work in Rome. Rome served as a beacon for young artists almost immediately after the vast transformation of the city, as a sign of the Church Triumphant, began in 1580 under Pope Sixtus V (r. 1584–80). The church had conquered Rome; now it was time for the artist to do the same. The function of sacred images as defined by the Council of Trent in 1563, the practice of Franciscan spirituality, overtly realistic and tangible sacred art, Borromeo’s own humility and devotion to the Passion—all these converge in Milan during the 1570s and 1580s. Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, who emulated that saint and could be seen as “another Francis,” much as Saint Francis was seen as “another Christ,” promulgated Franciscan ideals of art, devotion, and humility. It is these ideals, filtered through Borromeo that would infuse Caravaggio’s religious paintings where the metaphorical darkness of the earthly world is pierced by the light of salvation. Caravaggio’s canvases reflect the experience of Borromeo’s meditations in the Sacro Monte chapels where, according to William Hood, the archbishop would visit at night “by the light



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of a lamp, whose low, flickering intensity would unite him to the image and separate them, together, from the enveloping darkness.”137 The artist spent his first twenty years in Lombardy, where he surely witnessed the living incarnation of humility in Carlo Borromeo. It is not a coincidence, therefore, that in Caravaggio’s Roman public commissions we find the overt appearance of bare feet and dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, pictorial equivalents to the moving example of Borromeo and his acts of humility and devotion, which the artist most assuredly witnessed during his formative years in Milan. It was in Rome and in his Roman canvases that Caravaggio’s experiences and memories of Milan—under the spiritual aegis of Carlo Borromeo and with knowledge of Franciscan spirituality—appear with dramatic intensity. These vivid memories imprinted during the artist’s formative years in Borromean Milan were further maintained and perpetuated by his colleagues, in particular by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti.

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16. Giovanni Battista della Rovere (il Fiammenghino), San Carlo in Procession with the Sacred Nail, 1602–3, tempera on canvas. Duomo, Milan. Copyright © Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano.



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17. Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano), San Carlo Borromeo Consoles Plague Victims, 1601–2, oil on canvas. Duomo, Milan. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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18. Antonio Campi, Scenes from the Passion, 1569, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-­Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.



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19. Antonio Campi, Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, 1581, oil on canvas. San Paolo Converso, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

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20. Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano), San Carlo Borromeo Praying before the “Dead Christ” at Varallo, ca. 1610, oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. © Museo Nacional del Prado/Art Resource, NY.



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21. Simone Peterzano, Entombment, 1573–78, oil on canvas. San Fedele, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

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22. Giovanni Battista della Rovere (il Fiammenghino), San Carlo Preparing for Death at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, 1602–3, tempera on canvas. Duomo, Milan. Copyright © Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano.



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23. Anonymous, Funeral of San Carlo Borromeo, 1584, oil on canvas. San Carlone, Arona. Photo: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

·3· canon reformulation in the age of counter -­r eformation

Before we can address Caravaggio’s activities and works in Rome, it is necessary to understand some of the primary Counter-­Reformation Italian publications prior to his arrival there in 1592, for they too are related to Borromeo’s realm of influence. The Tridentine decree both validated and defended the function of images through their cultic role—rejecting outright the Protestant charge of idolatry—and their didactic and affective efficacy for the Catholic populace. The pronouncements from the final session of the Council of Trent also made clear that the church in Rome would not tolerate any doctrinal or artistic transgressions that would give the Protestants further reason to attack their cherished traditions regarding sacred images. The overt reformatory language in art writing of the period reflects this stance. In Lodovico Dolce’s 1557 dialogue L’Aretino, for example, the interlocutors debate at length the decorousness of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.1 Similar issues of decorum appear in Giorgio Vasari’s 1568 edition of Lives.2 Vasari, for instance, adamantly made it known to his readers that he did not approve of flagrant nudity in works of art found in churches.3 The general nature of the Council of Trent’s decree on images also sparked the publication of a series of Counter-­Reformatory treatises that addressed style in sacred painting, something that the Tridentine decree neglected to

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undertake.4 It is quite easy to dismiss Counter-­Reformation treatises as determiners of style. There is certainly a lack of documentation indicating that artists read these treatises, let alone followed their prescriptions in making their sacred images. Nevertheless, an absence of archival documentation does not preclude the possibility that these treatises were in fact read or, at the very least, their ideas promulgated by the church, patrons, and particularly cardinal-­patrons. The positive correspondences between art and key texts in the post-­Tridentine era are compelling. The prescriptions found in these treatises do not, therefore, address the minutiae of image making, but rather provide a clear foundation upon which artists might build in making sacred images. What cannot be underestimated is how conservative the religious climate was in the wake of the Protestant Reformation and subsequently during the Counter-­Reformation. It is unthinkable that artists, who were vying for the most prestigious commissions from the church, would not make themselves aware of the content of both the Tridentine decree and the treatises on sacred art. These artists were moved to follow these prescriptions if not for their own piety, then undoubtedly for their pocketbook.

Giovanni Andrea Gilio’s Degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori, 1564 The decorum of Michelangelo’s monumental Last Judgment fresco painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was already a heated topic among prelates, artists, critics, and detractors of the artist soon after its completion in 1541. In 1564, however, the year of Michelangelo’s death and just one year after the closing of the final session of the Council of Trent, a fresh, vigorous attack emerged from the Dominican theologian Giovanni Andrea Gilio (d. 1584) when he published his Dialogo nel quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori circa l’istorie (i.e., Degli errori), a treatise in which Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was singled out as the quintessential example of impropriety in sacred imagery. In Gilio’s opinion, Michelangelo’s fresco exhibited everything that the Tridentine decree on images stipulated as inappropriate and reprehensible in sacred images: licentiousness, nudity, disorderliness, and confusion, not to mention the inclusion of the profane.5 Gilio’s concern centered primarily on the effects a sacred image such as Michelangelo’s would have on the illiterate and uneducated populace through the exhibition of things contrary to the Catholic faith, piety, and decorum. The private function of the



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chapel may have limited the demographics of the audience; it did not impede, however, the wide dissemination of copies and prints of the fresco.6 This diffusion probably only heightened Gilio’s ire, for in 1564, maniera style continued to prevail, and Gilio, having taken his cues from the Tridentine decree on images, made his polemical stand against the style, and against the painter he saw as its progenitor, Michelangelo. Gilio’s Degli errori stands at the forefront of the series of Counter-­Reformatory treatises published after the closing of the Council of Trent in 1563, and is important for post-­Tridentine sacred art in two respects: (1) in it Gilio countered the artificiality of Michelangelo’s (and ultimately maniera) style with a plea for a natural one; (2) he advocated a return to ancient paintings, like icons, which exhibited honest devotion. These two points are central to his perspective of sacred art’s future. From the very start, Gilio makes clear his position on the style that today we call mannerism. The treatise is written in a popular literary form, the dialogue, and it is the second of two dialogues Gilio published jointly, but dedicated individually, to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (grandson of Pope Paul III; it was under his reign that Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was completed).7 Gilio explains in its dedication that he was incited to write this text because of the tendency for modern painters to direct their attention first to the twisting of bodies and limbs, and thus to give little or no thought to the story.8 Here Gilio hits upon the crux of the problem with sacred imagery: the artistic aims have supplanted the didactic and devotional aspects of the narrative. Gilio’s dialogue, although centering primarily on the abuses in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, contains several significant comments that are easily overlooked, but that indicate a more suitable path that artists should pursue in painting sacred themes. The point of departure for the lengthy diatribe on Michelangelo’s fresco was, in fact, the topic of nature. Gilio locates the dialogue in the fall of 1561, describing in minute detail the setting: the temperature, scents, and the colors of the trees, plants, and flowers. It is the beauty of nature that inspires one of the interlocutors, Vincenso, to pose the following question: “What painter could ever attain [in painting] so much of the natural, that [it] resembles reality?”9 Another participant, Pulidoro, responds with the opinion that one cannot find paintings executed naturalistically, to which Vincenso, in agreement, adds that today there are no artists who demonstrate naturalism in painting.10 Contemporary art, in the interlocutors’ opinions, abounds in artificiality that demonstrates the ingenuity of the artist. It is these observations that instigate the discussion of Michelangelo, whom Ruggiero seems to blame for the current lack of decorum in sacred imagery: “And it seems to me that

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the painters who came before Michelangelo attended more to truth and devotion than to pomp.”11 Thus in contemporary maniera style, stemming from Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, the brazen display of the “excellence of art” and artistic skill took precedence over the truth and piety of sacred subjects. The “excellence of art” or “artfulness” upon which Gilio remarks seems to point directly to the maniera artists’ deliberate departure from nature, a style and practice antithetical to the truth that Gilio sought. One could argue that the promotion of imitation of nature in art was not exclusive to Gilio, nor to the late cinquecento. In Vasari’s Lives (1568 ed.), the most recent artists were the most praised for naturalism—and these included Vasari’s maniera contemporaries.12 It is necessary to underscore here, however, that Vasari’s view and treatment of the “natural” and the imitation of nature differed significantly from those of Gilio and other Counter-­Reformation theorists. The same predilection and admiration for the “natural” in painting figured largely in Vasari’s 1568 Lives, which, nevertheless, arrived at radically different conclusions, since Michelangelo continued to be held in the highest esteem. The Lives are divided into three ages or generations, beginning in the late thirteenth century and concluding in the late sixteenth. These divisions, however, are not merely chronological; they also reflect a system of progression, from good artists to the best, from semi-­ineptitude to godlike creators of art, culminating in the “Divine Michelangelo.” This progression is determined not only by the degree of naturalism the artists displayed in their works, but also, and more significantly, by the extent of invention and creativity they employed to go beyond the empirical. Artists of the First Age, such as Giotto, were commended for reintroducing various degrees of naturalism into the style of painting—which, according to Vasari, had long been dominated by the rude maniera greca, or Byzantine style. Artists of the First Age were therefore credited for making the initial moves toward imitating nature. Giotto, in Vasari’s opinion, was a good imitator of nature, reviving the fine art of painting such as had not been seen since antiquity. Giotto’s keen study of nature is credited for the beautiful suggestion of space, and most especially “portraying well from nature of living people.”13 For Vasari, however, the accomplishments of First Age artists were merely the first steps along a path to perfection. The Second Age artists outshone the achievements of the First. According to Vasari, these artists moved closer to imitating nature, and their works were therefore better planned and conceived than those of their predecessors. The application of linear perspective and atmospheric perspective in the work of



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the Second Age artist Masaccio, for example, contributed to a more successfully convincing rendering of space. The vivid articulation of muscles and expression of emotions were more regularly observed, such as in Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (National Gallery, London) and Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan). But while Vasari lauded the artists of the Second Age for attaining a degree of imitation that was truer to nature, they fell short of his definition of naturalism. It is in the preface to the Third Age of his Lives that we see can fully understand what he meant by the “imitation of nature.” When Vasari wrote that artists of the Third Age had achieved everything possible in the imitation of nature, he meant not an empirical brand of naturalism, but something more—a refined, improved naturalism in which the artist’s imagination and intellect play a decisive role. The artists of the Second Age he deemed inferior to those of the Third Age because they exhibited a naturalism that lacked perfection, or more to the point, artistry. Too much study of nature, he felt, resulted in the lack of finish, delicacy, refinement, supreme grace, and beauty. For Vasari, then, the “imitation of nature” implied not simply copying or recording nature, but improving it. Vasari, therefore, gave the highest praise to the artists of the Third Age, who included above all Michelangelo, for having conquered nature. Vasari’s high estimation of the artists’ draftsmanship, for instance, was founded upon their ability to “perfect” and “surpass” nature herself. Beauty was achieved by the assimilation of the most beautiful parts of figures and objects, not by imitating them as they appear in nature. In essence, the “artfulness” that Gilio observed and condemned in the works of Michelangelo and his contemporaries was the “perfected” nature that Vasari attributed to the exact same artists of the Third Age. To be sure, the ancient and Renaissance theories and practices of imitation were in themselves contradictory to the commonly held definition of the word. It is to this tradition that Vasari’s “perfected” nature referred. E. H. Gombrich pointed to the Renaissance appropriation of the flexible usage and meaning of imitation by ancient authors, such as Quintilian and Seneca: “Quintilian opposed the mechanical imitation of one model of style, and Seneca found the formula—frequently repeated—that the imitator must transform his material as the bee transforms nectar into honey, or as the body assimilates its nourishment.”14 Even in ancient literary discourse, then, “imitation” did not translate into a narrow definition of mere copying; rather it implied the transformation of a work beyond the original. Early Renaissance humanists such

100 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo as Petrarch further elaborated on this tradition: “He who imitates must have care that what he writes be similar, not identical [with his model], and that the similarity should not be of the kind that obtains between a portrait and a sitter.”15 Vasari thus remains faithful to ancient and Renaissance thought in his suggestion of imitation as something beyond copying. The maniera and Counter-­Reformation differed not only in their respective interpretations of “imitation,” but also in their concepts of “nature,” and hence the “imitation of nature.” According to Jan Bialostocki, there were two concepts of nature that originated from Greek thought: natura naturata (nature already created) and natura naturans (nature actively creating).16 Imitating nature in the former sense implies copying it; but in the latter sense, where nature is seen as actively in process, imitation implies drawing on the operation of nature.17 Such imitation not only includes the principles of nature (laws of mathematics, reason, proportion), but also transcends visual experience to refer to something intangible: the spirit of nature as governed by the mind of God.18 This position prevailed in the sixteenth century, when artists began to look beyond nature, and indeed to surpass it. The critical points of distinction between maniera and Counter-­Reformation interpretations of the imitation of nature are therefore made in their respective ideas of appropriate models and the degrees of artistic manipulation. The maniera practice of imitation of nature was one filtered secondhand through antique and modern exemplars (for Vasari, the appropriate models) and not the original: nature itself. According to Philip Sohm, Vasari pointed to a “definition of maniera as ideal imitation where the goal of style is to reform the diversity of nature into a single idea or ideal form…. Style as an ideal form contains the seeds of its own demise.”19 Natural semblance in maniera style and theory was therefore twice removed from the empirical observation of nature. In Vasari, the objective of surpassing and conquering nature—as well as the works of both the ancients and early generations of Renaissance artists—demanded extreme departures from empirical observation, calling upon the ingenuity, intellect, and skill of the artist to impart beauty, grace, refinement, and perfection not seen in nature.20 This outlook on the imitation of nature therefore overstepped the boundaries of decorum in more than one respect, by comparing the artist’s creative powers to those of God. The conception of using antique and modern models rather than nature itself also placed a heavy emphasis on the artist’s ability to imagine perfection. For Vasari and the maniera generation, it was inconceivable to equate the artist’s creation with God’s by merely copying God’s creation. The cinquecento



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artists’ approach to the imitation of nature therefore relied on ingenuity as a more valid means to equate artists to God. Artists must rely on the manual completion of a work, but the value placed on artistic imagination to conceive the work, suggests divine inspiration. This allowed not only a relationship with God’s creation, but also as Stephen J. Campbell has observed, the authenticity of the artist’s work as a manifestation of the miraculous: “On the one hand, the image was a manifestation of divine authority and an authentic object of devotional attention.”21 The visionary power of the artist not only endowed them with divine or divinely inspired creativity, but the result—the work of art—is also seen as a direct product of “authentic visionary power.”22 Some artists even well into the seicento maintained this approach to the imitation of nature. For instance, Federico Zuccaro, first principe of the Accademia di San Luca, was a clear advocate for these lofty theoretical ideas. Zuccaro’s treatise Idea de’ pittori, scultori et architetti (1607) emphasized the importance of disegno interno, an approach that was antithetical to the practice of merely imitating the natural world.23 In fact, Zuccaro defined disegno as il segno di Dio (di-­segn-­o, i.e. “the sign of God”).24 For Zuccaro, a painting was lacking if it was solely based on the imitation of God’s creation and eschewed the divine and intellectual powers of the imagination. This view may have held currency among some artists of the late cinquecento and early seicento, but it was not an opinion shared by Counter-­Reformatory theorists and prelates. Gilio’s Counter-­Reformatory position on imitation reverted to a more direct reflection of nature, purged of the excessive artificiality of maniera style, and therefore returned the artist’s function to imitator rather than translator of nature. Thus when painting images of the Passion, the artist errs by showing not the disfigurement of Christ’s body, but rather its delicacy and beauty.25 The perfect, beautiful, graceful body of a flagellated or crucified Christ was not only inimical to scriptural truth and to the laws of nature, but also failed to move the viewer emotionally and spiritually. For Gilio, maniera style posed a significant threat to the edification of illiterate or ignorant viewers. As the Council of Trent decree on images indicated, and as Gilio reiterated in his dialogue, “painting is nothing more than history for the ignorant,” which required that the painter “show the pure and simple truth.”26 The truth to which Gilio’s interlocutors refer was not only the historical truth of sacred Scripture, but also representational accuracy, or truth to nature. A viewer cannot learn, for instance, from paintings that depict beautiful figures of the flagellated Christ, as these do not show the physical and emotional effects of the action. Viewers would neither understand nor feel the pain that Christ suffered

102 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo without seeing his violated body depicted naturalistically. The viewer’s pain depended upon and mirrored that which was represented and experienced by the figure portrayed. For Gilio, maniera artists exemplified a style that was the antithesis of naturalism: as Troilo questions, “If art is the ape of nature, why shouldn’t [paintings] imitate it?”27 Actions, gestures, and emotions must reflect what one would see in the real world, states Francesco, for “art imitates nature, and not nature [from] art.”28 The visible, obvious displays of artistry posed an inherent danger in their potential to undermine and supersede the meaning and significance of the sacred subject. For Gilio, the artist’s skill or artifice should be directed toward the imitation of nature and truth as explicated and required by scriptural texts and the laws of nature, not toward “perfected” nature, where “artfulness” for its own sake could and often was exploited. Scenes of Christ’s Passion should be truthful depictions of Christ “afflicted, bloody, covered in spit, depleted, festered, deformed, bruised and ugly”29 rather than artful demonstrations of refinement, grace, delicacy, and beauty. The maniera style divorced form from content, and encouraged the transmutation of artifice to “artfulness,” the vaunting of artistic ingenuity, rather than the direction of artistic skill toward the simple task of imitating nature “artificially.” In order to correct the misguided agendas of contemporary artists in the realm of sacred image making, Gilio’s interlocutor, Vincenso, outlines three distinct modes in which artists can work and when they are to be utilized. According to Vincenso, the errors of painters derive from their ignorance in distinguishing between il vero, il finto, and il favoloso (the true, the false, and the fabulous).30 The finto is a poetic mode, in which the painter can rightfully paint whatever his whim dictates. For this mode, Vincenso provides Raphael’s paintings in the Loggia di Psiche of Agostino Chigi’s suburban villa, the Villa Farnesina, as an appropriate example. It is important to note that Gilio (in the words of Vincenso) made clear that examples of the poetic mode (finto) are found in palatial estates. The vero is a history mode, but one that Vincenso equates specifically to religious narratives. The examples provided for vero are the frescoes from the Old and New Testament in the Sistine Chapel (including Michelangelo’s Last Judgment), and many other stories of saints in churches in Rome and other locations. Here, the artistic whims of artists have no place. The final mode, the favoloso, is a hybrid mode in which the false or mythic is mixed with the truth. In this instance too (as in the case for the finto), the examples Gilio mentioned are for palaces: Giorgio Vasari’s frescoes for the Palazzo della Cancelleria (i.e., the Sala dei Cento Giorni) and Francesco Salviati’s



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for the Palazzo Farnese (i.e., the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani). Gilio, therefore, underscored the fact that prudent painters accommodate their modes to the location and its function. Based upon Gilio’s dialogue, religious painting should be painted only in the vero mode. As sacred history, it should be accurate and true, not merely iconographically but also formally. According to his interlocutor, Silvio, the painter must depict the pure and simple truth, as one can easily be misled. Here, Pope Gregory the Great’s (r. 590–604) conviction that paintings serve as Bibles for the illiterate appears once again.31 Silvio, however, also mentions to his companions that painters must also use their colors to paint natural effects in the faces, the gestures, and every other human movement so as to express the emotions or passions of the mind.32 In the realm of sacred images, art or artistic skill must be directed solely toward explicating the truth of the scriptural narrative, not the truth of a painter’s artistic vision. It is through this discussion of modes—and the specifics of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment as an example of a painting that should be in the vero mode yet was erroneously executed—that Gilio acknowledged the need for a new rule or standard for sacred art. Gilio admired the ancient traditions of honest and devout images. In contrast to ancient artists, however, maniera artists placed art before truth, painted nude rather than clothed figures, and replaced devotion with forceful manipulation, twisting heads, arms, and legs.33 The customs of ancient art were, according to Gilio, altered and ruined by the “fancy of modern painters.”34 Gilio clearly preferred a form of archaism, a pre-­maniera style that exhibited the simplicity, truthfulness, and piety of the past. Ancient paintings may appear “vile, clumsy, plebeian, old, humble, without genius and art” to modern eyes, but what the ancients did succeed in expressing was something even more important: honest, sincere devotion.35 Although Gilio never clearly identified what he considered to be “ancient art,” it is quite evident that through his choice of words—plebeian, old, humble, honest, sincere devotion—that he could be referring only to icons. The “customs of ancient art” that Gilio mentions as having been ruined was the tradition of icons— which, as we have seen, had already begun to be challenged in the fourteenth century by the progress of the narrative in the Renaissance. Gilio, however, understood the appeal of the new. He proposed that a compromise between the old and new was the appropriate solution, a regolata mescolanza (measured mixture), combining artistry with ancient devotion. Ancient art may be deemed deficient in artistry, but it was ample in devotion. Contemporary painting, on the other hand, was abundant in artistry, but it

104 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo lacked devotion. The restoration of traditional piety into sacred painting would conveniently restrict the artistry by its requirement for a more direct and affective connection with the viewer. The exaggerated gestures, contorted poses, crowded compositions, and the cangianti colors of maniera style threatened to alienate viewers from what they were viewing, distancing them from any emotional connection. A sense of presence was in order, which the frontality (what Gilio called prosopopea [after the Greek: prosopopeia]) and direct address of ancient icons most effectively and affectively fulfilled.36 The idea of presence, as discussed in Chapter 1, was derived from the symbolic and spiritual meaning of early Christian icons, where the visual manifestation of a sacred figure both represented and presented a special reality and significance. It was this quality that Hans Belting asserted was destroyed by the introduction of Renaissance techniques and artful effects, which removed the sanctity and unique reality of sacred images.37 Gilio’s regolata mescolanza signified both his longing for a return to the ancient ideas of the iconic prototype and his understanding that artistic techniques had the potential to create a more powerful and affective presence.38 His regolata mescolanza acknowledged the need for artistic manipulation and skill to achieve a critical affective connection with viewers, yet observed the precarious boundary that separated artifice from “artfulness.” It was not appropriate for artists to demonstrate their artistic ingenuity and skill for their own sake; rather, they should be directed solely toward strengthening the didactic and devotional aspects of the sacred narrative. As Gilio profoundly remarked: “Not everyone wants to learn to paint, but everyone ought to learn to be a good Christian.”39 Sacred paintings in which artists merely vaunt their art serve only other painters or artists, and only as models of artistic ingenuity; instead, they should be teaching everyone how to be a good Christian. Gilio therefore suggested that the painter’s skill should now be demonstrated through truthful imitation—infinitely more challenging, for a painting’s success depended upon persuading the viewer of tangible figures and scenes. For Gilio, painting in a manner that directly moves the emotions of the viewer was the true mark of artistic ingenuity, and demonstrated the power and virtue of art, of decorum, and the perfection of artifice.40 The “pomp” and “artfulness” of maniera style to which he objected were closely aligned to Vasari’s notion of “facility”: modern masters, according to Vasari, were superior to their predecessors in their ability to veil in nature the awkwardness of figures with “sweet and facile grace.”41 Vasari also asserted the superiority of artists from his generation because, “whereas those early masters took six years to paint one panel, our modern masters can paint six in one year.”42



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Gilio countered this Vasarian and maniera privileging of facility by demanding that artists adhere to a meticulous work method involving the execution of sketches and studies, and the careful consideration of the subject. Gilio argued that artists of his generation should work slowly and cautiously, and must give themselves appropriate time to set and correct their compositions.43 Gilio’s regolata mescolanza, then, would return to the customs of ancient art, replacing “artfulness” and thereby eliminating the problems with maniera style and issues of legibility. More important, it would remove the physical and emotional distance between sacred image and viewer, creating a greater affective resonance on which the viewer could draw. The Protestant attack on images in the cinquecento, echoing charges of idolatry made during the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries, had precipitated the church’s renewed interest in icons. To uphold the sanctity of the veneration of images, some acknowledgment was warranted as to the authority of images through the tradition of icons. The Byzantine twofold requirement of icons—to convey physical presence and divine existence—was exactly what the Counter-­Reformation church desired for its public religious images. Needing more theological ammunition, the Counter-­Reformation church revived the medieval tradition of describing the function of images in terms of memoria, biblia pauperum, and excitatio.44 Icons surely fulfilled the purpose of memoria by assisting the faithful in keeping within their minds (and memories) models of piety and virtue they were expected to imitate. Icons did not, however, adequately serve a didactic function as biblia pauperum: only narrative scenes could allow the illiterate to “read by seeing on the walls.”45 The medieval concept of excitatio, on the other hand, could be achieved by a moving portrayal of a narrative as well as by the intimate presence of an icon. The emphasis on excitatio in the defense of images was particularly important in post-­Tridentine polemics. Emotions were universal and could reach anyone, both the learned and unlearned, and thus guaranteed salvation for all. But even more important, by supporting the faculty of the emotions, the Catholic Church struck back against Protestant extremists like John Calvin (1509–1564), who vigorously opposed images as vehicles for faith and devotion. The emotional response elicited from images was the very thing Calvin vehemently distrusted. Gilio’s regolata mescolanza thus became an important paradigm for addressing the iconographic needs of the Counter-­Reformation church. Art could no longer serve art; it must instead serve the Christian populace, and would best do so by fulfilling the three traditional functions of sacred imagery—in particular, by moving the viewer.

106 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Degli errori would spark the publication of a series of Counter-­Reformatory treatises on sacred painting through the end of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, serving as a foundation and point of departure for the theorists who followed closely on Gilio’s heels. Artists were to be merely recorders, not translators, of sacred themes. They were to direct their skills toward conveying scriptural truth, rather than insinuating their ingenuity and artistry so as to demonstrate their creative abilities. The perceived impropriety of artful and athletic nudes in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment may not have directly shaped the Council of Trent’s decree on images, but the decision to cover up the offending nudity in 1565 may be seen as a casualty of the Tridentine decree.46 Whereas, for Vasari, artists as “makers” of works of art were akin to God as divine Creator,47 in the treatises of Gilio’s successors, particularly Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, artists could be associated with God only in their ability to replicate or record his creation: nature. The Vasarian artist-­as-­creator was thus transformed into the artist-­as-­mirror, reflecting divine creation. All creative command was to focus on underscoring the sacred subject through simplicity, clarity, and the affective power of truth to nature. Artifice was to be tempered, and artistic genius would now be proven through the capacity to persuade viewers and affect their emotions via tangible, truthful presences.

Gabriele Paleotti’s Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, 1582 Among the many treatises published in the wake of Gilio’s Degli errori, it was Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane that would carry the authority, promise, and direction for sacred painting, upon which artists, as well as subsequent theorists would follow.48 Paleotti was born in Bologna in 1522 and received his degrees in both civil and canon law at the University of Bologna (1546). He was a colleague and friend of Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, with whom he served at the final sessions of the Council of Trent (1562–63), and a professor and spiritual guide to both Ippolito Aldobrandini (later Pope Clement VIII) and Carlo’s younger cousin Federico. The relationship between Paleotti and his two young students, forged in the early years of his career, would continue until his death in 1597. Paleotti was also placed in several important positions within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, including Auditor of the Sacred Roman Rota (1556); Canon Consultant of the Legates in the final Tridentine sessions; a member



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(one of three) of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, created in 1564 to implement the Tridentine decrees; cardinal (12 March 1565); and bishop (10 February 1566) and first archbishop (10 December 1582) of Bologna. What prompted Paleotti to write a treatise on sacred art? His involvement with art may have begun as early as 1543, when he came into contact with the Bolognese painter Prospero Fontana (1512–97). Paleotti and Armodio de’ Santi drafted a contract, dated 5 January 1543, entrusting the artist to make preparations for a comedy that the Accademia degli Affumati (with which Paleotti was associated) had scheduled for the following spring.49 His interest in sacred art, however, was certainly augmented by his participation in the final sessions of the Council of Trent, where the decree on images was formulated. As a member of the Sacred Congregation, charged with implementing the Tridentine decrees, he was present at the third meeting of the council on 21 January 1564 when the decision to cover the offending parts of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was made.50 Gilio’s Degli errori was published that same year, and Paleotti was undoubtedly familiar with it based not merely on textual similarities between Degli errori and his own Discorso, but also supported by Paleotti’s friendship with Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, to whom Gilio had dedicated his treatise.51 The publication in 1570 of the Flemish theologian Johannes Molanus’s De picturis et imaginibus sacris,52 followed in 1577 by Borromeo’s Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, most likely strengthened Paleotti’s conviction that the apparatus of educating the Christian faithful through images needed to be fortified both against Protestant iconoclasts and against Catholics who had corrupted their making and function. The Tridentine decree on images was general at best. Gilio’s treatise, though written in the vernacular, was dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro and directed toward the Farnese family and, by extension, their court. It should be recalled in this context that the dialogue in Degli errori centers on the problems, in light of the Tridentine decree, with Michelangelo’s Last Judgment—a fresco whose subject was executed under Alessandro’s grandfather, Pope Paul III. Molanus’s and Borromeo’s treatises were both written in Latin and addressed to bishops, cardinals, and other ecclesiastics. Moreover, Borromeo’s Instructiones was a treatise on the reform of church architecture and decoration, with only a brief section dedicated to images. Although Borromeo’s practice of meditating before images, particularly tangible ones, surely influenced Paleotti’s Discorso, it must have been apparent to Paleotti that a treatise on sacred images had to be written, and one addressed to a larger audience.

108 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo It is uncertain when Paleotti began writing his Discorso, but it was certainly underway in January 1578 when he asked the bishop of Vercelli, Giovanni Francesco Bonomini (1536–87), about how some of the reform issues were addressed in Milan—particularly, what warnings were given to painters of sacred images in order to remove the abuses.53 Bonomini was a prelate and diplomat from Cremona who had studied law at Bologna and Pavia. It was during his stay in Pavia that he had met Carlo Borromeo, with whom he had built a close friendship.54 By 1578, when Cardinal Paleotti wrote his letter to Bonomini (there is no existing response), Paleotti had already established a friendship with Borromeo; and according to Ilaria Bianchi, Paleotti certainly knew about Borromeo’s prescriptions given at the provincial council of 1565.55 There, the new Archbishop had affirmed the Tridentine decrees, indicating that sacred images must be in line with Trent, and added that only subjects recorded in Scripture are approved, and that artists who err with respect to sacred images will be punished and their work destroyed.56 Paleotti unquestionably had begun writing the Discorso well before 1578 since also in January of that year, he sent a draft to the Jesuit Francesco Palmio for review.57 In the spring of 1579, Paleotti wrote to Borromeo informing him that he no longer needed to borrow his volume by Molanus, as he had found a copy in his possession.58 He further asked to be kept informed about what was being prescribed for sacred art in Milan, so that he could benefit from Borromeo’s example in his own project, the subject of which was, according to Paleotti, still undefined. Borromeo responded by requesting more information on Paleotti’s project. In September 1579, Paleotti sent Borromeo the index of his Discorso, seeking the archbishop’s comments and recommendations. By 1581, the first two volumes of the Discorso were complete, for Paleotti sent Borromeo a prepublication copy in December.59 Paleotti also sought the advice of individuals from various disciplines: Fra Pietro Tossignano, the Abbot Egidio of San Procolo, the linguist and Vatican Library scholar Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto (one of Borromeo’s teachers), the jurist Giovanni Angelo Papio, the philosopher Federico Pendasio, the historian Carlo Sigorio, the naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, the antiquarian Pirro Ligorio, and the artists Prospero Fontana and Domenico Tibaldi.60 The number and variety of the consultants sought by Paleotti reflect the wide scope of his Discorso, which was to include five books, of which only two were completed and published in the vernacular. The mutual respect between Borromeo and Paleotti is evidenced in their correspondence regarding the cardinal’s Discorso. Yet the extent of this respect



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has not yet been fully examined, and it bears significant import in establishing the influence of Borromeo on Paleotti, and ultimately, Paleotti on Caravaggio. Giussano provides critical insight into their relationship: Borromeo, although named Archbishop of Milan on 12 May 1564, was forced by Pope Pius IV to remain in Rome until his entry to his diocese on 23 September 1565.61 He therefore needed to care for his diocese from afar. Borromeo remained in contact with the vicar-­general in Milan, Nicolò Ormaneto, and sent Bishop Girolamo Ferragata as his auxiliary to Milan.62 Borromeo did not remain idle, however, and actively discussed improvements to his diocese with his “usual” advisors—one of whom was Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti.63 Both Borromeo and Paleotti were also drawn to Filippo Neri’s dynamic spiritual movement in Rome. Whereas Paolo Prodi questioned the degree to which Paleotti was tied to Neri,64 the general affinity between the Cardinal’s Discorso and Neri’s spirituality, parallel as it was to Borromeo’s, cannot, in my opinion, be ignored. Moreover, several facts support a close association between these two Counter-­Reformation protagonists. For example, Paleotti founded an Oratory at the Cathedral of Bologna in emulation of Neri’s Roman one. Neri’s biographer, Father Bacci, mentioned Paleotti as present at the Oratory on numerous occasions, and in conversation with the saint himself.65 Paleotti also dedicated his De bono senectutis (On the Good of Old Age) to Neri, whose portrait was also included in the work.66 The Oratorian orbit, in fact, included other key cardinals in the matrix of Borromeo’s own circle. In 1582, the year Paleotti published his Discorso, Giussano records the presence of Paleotti and Borromeo at the translation of the body of Saint Simplician.67 As the monks of Monte Cassino were in the midst of restoring the basilica of San Simpliciano, it became necessary to move the relics of the saint from the High Altar, which was to be rebuilt elsewhere in the basilica. According to Giussano: The translation of the body of this saint… was made by the Cardinal during the sitting of the Provincial Council on the Sunday in the Octave of Ascension Day, May 27, in order that it might be celebrated with greater solemnity than usual. In addition to the Bishops of the Council, he invited Hippolyto Rossi, Bishop of Pavia, and afterwards Cardinal, and Cardinal Gabriel Paleotto [sic], Archbishop of Bologna, on account both of their friendship and the intimate relations of the Sees of Milan and Bologna.68

The following day, Borromeo made the formal recognition of the body of Saint Giovanni Buono (another former Archbishop of Milan) in the small

110 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo church of San Michele in Domo. The relics of the saints needed to be translated out of that church (which was about to be demolished) into the south transept of Milan Cathedral. Giussano’s account continues to place Paleotti close to Borromeo’s side in May and June of 1582: While he [Borromeo] was thus occupied, he did not leave Cardinal Paleotto [sic] idle, employing him in one or another function. One day he sent him to St. Sepulcre’s to receive some ecclesiastics into the congregation of the oblates; on another to St. Nazarius to confirm candidates from the district of the Porta Romana; a third day to the congregation of Christian Doctrine to preach, so that he never allowed him to lose a moment of time. He took him also to all the sessions of his synod, at which he [Paleotto] delivered an address in Latin to the clergy, gratifying his audience by his eloquence and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. As he then enlarged upon the merits of St. Charles, the Saint the next day desired Domenico Ferro, a Canon of the cathedral, to thank Cardinal Paleotto [sic] for his sermons.69

In another sermon of 1582, given at San Nazaro in Broglio, Paleotti credits Borromeo for transforming his diocese into a “heavenly Jerusalem.”70 The trust Borromeo had in Paleotti is made evident by the archbishop’s confidence in handling matters concerning his diocese and his flock. Before the cardinal left Milan, it seems that Borromeo had also given portions of Milan’s most precious relics to Paleotti for his own cathedral in Bologna. He received among others, relics of St. Simplician and St. John Buono, Archbishops of Milan; and of St. Nabor and St. Felix, martyrs, together with a part of the dalmatic of St. Ambrose; all of which he placed in his cathedral church at Bologna on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, when he spoke of the virtues of St. Charles, as having been himself an eye-­witness of them.71

Borromeo’s high opinion for Paleotti is further born out in a letter dated 20 October 1584 written to Paleotti by Borromeo, in which he requests the cardinal’s opinion of a manuscript on the meditations of the Passion (punti di passione) on which he was working.72 Giussano’s biography thus proves that the relationship between Borromeo and Paleotti—more often than not relegated merely to the time they both participated in the final session of the Council of Trent, and to the exchange of letters regarding Paleotti’s Discorso—ran far deeper and longer. During Paleotti’s visit to Milan in May–June 1582, the cardinal also accompanied Borromeo on one of several pilgrimages the archbishop made to Turin to see the Holy Shroud. It was well known that Borromeo had a special devotion to this relic, marked by the likeness of Christ and his wounds. Giussano notes:



canon reformulation in the age of counter-­reformation 111 [T]he remembrance of it never left his mind, serving as a stimulant to his love for God, and memorial of the sufferings of our blessed Lord. He felt such devotion to that holy relic, that he was not satisfied with visiting it once or twice, but invited Cardinal Paleotto [sic] to go with him, that they might both share in the grace of the pilgrimage.73

Upon his departure from Milan to his home in Bologna, Giusanno further notes that Paleotti was asked his opinion of Carlo Borromeo, upon which he replied with the words of the Queen of Sheba after her visit to King Solomon (I Kings 10): “I have beheld with my own eyes things that far exceed all that fame has reported of him…. I have seen a living relic, a living saint.”74 In another passage recounted by Giussano, he records that Paleotti called Borromeo a new kind of relic in the body of a living man, a tabernacle containing a divine and holy spirit. A pattern of ancient discipline, a mirror of innocence, dwelling-­place of all virtues, a model of episcopal dignity…. He was an illustrious Prelate, shining like a sun, a most holy Cardinal, a pattern for Bishops of our time.75

Paleotti seems to have been astounded by Borromeo and what he accomplished in his diocese: “he [Paleotti] was amazed at the fire of his charity, and the fatigues he underwent, as it seemed to him impossible for a human body to bear up against so many toils.”76 According to Giussano, after Borromeo’s death, Paleotti wrote and published an account of his sanctity and virtues.77 One can hardly, therefore, underestimate how much of Paleotti’s Discorso is inspired by Borromeo’s own position on sacred images. The first book of the Discorso focuses on the general subject of painting (both sacred and profane); the second, on the abuses in specific genres and themes. Both books are replete with references aimed directly toward the promotion of nature, naturalism, liveliness, and tangible presence in sacred painting. Although Gilio’s Degli errori certainly served as the Discorso’s foundation, Borromeo’s own predilection for highly affective and tangible images makes it equally as likely (if not more so) that he contributed much to the perspectives and prescriptions outlined in the treatise. Nevertheless, Paleotti’s treatise is unequivocally the paradigm to which all subsequent Counter-­Reformatory theorists would refer, and to which artists would have been most exposed. According to the “Proemio” and the “Alcuni Avvertimenti,” Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso was not intended to be disseminated widely, but rather to serve his own diocese in Bologna.78 Nevertheless, early drafts of the treatise had reached the hands of the cardinal’s associates and contemporaries, not only in Bologna, but also as far north as Milan, and south to Rome.79 In fact, in the introduction of the

112 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo recent (and first) English translation of Paleotti’s Discorso, Paolo Prodi notes that while the two books never went on sale, copies were printed and distributed “among cardinals, bishops, intellectuals, and artists in order to gather their observations and opinions.”80 Whatever Paleotti’s intentions, the treatise’s realm of influence and its accessibility were not isolated to Bologna. In fact, even his significant decision to write the treatise in the vernacular predisposes a much wider circulation, in terms of demographics.81 Unlike Gilio, whose treatise was dedicated to Cardinal Farnese, or Molanus and Borromeo, whose treatises were written in Latin for ecclesiastics, Paleotti offered his Discorso as a gift to the populace of his city and diocese.82 Thus, the treatise was written in the vernacular, with Latin texts only for supporting quotes from the Bible, past councils, church fathers, and theologians. Paleotti was adamant about the accessibility of his treatise, ignoring even his longtime friend Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), who urged him to write his text in Latin. Paleotti’s treatise, in fact, was written in very clear language, often reiterating specific statements in order to make his point plain. Even the organization of the books was considered with the ease of reading in mind: We may add here that, in writing this work, an attempt has been made not only to embrace all the things judged necessary for everyone to know about this subject, so as to liberate themselves entirely from all the abuses and errors in paintings, but also to divide them up in such a way that they provide all possible clarity and facility to the reader.83

In the two published books of his Discorso, Paleotti took into consideration the role not only of ecclesiastics, but also those of patrons, collectors, and artists. In the “Proemio,” Paleotti clearly defined his audience and what each reader could glean from his Discorso. Curates, for example, could gather the key prescriptions of sacred images and teach their flock with respect to these rules.84 This kind of communication and interaction, according to Paleotti, would likely inspire others to elaborate on the subject of sacred images in their own works.85 Patrons and collectors would benefit from being equipped in determining which images are appropriate and which inappropriate for Christian homes. Paleotti, in fact, under his “Few Remarks to Readers,” placed the blame for abuses in images not solely on the artist, as Gilio had blamed Michelangelo for the indecorousness of his Last Judgment, but principally on the shoulders of patrons and collectors who commissioned the works as decorations for churches and for their own homes.



canon reformulation in the age of counter-­reformation 113 Wishing to provide, as much as possible, against the abuse of images, in line with the decree of the sacred Council of Trent, and considering this not so much an error of the artists who make them as of the donors and owners who commission them, or rather who neglect to commission them as they ought, they being, as it were, the principal agents, and the artists the executors of their wishes….86

The Discorso is also addressed to artists, whom Paleotti hopes will learn how they can assist the Christian populace with their art.87 Thanks to his Discorso, painters and sculptors can begin to understand and correct the abuses in their works. He therefore explains that although some Latin citations appear without translations, as they are intended for ecclesiastics, the passages pertaining to the profession of artists are translated into the vernacular so that they can be clearly understood. Paleotti’s prescriptions for artists are clear and effective, and it is in these passages that he acknowledges yet another audience for his Discorso, one infinitely more important than the others: Christian viewers.88 Paleotti might appear intransigent and dogmatic if one were to take a cursory glance at his Discorso; however, the cardinal made many concessions to artistic license as long as a sacred image that is more effective, both didactically and affectively, was the result. It is Paleotti’s consideration of the spectator that separates his treatise from Gilio’s, but that aligns it with Borromeo’s extraordinary consideration of the Christian flock. In both books, the singular role of painters as imitators of nature was clearly underscored. Truth was paramount in the representation of sacred themes. In addition to Scripture, according to Paleotti, nature was another form of truth.89 Paleotti, in fact, emphasized the “imitation of nature” to such an extent that it forms the backbone of his Discorso. The basis for the promotion of a naturalistic style derives from a twofold objective: first, to uphold and enforce the Tridentine norms established to counter and prevent further Protestant attacks on the legitimacy and efficacy of the Catholic use of sacred images;90 and second, to set into motion a means of transforming sacred style into a more suitable, pious, and affective vehicle to reach the general populace. The two purposes were interrelated: the iconoclastic measures taken by the Protestants presented a serious threat to the Catholic tradition of images, and the abuses found in contemporary sacred images endangered not only their own faithful, but also the future of sacred imagery by providing further ammunition for the Protestant cause. Like Gilio’s Degli errori, Paleotti’s Discorso made it clear that the deficiencies of contemporary maniera style were the primary impetus for seeking a reformulation of the canon in sacred painting. The artful displays of maniera

114 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo artists posed a serious problem to the education and faith of the Catholic population, by placing “art” before devotion. Gilio, through his regolata mescolanza, had called for a mixture of iconic frontality, presence, and piety with more modern artistic conventions, but he had not clarified the nature or method of artistry to be used. Paleotti’s Discorso responded to this omission by proposing as the new proper standard for sacred imagery a style based on nature; in short, a style that was the antithesis of maniera. Artifice was not only to be tempered, but, according to Paleotti, also filtered through a naturalistic lens. He substantiated this course for sacred style through the idea of nature as a manifestation of God’s divine creation. By casting the Christian painter exclusively as an imitator of nature, Paleotti dismantled the time-­honored recognition of the painter as creator (of art), thereby eliminating the artists’ tendency to analogize themselves to God-­Creator. Christian painters were thus bound to record only what they observed, nature; and with this limitation, the threat of an overactive imagination, of artistic fancy and capricious inclusions, was curtailed. Throughout Books 1 and 2, Paleotti underscored nature as evidence of God’s divine hand and providence. In order to paint a sacred image, the Christian painter must possess the purest intention to serve God and not his art. [T]he Christian religion measures things differently than the other laws do, inasmuch as it is not content with their exterior form, nor even their intrinsic qualities or other circumstances under which they were made, if they were not attended by the pure intention to serve God and were not offered to him as a sacrifice from our hands. Because when they are directed to that end, he straightaway adorns them and imprints on them the character of celestial nobility, like a supreme artificer who endows all things directed to him with perfection.91

The artist must therefore possess the right intent in order for the work to be “imprint[ed]” with “celestial nobility.” The word “imprint” evokes parallels to those sacred relics, such as the Veil of Veronica and the Shroud of Turin, imprinted with Christ’s visage. Relic and image are therefore intricately linked, referencing not only the Council of Trent, where prescriptions on the invocation and veneration of relics and images were folded into one decree, but also touching upon Carlo Borromeo’s own devotion to these objects. Paleotti demanded that artists offer their hands as sacrifices to God, thus relinquishing their creative and imaginative powers. Yet he privileged painters for their ability to imitate and represent works that God had fabricated with his own hands.92



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Paleotti’s Discorso is written in what can be called a “naturalistic language,” replete with such words as truth, nature, imitation, verisimilitude, resemblance, natural, lively, and real. In Paleotti’s mind, painting derives its esteemed status “principally on the representation of resemblance.”93 The Discorso applied the brief prescriptions on sacred images in Borromeo’s Instructiones and expanded them well beyond the instruction for accurate resemblance in the portraits of saints. For Paleotti, verisimilitude was the primary and most important stylistic requirement for paintings, particularly those of sacred subjects, and it is at the heart of his treatise: The end of the picture will be to resemble the thing represented, which some call the soul of the picture because everything else, like the charm and variety of the colors and the other ornaments, are ancillary to that. Thus Aristotle says in the Poetics that a picture filled with vivid colors, but that does not resemble, will be judged inferior to one made of simple lines that does resemble, the reason being that the colors in the first are an accident of pictorial art, whereas the success of the latter in expressing the thing selected for imitation is the foundation and vigor of pictorial art.94

By this reasoning, the beautiful cangianti colors of maniera works could not outweigh or replace the value of verisimilitude in sacred painting. Part of Paleotti’s emphasis may be interpreted as a direct response in the late cinquecento to the artificial style of maniera artists, a style that provided the major repertoire of errors deemed inappropriate by the Council of Trent and post-­Trent theorists. Paleotti, like Gilio before him, also addressed numerous errors found in contemporary paintings; and although this is never explicitly stated, these are works executed in the maniera style. Abuses to which Paleotti particularly objected included exaggeration of body proportions, disjunctions in scale, and decentralization of the main subject, all of which now call to mind maniera works of art. Many of the abuses Paleotti found in paintings involved deviations not only from scriptural truth but also from the precept of truth to nature, as they departed from the visible truth of God’s order and creation. It was improper, for instance, to depict a woman with a Herculean body, or the flagellated Christ with a pristine body, devoid of marks.95 Disjointed or incongruous proportions in figures and objects were also inappropriate, as when an artist paints birds the size of elephants, men the size of dwarfs, or when various things are positioned on the same ground plane yet are identical in size.96 Artists, according to Paleotti, should also avoid disjunctions between figures and the space they occupy, as when one depicts a huge seated figure in a small space, such that if the figure stood, he would hit his head on the upper edge.97

116 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Correct age relationships between figures should also be observed. It is against scriptural truth and reason to depict the Virgin with the dead Christ in her arms as a youthful twenty-­five-­year-­old, when her son was already a mature thirty-­three (another clear reference to Michelangelo, specifically his Pietà for San Pietro in Vaticano).98 The issue at hand was comprehensibility. The sacred work should be simple, free of scriptural error, and understandable. Indeed, what was easily comprehensible to the viewer was the familiar: things from the natural world; people who looked like real people with corporeal bodies; and trees, plants, flowers, and objects that one sees everyday within nature. Anything that went against scriptural, natural, or rational laws threatened to confuse, mislead, or prove utterly incomprehensible. Paleotti, however, allowed numerous exceptions in sacred picture making, particularly for artistic choices in representing things not recorded in the Bible. Narrative embellishments were permissible as long as they did not deviate from or distort sacred rites, customs, or traditions of the Catholic Church, and especially if they ultimately contributed to moving the emotions of the viewer. Thus, depicting the unrecorded lament of the Virgin or the harshness of the Flagellation was acceptable, as these moved the emotions, excited devotion, and softened the hearts of viewers.99 Even additions that may not have a direct bearing on moving or exciting devotion were acceptable if they were probable, or in verisimilar terms. Thus, it did not matter if the Virgin was walking, sitting, or reclining when greeted by the Archangel Gabriel in scenes of the Annunciation.100 It was acceptable in paintings of the Flight into Egypt to show the Virgin traveling on a donkey, with the Christ Child in her arms, despite the silence of the Gospels on their mode of transportation.101 It was likewise permissible to depict Saint Paul falling from a horse in the Conversion of Saint Paul even though it was uncertain whether Paul was on foot or on his horse during this episode of divine enlightenment.102 The urgency to reach the Catholic faithful, particularly the unlettered, was foremost on Paleotti’s mind. Toward this end, painters needed to employ a style that was simple, pious, understandable, and natural. In the Discorso, the need to reach the “everyday” Christian dovetailed with Paleotti’s other fundamental principles: interconnection through the universality of painting, nature as God’s divine creation, and a naturalistic style, purged of maniera caprice. A naturalistic style was critical to sacred painting because of the need and desire to connect and reach the Christian populace. Throughout the Discorso, Paleotti refers not only to the general populace (popolo), but particularly to the divergent classes of the population: men, women, the noble, the learned,



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and particularly the ignoble, the poor, and the unlettered (idioti). In fact, Paleotti identified four levels or professions of people: the painters, the lettered (i letterati), the spiritual, and the unlettered.103 He refers most frequently to the last group, which he surmised were in the majority and were the main reason sacred painting was necessary.104 It is in this context that Paleotti drew from a familiar trope: the paragone (comparison) between books and paintings. Painting, unlike books, was universal, a “common language” (“linguaggio commune”) that could be comprehended by every class of people.105 Throughout the Discorso, Paleotti underscored the long-­standing position of images in churches as a Bible for the illiterate, referring to sacred paintings as “books for the populace” (“libro popolare, libri per lo popolo”), “books for the unlettered” (“libri degli idioti”), and “Scripture for the people” (“scrittura popolare”). The Gregorian notion of biblia pauperum had been restated more emphatically in the Tridentine decree, which then strongly condemned the representation of false doctrines, as they “might be the occasion of grave error to the uneducated.”106 As Paleotti notes, books can be read and comprehended only by the intelligent, those with knowledge of language (Greek, Latin, etc.), the talent to understand, and the ability to learn; painting, on the other hand, can be universally embraced by every sort of person.107 Moreover, being a common (or even communional) language, painting could be embraced by every nation.108 Universal comprehensibility in images was a critical concern for Paleotti for it was connected to the efficacy of forging an emotional connection with viewers. It was the service of painting to the larger Christian populace that figured largely in his treatise. If painting was a universal language, then truth to nature—the reflection of the everyday world and everyday experience— was its syntax. The significance of truth to nature in painting was tied to the desire to build an affective communication between painting and viewer, a means of bridging the distance (lontananza)—mental, physical, and psychological—between the past and the present, the known and the unknowable, man and God. Similitude served as a substitute for the original, which is separated from us through distance, remoteness, absence.109 A painting quickly renders things present to the eyes of the populace. It has the ability to change a room, making things that are distant or absent appear present and tangible: This imitation, which is so prominently in evidence in pictures, usually brings all the more delight in that it seems to render even distant things immediately present to men and, like the omnipotent hand of God and his minister nature, it appears

118 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo to bring into being in a moment men, animals, plants, rivers, palaces, churches, to produce all the works that are to be seen in this great machine of the world; or else to set before our eyes in a moment the things already created by God and distributed in various locations and dispersed to every corner of the earth, almost outstripping and overcoming nature, which had determined its own proper seat and set confines for each in this or that place; with depiction they change location and go from being distant to present.110

The connection between painting and viewer was paramount to Paleotti and underscored throughout his book. In pursuit of this connection, which draws on the intimate communication between icon and viewer, Paleotti urged the artist to pair religious truths with a naturalistic painting style. Nature and naturalism captivated the senses, particularly the faculty of sight. His approach was thus comparable to Gilio’s regolata mescolanza—a mixture of the honest devotion of icons or early religion and more contemporary artistic methods of image making. For Paleotti, sacred imagery that observed truth to nature would be an antidote to maniera, a means to communicate deeply with viewers, and a vehicle by which even the idioti might ascend to the divine. Paleotti’s particular emphasis on the affective dialogue between painting and viewer also clearly reflects the ideas of his friend and associate, Carlo Borromeo. Borromeo consistently demonstrated the importance of the sense of sight as a stimulant to emotional and spiritual transformation through his numerous public processions of the Holy Nail through the streets of Milan, the display of the Eucharist in the Forty Hours’ Devotion, and the placement of crosses throughout the city. Moreover, his devotion to sacred relics invoked not only vision, but also the sense of touch; relics, after all, are tactile vestiges of holy individuals, such as the Shroud of Turin was for Christ. It was through the senses that one could reach the heart of the common man. More important, Paleotti was certainly aware of Borromeo’s pilgrimages to the Sacro Monte di Varallo, where the archbishop would pray fervently before the realistic sculptural tableaux in the chapels, groupings backed by convincing illusionistic frescoes that enhanced the sensory and spiritual experience of visiting pilgrims. Paleotti drew once again on rhetoric and the paragone between books and paintings (as well as between orators and painters) to demonstrate how the everyday Christian could achieve spiritual enlightenment and union with God. Painting was linked to divine knowledge through its capacity to present to the viewer’s eyes any material object, including those that are no more.111 Just as the goal of the orator is to persuade listeners, the painter must strive to



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persuade viewers—by delighting and instructing them, and by exciting their emotions.112 In the realm of sacred imagery, painters must persuade viewers to embrace the religious content represented, and encourage them to piety, virtue, and obedience to God. Paleotti broke down the vehicle of “delight” into three subcategories: sensuous (animale), rational (razionale), and supernatural (sopranaturale). Sensuous delight was obtained through the senses, with the sense of vision being the most noble—its nobility derived, as Paleotti interestingly put it, from “the variety of colors, from the shadows, from the figures, from the ornaments, and from the diverse things that are represented, like mountains, rivers, gardens, cities, landscapes and other things” that can be seen in paintings and received by our eyes.113 It is noteworthy that Paleotti here gives precedence to color and shadow, two components integral to the tangible, naturalistic paintings of Caravaggio and his native Lombardy. The specific inclusion of nature, such as rivers, gardens, and landscapes, further underscores Paleotti’s naturalistic sensibilities. Paleotti’s theology of naturalism also embraced rational delight, a concept that likewise derived from the senses, but continued further through reason and discourse.114 Essential to the reception and experience of rational delight was imitation: As regards rational delight: everyone may find the qualities of this or that visually rendered thing particularly to his taste, but there is one quality that is a universal standard applying to everything design may represent, and that is imitation. The wise say that just as man, out of all the other animals, is born with a high capacity to imitate, he correspondingly feels great delight and taste in imitation, by a natural instinct.115

As in poetry, imitation was a necessary principle for paintings, for it is the imitation of life and truth that brings delight to the viewer: And while there is no art that does not imitate nature, as philosophers state, we call imitative par excellence those that imitate not only with proportion but also with resemblance. These include poetry and painting, which conform very closely to one another, and the author of precepts on poetizing illustrates almost all of them with examples taken from painting. This is why Plato said that imitation is only properly applicable to the senses of vision and hearing (by vision he meant painting and by hearing he meant poetry), and the reason is that both focus mainly on imitating. Hence pictures that best imitate true life, to the point of deceiving animals and even humans on occasion, as Pliny narrates of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, have always been the more worthy of commendation and more greatly delighted their viewers.116

120 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo For Paleotti, then, imitation involved the rendering of things present to the eyes of men—particularly those things separated by distance and time. Finally, supernatural (spiritual) delight transfixes [the viewer] longer than the others, and is considered superior to them.117 All three delights connect with the universality of painting, for according to Paleotti, anyone with a “purged eye” could experience sensuous, rational, and supernatural delights in Christian paintings.118 Imitation of nature in painting provided a quotidian visual language for the general Christian populace. Paleotti adamantly asserted that “there is doubtless no stronger or more efficacious instrument… than lifelike images, which practically catch the senses off guard and overwhelm them.”119 Paintings thus were praiseworthy if they succeeded in reaching the idioti through the simple, everyday, shared visual language of naturalism. It was in this way, proclaimed Paleotti, that Christians could experience these delights, with nature forming a “ladder” to the eternal and to God.120 According to Paleotti, though every Christian image must delight the viewer, these delights were but one facet of the function of sacred painting: Of course, we are not so indiscreet or so rigorist as to say that Christians must have none of the sensory delectation inherent in things, though we do insist that it must both delight us and direct us with reason toward virtue, which is the end of all actions. Genuinely Christian recreation serves both at the same time, it helps while pleasing and pleases while helping.121

Sacred paintings, through the vehicle of delight, had the ability to be useful. The delight of the viewers’ senses was the key that opened the portal to the other functions and effects of these paintings: instruction and the excitation of the emotions were equally essential for a sacred image to be deemed efficacious. Paleotti described painters of sacred images as silent preachers to the populace, bringing useful information to everyone. He underscored the fact that images served those faithful who would not comprehend these matters of faith and religion if they were solely written in a book. Lucid scenes and corporeal figures—in essence, a style that reflected the visible, known natural world—formed the universal language necessary for comprehensible sacred images. A sacred painting style based on the imitation of nature was like an open, clear, and comprehensible book available to the general populace. Images that depict the virtuous—especially Christ, the Virgin, saints, and martyrs—had to be truthful, natural, and tangible in order to serve effectively as models for the viewer. Such images must clearly reflect the virtue of those portrayed, so as to move the viewer by example. Paintings could present



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simply, in minimal space, profound and serious concepts and mysteries, as well as figures that impress themselves on the minds of the faithful. Images, in fact, were compared to the truthful reflections in mirrors, in crystals, and on the surface of water.122 Naturalism lifted the veil of maniera complexity, obscurity, and incomprehensibility that had long shrouded Catholic truth and impeded the general populace’s path to divine enlightenment and union with God. Moving the spirit of the viewer (excitatio) was, according to Paleotti, the most noble and efficacious of the three functions of images. Sacred painting must not merely delight, or instruct and illuminate the intellect, but must at the same time excite devotion and pierce the heart of the viewer: To hear the story told of the martyrdom of a saint, or the zeal and constancy of a virgin, or the Passion of Christ himself—those are things that really hit one inside. But when the saintly martyr practically materializes in front of your eyes in vivid color, with the oppressed virgin on one side and Christ pierced by nails on the other—one would have to be made of wood or stone not to feel how much more it intensifies devotion and wrenches the gut.123

Viewers could thus be moved to devotion after being delighted through their mortal eyes, and understanding what they were seeing. In the above passage, the “vivid colors” seen in the martyrdom of saints or the Passion of Christ— colors encouraged by naturalism, painting “from nature” (dal naturale) with vivacity (vivacità) and lively or vivid color (vivi colori)—greatly increased the devotion within the viewer, once again even more so than merely listening to or reading these sacred stories. This passage also underscores the importance Paleotti attaches to tangibility, to figures that seem to live and breathe in settings that make sense and look natural. Painting served as living Scripture for the Christian populace, fostering an intimacy and connection that sacred stories heard or read could not. Words fall dead, even on the lips of orators, when they cannot be understood by the uneducated: they are like inert matter, similar to wood or stone sculptures, which lack the color of life and nature.124 Naturalism and tangibility afforded to sacred paintings a means to connect emotionally with the viewer, and it was only through this affective experience that a viewer could scale the ladder to divine things. This, it must be emphasized, was for Paleotti the ultimate purpose of sacred painting: to forge a means for the common man to reach divine enlightenment. The Discorso not only reinforced the value of images set forth by the Council of Trent, but established that the goal of sacred painting was equivalent to that of the contemporary popular exercises

122 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo of religious meditation practiced by Carlo Borromeo and Filippo Neri, among others. Paleotti framed the three delights—sensuous, rational, supernatural— into a viewing scheme, merging the process of looking at nature with viewing a sacred painting.125 Paleotti described a man observing the night sky. The first delight he experiences is through sensuous knowledge (i.e., through sight): the beautiful color of the sky, the circle of the moon, the great number and variety of stars. Then the man moves to rational delight/cognition by proceeding to talk and reason about “the size of each star and the rotation of the heavens, the course of the planets, the constant order of each, and the effects deriving from them on plants and animals.”126 Finally, the man continues to the third knowledge—supernatural—by considering the rare beauty of the sky, illuminated by God, and how excellent are those things that he created. Through these created things, according to Paleotti, humanity can penetrate the eternal and excite the desire of heavenly things.127 This is no mere anecdote, but an integral guideline for Christians viewing sacred paintings. Paleotti made certain to articulate the relationships among the functions of sacred images, the motivations of artists, the abilities of the viewer, and the three delights. Paleotti identified three rubrics behind painters’ motivations for creating sacred images: to create something honest, something useful, and something delightful. He informed the reader that “others” arrange the artists’ motivations under the “three potencies of the soul: memory, intellect, and will.”128 This, I argue, reflects the mettle of the viewer. An honest image relates to the traditional function of images as memory aids (memoriae), and draws on the time-­honored function of honest icons. It is about the convincingness of the image the painter has created and its ability to persuade the viewer that what he or she sees is an accurate (recognizable) and honest representation of the sacred figure. This honesty also can be associated with the sensual delight that Paleotti described sacred images first bringing to the viewer. The dialogue between painting and viewer begins through the senses—what can be seen. As in the case of ancient icons, the more tangibly and honest the image is rendered, the more easily it imprints itself on our minds (church states that images serve as memoria—painter paints honest image—viewer stores image in memory—brings viewer sensuous delight). Similarly, an artist painting something useful draws on the tradition of images as biblia pauperum; the image engages the viewer’s intellect, and this brings the viewer rational delight (church states that images serve as biblia pauperum—painter paints useful image—viewer learns by drawing on intellect—brings viewer rational delight).



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Finally, in depicting something that moves the viewer’s emotions, a painter draws on the tradition of images as excitatio, which increases the viewer’s will or desire for union with God, allowing him or her to experience supernatural delight (church states that images serve as excitatio—painter paints delightful (i.e., moving) image—viewer draws on his/her will to open up to enlightenment—brings viewer supernatural delight). Paleotti notably linked the role of the painter to the church’s position on the function of sacred images and to the role and experience of the viewer. While limiting the virtuosity of artists to the observable, to what exists in nature, Paleotti bestowed upon them, and guided them into, an infinitely more important role—to be not merely painters but Christian painters: As a Christian, the maker of the picture may have two objects or ends, one of them primary and the other secondary, or consequential, if you like, upon the first. His consequential end will be to exercise his art to earn a profit, or win honor… as long as it is regulated with the due circumstances (person, place, time, mode, and the other requirements) in such a way as to make him immune from the charge of exercising his art in blameworthy fashion and in such a way that he never counteracts the ultimate end. The principal end will be to win divine grace for himself by means of his effort and his art, for the Christian, born for the sublime, does not content himself in his operations with aiming low and concentrating only on human recompense and temporal amenities. The Christian trains his gaze aloft and sets a much greater and more excellent end for himself, one that reposes among eternal things.129

Thus, though an artist’s secondary objective may be obtaining profit or honor, the supreme objective for the Christian painter is to look to heaven, to dissuade people from vice, and to induce them to the true worship of God.130 Paleotti confers on the painter a role not only as a servant of the church, but also as a collaborator in the pastoral edification of the faithful.131 Moving beyond Gilio’s regolata mescolanza, with its application of contemporary artistry toward the imitation of nature, Paleotti has made the imitation of nature central to sacred image making. It is the subjects of God’s creation, not the creations of the artist’s imagination that provide the ladder humanity can scale to penetrate the eternal and attain heavenly things.132 The ancient devotion that Gilio craved, represented by the frontality and direct address of icons, is subsequently redirected by Paleotti to a sacred style based on tangibility, corporeality, and lifelikeness: iconic address and frontality are now conveyed through spatial proximity and tangible forms. Thus the lontananza between viewer and painted subject that Paleotti sought to bridge is not merely psychological, but also physical. The problem of the original,

124 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo separated from us by distance (in time or location) and absence (known and unknowable), is therefore remedied by visual proximity and physical presence. Paleotti emphasized the importance of knowledge, and particularly of (natural) science, which allows the painter to build a ladder to divine things.133 Sacred painting provided appropriate models of virtuous acts that would enable Christians to arrive in heaven.134 Sacred figures made tangible and lifelike can effectively awaken the viewer to imitate their pious, heavenward path.135 Paleotti described Christians as pilgrims in this life who must attend to this path and not go astray on their journey in order to arrive securely.136 Sacred images therefore functioned as instruments to unite viewers with God.137 According to Paleotti, “our feebleness ordinarily prevents us from surging up to the contemplation of sublime things without the support of these inferior ones, so the pictorial art is recommended as the means and instrument for ascending higher.”138 Not just any sacred painting, however, fits Paleotti’s standards: as noted earlier, artists must paint from nature (dal naturale), demonstrate verisimilitude, paint with lively colors (vivi colori), and depict figures that are tangible, making that which is absent present to the eyes of viewers. Imitating the natural world restrained the artist’s imagination, provided a plebeian language for the unlettered, yielded immediately comprehensible results, and provided the commoner, moved by God’s creations, with a path to heaven.139 It is for such reasons as these that Paleotti also accepted certain types of naturalistic profane art. Gilio’s dogmatic opinion on refraining from “mixing” the profane with the sacred in painting was also shared by Paleotti, who in addition expressed that good Christians should not collect and exhibit profane art.140 Paleotti nevertheless recognized that some profane subjects had a functional use, even for pious purposes.141 The types of profane subject that Paleotti deemed useful included primarily subjects of nature, underscoring the fact that one finds numerous references to “the sun, the stars, the winds, the animals, trees, [and] fish” in Holy Scripture.142 This specific concession for profane art is limited to subjects of nature and ties directly into Paleotti’s idea of nature as a manifestation of God’s divine creation, as well as the cardinal’s appreciation for the liberal arts. According to Paleotti, it was improper for a Christian not to be learned in the liberal arts, particularly the sciences.143 Furthermore, Paleotti believed in the importance of public academies, voicing his condemnation for those who sought to destroy these institutions in the past, and even in the present day. As noted earlier, knowledge of the sciences, according to Paleotti, also “offer[s] a ladder to divine things.”144 It is this conviction that places nature, God’s divine creation, among the subjects of profane painting



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that may serve not only an instructional or documentary function, but also, and more important, as a devotional vehicle. In this capacity, profane painting too was required to abide by the precept of persuasion, by representing “natural things” drawn and colored “to life.”145 Paleotti’s appreciation for paintings portraying subjects from nature and his understanding of their devotional function, in fact, anticipates the even more enthusiastic sentiments and writings of Federico Borromeo in the seventeenth century. Paleotti’s theoretical construct made it evident that everyone had the means to achieve union with God. In many ways, the Discorso served as a guide for the painter on how to execute effectively a sacred work that served as a vehicle to the divine. It is for this very reason that the Latin passages in the chapters on errors and abuses (primarily in Book 2) are minimal, and abound with stylistic and iconographical examples written in the vernacular. Moreover, we find in the 1582 Discorso the Table of Contents for the planned but never-­ to-­be-­published next three books; these show Paleotti intended to expound in Book 4 upon the prescriptions regarding how to paint specific sacred figures and particular biblical stories. The published chapters, however, do establish that a naturalistic style was the antithesis of the problematic, rarified style of maniera. In 1595, Paleotti and Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte were named co-­ cardinal-­ protectors and Educators of Reform at the newly founded Accademia di San Luca in Rome (replacing its inaugural cardinal-­protector, Federico Borromeo, who was appointed Archbishop of Milan). It is critical to mention here that the Accademia was founded with the singular objective to teach artists how to execute sacred art.146 Just one year before his appointment, Paleotti had published a Latin edition of his treatise, De imaginibus sacris et profanis libri quinque, at the request of Pope Clement VIII. The text of this Latin edition (published in Ingolstadt) is fundamentally identical to the original text, but was intended for a much wider distribution throughout Europe.147 According to Prodi, based on a memorandum and notes, Paleotti had already been working on a second Latin edition between 1595 and 1596, therefore precisely during his appointment at the Accademia.148 The memorandum, composed in the summer of 1596 and addressed to the pope, requests that an Index of Prohibited Images be created that paralleled the function of the existing Index of Prohibited Books.149 In Prodi’s opinion, this indicates pessimism on Paleotti’s part because no sufficient reform of sacred art had been established. To be sure, by 1596, the first edition of the Discorso had been available for fourteen years, and thirty-­three years had passed since the closing of the Council of Trent and the publication of its decree on images.

126 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Paleotti’s frustration must have been further compounded by the fact that two additional treatises on sacred art had been published in the years between his 1582 Discorso and the 1594 Latin edition. The apparent failure to establish consistent and widespread reform of sacred art, however, does not diminish the importance of Paleotti’s Discorso, nor its selective adoption by informed artists, including Caravaggio. The archbishop of Bologna’s treatise may have been dedicated to those in his flock, but its sphere of authority and influence would extend far beyond his own diocese—and the cinquecento. Naturalism as a form of truth versus artificiality as a form of invention became the paradigm that painters of sacred imagery were encouraged to follow. The preference for a naturalistic style and the interest in nature, I argue, stems largely from two factors: the need to reconnect affectively worshiper and image without resorting to archaic modes of indicating presence; and the rationale that painting dal naturale deters the artist from excessively reinterpreting sacred themes. It was clear that artists had no alternative but to reinterpret sacred subjects, as they were removed both in time and place from their own reality. Unlike still lifes, landscapes, and portraits, which could be empirically observed, religious subjects could not and, indeed, required a certain degree of invention. The exploitation of invention and artful manipulation in maniera style, however, demonstrated to the Council of Trent and post-­Tridentine theorists the problem that artistic license posed to the sanctity and power of sacred imagery. Empirical observation provided a truth, which in conjunction with Scripture, imposed a clear boundary between God’s truth, or divine nature, and the artist’s truth, or the idea in the painter’s mind. Furthermore, a naturalistic style had an inherent potential to re-­present a tangible presence, and to build an affective communication with viewers without resorting to the old-­fashioned iconic images with gold backgrounds. In this capacity, Paleotti envisioned a sacred style based on naturalism. It was not, however, the naturalism of Central Italy, founded upon constructions of rational perspective and idealized figures, but rather the naturalism of Northern Italy, specifically Lombardy, where optical qualities and effects of color, light, and shadow were employed to create palpable, tangible, and affective sacred presences. Undoubtedly, the promotion of tangible and affective sacred art in Paleotti’s Discorso, the most influential of the treatises, is due in large part to the model of Carlo Borromeo. Paleotti’s treatise may serve as textual evidence for Borromeo’s realm of influence, but Caravaggio’s sacred works will provide a visual one.

·4· establishing his name Caravaggio in Rome, 1592–1599

Arrival in Rome: Lombard-­Inspired Genres Despite the fact that the first document placing Caravaggio in Rome dates to 1597, it is commonly accepted that he arrived in Rome sometime in the fall of 1592, since he is last recorded in his family’s home town of Caravaggio in 1 July 1592. Reconstruction of Caravaggio’s arrival and early years in Rome can be ascertained through the artist’s biographers and through recent archival studies by Lothar Sickel.1 It is quite easy to entertain the sensational notion that the twenty-­year-­old Caravaggio arrived in Rome with empty pockets, and with no associations or a place to stay, save the naive ambition to succeed as a painter in the Eternal City. This, however, was not the case. Caravaggio’s paternal uncle, Ludovico Merisi, had lived in Rome from around October 1591 to May 1592. Although his uncle was no longer in the city upon Caravaggio’s arrival, it is likely that the young artist was put into contact with some of Ludovico’s associates.2 Sickel proposes, in fact, that it may have been Ludovico who helped his nephew establish lodging in the house of Monsignor Pandolfo Pucci, located in the Borgo.3 During his sojourn in Rome, Ludovico was a priest and a familiare (part of the household) of Archbishop of Milan Gaspare Visconti (successor of Carlo

128 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Borromeo), in whose palace he resided. The palace is likely to have once belonged to Cardinal Guido Luca Ferrari, bishop of Vercelli and a cousin of Carlo Borromeo, who had stayed there in January 1562.4 Upon Ferrari’s death in 1585, his heirs rented the palace out to other ecclesiastics, including Gaspare Visconti and Federico Borromeo.5 This information further establishes a prior connection between the Merisi family and the Borromei. In 1591–92, Visconti is also recorded as a frequent guest at the residence of Camilla Peretti (sister of Pope Sixtus V).6 Ludovico Merisi may have accompanied Visconti, putting him into contact with Pandolfo Pucci, a beneficed priest of San Pietro in Vaticano, who also served as Camilla Peretti’s steward. Pucci lived in a house on via Alessandrina in the Borgo, an area inhabited by Milanese ecclesiastics—including Gaspare Visconti, to whose household Ludovico belonged. Of Caravaggio’s early biographers, only Giulio Mancini records that the artist first lodged with Monsignor Pandolfo Pucci from Recanati (in the Marche region) after his arrival in Rome. Mancini recounts that around the age of twenty, Caravaggio arrived in Rome penniless and lived with Pucci. Apparently, in exchange for his room, Caravaggio did “unpleasant work.”7 Moreover, Caravaggio had to suffer eating nothing but salad, which led the artist to leave after a month, referring to his onetime benefactor as Monsignor Insalata (Monsignor Salad).8 After leaving the Pucci household, Mancini reports that Caravaggio suffered from an illness and sought care at the Ospedale della Consolazione. During his convalescence, Mancini notes that he painted many pictures for the prior, Monsignor Fantin Petrignani, which he brought with him to his home in Seville.9 Baglione does not mention Pucci; rather, he indicates that Caravaggio settled “with a Sicilian painter who had a shop full of crude works of art.”10 Nor does Bellori mention Pucci, though he does indicate, in a marginal note in his copy of Baglione’s text, that the Sicilian painter to whom Baglione referred was named Lorenzo—recently identified as Lorenzo Carli.11 Carli owned a workshop where he probably made contact with other artists, including Mario Minniti (1577–1640), who has been proposed as the model for the youth in Caravaggio’s Boy Bitten by a Lizard and Boy with a Basket of Fruit, among others.12 In his note in the margins of Baglione, Bellori records that Caravaggio “painted heads for Lorenzo at a rate of a groat apiece, but then moved into the workshop of Antiveduto Grammatica, where he was hired to produce half-­length figures.”13 Sybille Ebert-­Schifferer has suggested that Caravaggio may have in fact met Antiveduto (1571–1626) while in Carli’s workshop.14



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Nearly all of Caravaggio’s biographers mention that the artist at some point in his early years in Rome joined the workshop of Giuseppe Cesari, also known as the Cavaliere d’Arpino (1568–1640).15 Lothar Sickel has determined that Caravaggio’s association with D’Arpino may have been established through Lorenzo Carli: according to a baptismal record for Carli’s daughter Apollonia, dated 19 December 1593, her godfather was none other than D’Arpino.16 Upon elevation to the papal throne, Pope Clement VIII quickly made preparations to decorate the chapels and churches of Rome for the Jubilee of 1600.17 His attention was first focused on the decoration of the Palazzo Apostolico, San Pietro in Vaticano, and San Giovanni in Laterano, three of the most important symbols of the Church Triumphant and the temporal and spiritual powers of the papacy. These projects were put under the supervision of his favorite artist, D’Arpino, who as papal favorite, enjoyed great success. The discrepancies in the biographers’ accounts regarding Caravaggio’s movements in Rome upon his arrival are further complicated by the skewed portrait of the artist created by the pens of Baglione and Bellori, whose biographies of Caravaggio are the most derisive. It is well known that there was great animosity between Baglione and Caravaggio; both painters worked in the same city and vied for the same commissions and patrons. The enmity between the two only deepened after Baglione filed a libel suit against Caravaggio and his friends, Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639) and Onorio Longhi (1568–1619), in August 1603. According to Baglione, Caravaggio and his friends began to circulate defamatory poems about his work and his skill (or lack thereof) as a painter.18 Bellori, born three years after Caravaggio’s death, on the other hand, could only gather information from those who knew the artist. However, Bellori’s theoretical position on style promoted an idealized classicism antithetical to the overt tangible realism of Caravaggio’s style. In 1664, Bellori delivered a lecture on the “Idea” of art at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, which he published in the preface to his 1672 Vite.19 Regardless of the uncertain chronology or contradicting accounts emanating from Caravaggio’s biographers, it is clear that the artist was able to establish himself successfully in the Eternal City, as it was during these early years that Caravaggio produced his first works, many of which are still extant. These early paintings are all of a secular nature and appear to have been produced to sell on the market to potential buyers, rather than by commission. Caravaggio’s reliance on models and his propensity to render his paintings without the cloak of idealization was the primary criticism lodged against the

130 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo artist’s style by his early biographers. Carel van Mander, the earliest among them, claimed that nature was of primary importance to the painter.20 Mancini placed Caravaggio among a category of living painters who were “closely tied to nature, which is always before their eyes as they work,” which according to the author, works fine for single figures but not in narratives.21 Baglione reports that “some people thought that he had destroyed the art of painting… [by painting] heads from life, without studying the rudiments of design and the profundity of art.”22 Francesco Scannelli concurs, claiming that “he lacked the necessary basis for good design, producing faulty creations without completely achieving a beautiful conception, gracefulness, decorum, architecture, perspective, or other similar and significant elements that together render sufficiently worthy the true principles of the greatest masters.”23 According to Bellori, “Michelangelo Merisi… recognized no other master than the model, without selecting from the best forms of nature—and what is incredible, it seems that he imitated art without art.”24 Later biographers of the artist repeat similar criticisms. Yet, one has to ask, if Caravaggio’s unforgiving naturalism was so repugnant, why were numerous autograph and nonautograph copies of these early works made close in date to the originals?25 This fact alone conveys that they were of great interest to collectors. Caravaggio’s style of blatant naturalism, established in the first few years after his arrival in Rome, apparently drew great attention and would eventually also garner him the protection and patronage of key members of Roman society, many of them from the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Caravaggio’s early patrons in Rome include: Ottavio Costa, Girolamo Vittrice, Maffeo Barberini, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, and Marchese Vincenzo and Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani.

Ottavio Costa Ottavio Costa (1554–1639), a member of Genoese nobility, was a rich and major papal banker. Luigi Spezzaferro’s 1974 study on Ottavio Costa as a Caravaggio patron remains the definitive investigation of their relationship. Spezzaferro uncovered Costa’s will of 6 August 1606, which bequeaths to his executor, Abbot Ruggero Tritonio from Udine, one of two works, a Saint Francis and a Mary and Martha, but does not mention the artist.26 The will stipulates that Tritonio would have his choice; the other was to be left to the Roman



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banker Giovanni Enriquez de Herrera. Spezzaferro’s discovery of Tritonio’s will, dated 25 October 1607, reveals that Tritonio bequeathed to his nephew, Ruggero the younger, his painting of Saint Francis, “skilfully painted with the greatest care by the most celebrated painter Caravaggio,” which was given to him as a gift from Costa.27 Tritonio also placed a stipulation on the bequest, stating that the picture was not to be disposed of.28 This Saint Francis painting mentioned in the wills of Costa and Tritonio is now linked to the Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (Fig. 24) in the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford. Another version of the Saint Francis in Ecstasy, which came from the abbot’s family and is now in the Museo Civico in Udine, had initially complicated the issue of patronage and original, but the publication of Cardinal del Monte’s 1627 inventory, which lists “St. Francis in ecstasy by Michelangelo da Caravaggio with black frame of 4 palmi” has clarified that the version in Udine is a copy of the original.29 Spezzaferro is in agreement with Richard Spear (who first proposed this reading) that Tritonio’s heirs gave Caravaggio’s Saint Francis to Cardinal del Monte, substituting it with a copy by an unknown hand.30 Caravaggio’s association with Ottavio Costa can be established through the friendship he forged with fellow artist Prospero Orsi (ca. 1558–1663), who would prove instrumental in Caravaggio’s establishment of new patrons. The artist most likely met Orsi while in the workshop of the Cavaliere d’Arpino. Ebert-­Schifferer has suggested that Orsi may have helped the young Caravaggio procure a room in the home of Monsignor Fantin Petrignani, the prior of the hospital where Caravaggio had convalesced, which was located only two doors down from his own.31 Both Baglione and Bellori mention Orsi as a friend of Caravaggio, but the former suggests that Orsi was also Caravaggio’s “henchman,” and as he was “hostile toward Cavalier Giuseppe [D’Arpino]” he promoted the work of his friend Caravaggio.32 Orsi was a painter of grotesques and was in the employ of Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto (nephew of Pope Sixtus V) from 1594 to 1595, which coincides with the dating of the Hartford Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy for Costa; the cardinal’s secretary was Abbot Tritonio, Costa’s executor and friend.33 Caravaggio’s association with Costa, therefore, was most likely made through introductions to Cardinal di Montalto and Abbot Tritonio. For the purposes of my argument, it is important to note that the cardinal, like his uncle before him, was immersed within the Franciscan ambient, and in fact served as the first cardinal-­ protector of the newly founded (1594) Confraternity delle SS. Stimmate (i.e., Holy Stigmata) di San Francesco. As a cardinal, he obviously held important

132 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo ties with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, including many who would prove to be future Caravaggio patrons. Costa’s choice of a Saint Francis painting by Caravaggio has both personal and devotional import that relates to Carlo Borromeo. Whether the painting was directly commissioned by Costa from Caravaggio or was acquired later, a Saint Francis-­themed painting would have interested Costa, as his recently born second son had been baptized Pier Francesco, and Saint Francis would have served as his name saint.34 More important, however, the subject of Saint Francis likely interested Costa on a devotional level, as he is recorded as a member of the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini (so too was Abbot Tritonio), a confraternity founded by Filippo Neri and one close to Carlo Borromeo’s heart (See Chapter 2). We can establish that Caravaggio too was connected to the confraternity, as a 1602 contract documents that the artist was commissioned to execute a painting of “S[antissi]ma Trinità con qualche bel capriccio” for 40 scudi—a painting, however, that was never executed.35 Costa’s involvement with the confraternity would also have put him into contact with fellow members Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, Ciriaco Mattei, Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, and Ermete Cavalletti, all future patrons of Caravaggio.36 Costa’s connection with the confraternity may also be linked to Caravaggio and his Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy. Sergio Rossi proposed that “Michele Milanese” inscribed in the Libro degli introiti of the Accademia di San Luca in fact referred to Caravaggio.37 Halina Waga’s study on the Compagnia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon further supports Rossi’s claim.38 Waga discovered Caravaggio’s name on a list of 105 artists who were members of not only the Compagnia dei Virtuosi, but also the Accademia di San Luca. These artists participated in the Forty Hours’ Devotion in 1594, a ceremony that had been particularly important for Carlo Borromeo and that required constant prayers before the Blessed Sacrament for forty hours (see Chapter 2), which were conducted by alternating officials. In 1594, the officials were to work in pairs and in order, and Caravaggio was paired with none other than Prospero Orsi for the hour of 2:00–3:00 P.M. Other participants included many artists whom Caravaggio had already met, including the Cavaliere d’Arpino, Antiveduto Grammatica, and those with whom he would later form close or contentious relationships, among them Orazio Gentileschi, Federico Zuccaro, and Giovanni Baglione. This celebration of the Forty Hours’ Devotion was held on the Feast of Saint Luke, patron saint of painters, and also included the exhibition of works of its members. Rosella Vodret proposes the tantalizing



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theory that Caravaggio’s Hartford Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy was among those exhibited and caught the eye of Ottavio Costa.39 Pamela Askew and Bert Treffers have already interpreted the unusual iconography of Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy in Hartford in a Franciscan light.40 It is not surprising to find a flourishing of images of the saint in the late cinquecento and early seicento. Saint Francis came to embody the Counter-­ Reformation ideal and the new spirituality evoked by the decrees of the Council of Trent. No other model would have fit the bill as perfectly as Saint Francis, who served as the paradigm of a life devoted to humility, charity (i.e., good works), and the aim to conform to Christ. Saint Francis’s dedication in reaching the people and his love of nature conformed not only to the objectives of the Tridentine church, but also to the reformed sacred style advocated by post-­Tridentine cardinals, particularly Gabriele Paleotti. The emphasis on the senses in treatises on sacred art and meditational tracts partially explains the interest in the more mystical experiences of Saint Francis’s life. The stigmatization of Saint Francis had long been established as a popular episode in the saint’s life, as it correlated directly with Christ’s Passion and the devotion of the Franciscans. Yet, after the Council of Trent, the mystical aspect of Saint Francis’s experience rather than the actual stigmatization began to rise in prominence and frequency, as it does in Caravaggio’s canvas. The episode of the stigmatization is recounted by all of Saint Francis’s biographers, with slight variations. Tommaso da Celano’s biography (ca. 1229) describes that the saint saw a vision of a man with the six wings of a seraph affixed to a cross with hands outstretched and feet together. According to Celano, while Saint Francis was pondering this vision, marks of nails began to appear in his hands and feet.41 Similarly, Saint Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis (1263) relates that, while praying on La Verna, Saint Francis beheld a seraph with six flaming wings, and between its wings the figure of man crucified. The crucial difference in Bonaventure’s account is when the marks began to appear: [H]e understood, by the revelation of the Lord, that this vision had been presented to his eyes by Divine Providence, that the friend of Christ might know that he was to be transformed into Christ crucified, not by the martyrdom of the flesh, but by the fire of the spirit. The vision disappearing, left behind it a marvellous fire in his heart, and a no less wonderful sign impressed on his flesh. For there began immediately to appear in his hands and in his feet the appearance of nails, as he had now seen them in the vision of the Crucified… on the right side, as if it had been pierced by a lance, was the mark of a red wound, from which the sacred blood often flowed and stained his tunic.42

134 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo In Caravaggio’s painting, he has placed Saint Francis on the foreground, collapsed in the arms of a youthful angel. Numerous iconographic readings of Caravaggio’s canvas have been proposed, as the moment being portrayed seems unclear. The seraph with man crucified is absent, as are the wounds in Saint Francis’s hands and feet.43 Only the wound in his side is visible, seemingly through a hole in his robe. According to Saint Bonaventure, however, Saint Francis did not receive the stigmata until he came to the realization that his transformation would be first and foremost a spiritual one. It is thus only after Saint Francis discards the mortality of the flesh that his transformation in the immortality of the spirit begins. Therefore, as Askew has proposed, Caravaggio has painted Saint Francis in the midst of his stigmatization, and only after a pivotal revelation.44 We are seeing Saint Francis’s interior experience, rather than an outward one. Treffers has also offered another reading of the moment depicted, proposing that it shows the spiritual ecstasy after the stigmatization. Treffers has highlighted a sixteenth-­century text by Bernardino da Colpetrazzo (1525–93) entitled Historia ordinis fratrum minorum Capuccinorum, which describes Saint Francis’s physical state immediately after the stigmatization. According to Bernardino, after the appearance of the seraph, Saint Francis’s mind turned to God and then the physical transformation began; first with right hand, then the left, the feet, and his side. After receiving the stigmata, Saint Francis fell to the ground “as if he was dead.” Treffers overturns the traditional reading of Caravaggio’s canvas as a depiction of the actual stigmatization in support of an after moment.45 He does not sufficiently address, however, the appearance of only the wound in Francis’s side. The answer can be found in Celano, who noted that the wound on the saint’s right side would often bleed (even after scar tissue had begun to form over it), which left sprinkles of his blood on his clothes.46 He further claimed that few were able to see Francis’s sacred wound in his side while he was alive: the ability to do so was deemed a gift, which only those worthy were granted. Celano records just two: Brother Elias, who could see it, and Brother Rufino, “who touched the wound with his own hands.”47 Celano further elaborates that Saint Francis went to such great pains to conceal the stigmata, for he was not “vain in his heart,” that even those who were closest to him and his most devoted followers were not aware of them for a long time.48 Here, I argue that Caravaggio grants the viewer, and possibly Costa, as among the worthy actually to see the physical wound, emphasized by Francis’s right hand, which directs the viewer’s eyes there without obscuring it.



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In the Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, Caravaggio has achieved the perfect melding of the narrative and the devotional. On the narrative side, he has drawn on the accounts of the life of Saint Francis to depict a moment after the stigmatization. The composition of the angel and Saint Francis further evokes parallels with images of Christ, particularly his Lamentation (after his Crucifixion). On the devotional side, Caravaggio has included references to iconic images of the Man of Sorrows, which functioned as aids to prayer and meditation. Traditional representations of the Man of Sorrows typically show an angel (or angels) supporting a half-­length Christ, eyes often closed, with the wounds of his Passion prominently displayed, and the crown of thorns on his head. It is an image that stirs the emotions, demands our empathy, and requires our penance. In almost all representations of the Man of Sorrows, the wounds in his hands are clearly visible, but it is the wound in his side that is most prominent. In both Northern and Italian examples, this side wound bleeds more abundantly, and it is often emphasized by the gesture of a hand, either Christ’s own or an angel’s, appearing to point to or even touch it. Caravaggio’s angel supporting a reclining Saint Francis recalls such imagery, and it is Francis’s own hand that appears to point to and touch the wound at his side. The darkened background, moreover, serves like the gold of traditional icons, focusing the viewer’s eye on Saint Francis, filled with humility and Christ’s love. Contemporaneous examples of the same subject by Federico Barocci (1594–95, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino) and Lodovico Cigoli (1596, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)—artists from Urbino and Florence respectively who did not experience living in Borromean Milan—depict the actual stigmatization with the seraph, the rays of light, and the wounds on Francis’s hands clearly visible. It is the miraculous event that is underscored, not Saint Francis’s humility and love for Christ which inevitably merited this gift. The profundity of Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (and indeed all of Caravaggio’s sacred paintings) points to an acute awareness of Franciscan thought—one, I suggest, informed by the impression made on the young Caravaggio by the actions and legacy of Carlo Borromeo, who had emulated Saint Francis in his humility, devotional practices, and belief in the edification of all men as God’s creatures. Giussano’s description of Borromeo’s experience while meditating on Saint Francis at La Verna is interestingly similar to the accounts of Francis’s own experience after receiving the stigmata.49 Is it a coincidence that Caravaggio, in his Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, chose

136 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo not to show the actual stigmatization but rather Francis’s interior experience, the burning flame of love in his heart? Even Caravaggio’s choice to clothe Saint Francis in a Capuchin habit— in the Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (see Fig. 24) and in the later Saint Francis in Prayer (see Fig. 47) in Cremona—has relevance to Borromeo and post-­Tridentine devotion. According to Caravaggio’s friend and contemporary painter Orazio Gentileschi, the artist had borrowed a Capuchin habit from him.50 It can be argued that Caravaggio borrowed it as it may have been the only habit close to the Franciscans that he had at hand, however, the artist would certainly have been able to paint a mainstream Franciscan habit from memory. I would argue that the choice is a deliberate one. In this regard, it is relevant to note that Carlo Borromeo had strong ties with the Capuchins. Although the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor was founded long after the death of Saint Francis, its goal was to restore the true devotion exemplified by the founder of the Franciscans. The Capuchins were devoted to poverty, both in appearance and in practice, and to continual prayer. They were known to wear simple habits, and to carry a small crucifix in hand as they walked from place to place.51 They preached the Gospel, particularly the Passion of Christ, a subject dear to both Borromeo and Saint Francis. Moreover, they wore full beards; Carlo Borromeo himself had long worn a short beard “not much cared for by him.”52 In 1579, Borromeo had helped to found the first Convent of Capuchin nuns in Milan, the Poor Clares of Santa Prassede, who desired to follow the rule of Saint Clare of Assisi.53 According to Giussano, Borromeo also had placed a group of Capuchin Fathers in the mountains near the lakes of Lugano and Como to aid the poor, and in 1582 assisted them in the building of their monastery.54 The initial project, by Capuchin Father Cleto da Castelletto Ticino, had included building a collection of thirty-­two chapels in emulation of those at the Sacro Monte di Varallo.55 The Sacro Monte di Orta, as it is called today, was dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi, a dedication likely to have been proposed by Borromeo. Building began a few years after Borromeo’s death under the direction of Father Cleto and under the watchful eye of the bishop of Novara, and friend of Carlo Borromeo, Carlo Bascapè.56 Caravaggio’s memory of Borromeo may explain the unprecedented iconography, which would have been amplified by Costa’s own awareness of the archbishop’s exemplary status. Costa’s membership in SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, would have put him into contact with the Oratorians to whom Borromeo was intimately connected. Furthermore, Costa owned a portrait of Carlo Borromeo.57



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By 1595, Caravaggio was living in the Palazzo Madama of Cardinal del Monte, but this clearly did not deter Costa from commissioning or acquiring more works from him. In the closing years of the cinquecento, Costa acquired two more paintings by Caravaggio: Judith Beheading Holofernes (Fig. 25; ca. 1598) and the Mary and Martha (ca. 1599, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit). Baglione mentions that Caravaggio painted the Judith Beheading Holofernes and “other pictures” for the Costa family.58 The Judith painting appears in the 1632 testament of Ottavio Costa and appears to have been a favorite of the banker. He not only hid the painting behind a taffeta curtain, but he also stipulated to his heirs that they not sell it.59 Further evidence of the provenance of the painting can be found on the back of the original canvas, where the capital letters “C.O.C” appear: an abbreviation including the banker’s initials (“Comites Ottavio Costa”).60 The narrative of this painting derives from the Old Testament Book of Judith: Bethulia had long suffered under the menace of the Assyrian general Holofernes until a beautiful and wealthy widow, Judith, liberated them. Caravaggio has for the most part remained faithful to the biblical text, while also incorporating original nuances to charge the scene with both narrative and devotional emphasis. Judith’s heroism is recounted in great detail in the text, which Caravaggio meticulously transforms into visual form: And she called her maid, and going down into her house she took off her haircloth, and put away the garments of her widowhood. And she washed her body, and anointed herself with the best ointment, and plaited the hair of her head, and put a bonnet upon her head, and clothed herself with the garments of her gladness, and put sandals on her feet, and took her bracelets, and lilies, and earlets, and rings, and adorned herself with all her ornaments. And the Lord also gave her more beauty: because all this dressing up did not proceed from sensuality, but from virtue: and therefore the Lord increased this her beauty, so that she appeared to all men’s eyes incomparably lovely. (Judith 10:2–4)

Caravaggio’s Judith is unquestionably beautiful, but it is noteworthy (as Vodret has already remarked) that the artist depicted Judith’s hair parted in the middle in accordance with the biblical text.61 He has also placed earrings on her lobes as part of the “ornaments” with which she adorned herself before heading to the camp of Holofernes. It was her exceeding beauty that served as her ticket into Holofernes’s camp and, eventually, into his tent. And Holofernes was made merry on her occasion, and drank exceedingly much wine, so much as he had never drunk in his life…. Holofernes lay on his bed, fast asleep,

138 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo being exceedingly drunk. And Judith spoke to her maid to stand without before the chamber, and to watch. And Judith stood before the bed praying with tears, and the motion of her lips in silence, saying: “Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, and in this hour look on the works of my hands, that as thou hast promised, thou mayst raise up Jerusalem thy city: and that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by thee.” And when she had said this, she went to the pillar that was at his bed’s head, and loosed his sword that hung tied upon it. And when she had drawn it out, she took him by the hair of his head, and said: “Strengthen me, O Lord God, at this hour.” And she struck twice upon his neck, and cut off his head, and took off his canopy from the pillars, and rolled away his headless body. And after a while she went out, and delivered the head of Holofernes to her maid. (Judith 12:20, 13:4–11)

Caravaggio accurately portrays Holofernes on his bed. Caravaggio stays true to the unfolding of the narrative, as the biblical account states that before Judith began to sever his head, she prayed to God and “the motion of her lips in silence.” Judith’s mouth is thus accordingly parted. Then, as the text explicates, Judith grabs him by the hair and begins to sever his head with his sword (appropriately shown as an Oriental sword). Caravaggio’s proclivity for realistic detail does not falter here. Blood is spurting out from the wound in his neck, his eyes widen and mouth opens to scream, his body contorts, and his hands grip the bed both in shock and in agony. Judith “struck twice”; in Caravaggio’s canvas she has clearly just dealt only the first blow, as his head is still not severed. Her face portrays a mixture of strength and fear, and her body reveals the human reaction of one who is faced with a gruesome task: she leans backward, repulsed by the blood and the sound emanating from Holofernes’ mouth. Caravaggio even includes a red canopy prominently above the bed—the one that, the Bible tells us, will be used to roll away his headless body. The only explicit departure from the text is the inclusion of the maid in the tent. This, however, can be easily explained by the artist’s narrative concerns. After Holofernes is completely decapitated, Judith will deliver the head to her maid. The old maid nicely counters and enhances Judith’s beauty, but here she must surely serve as a visual aid of what is to come, as she readily holds a brown sack in her hands to receive the head. Caravaggio has thus consolidated a before moment (Judith’s prayer), the actual decapitation, and an after moment (the delivery of the head to her maid). Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes is contemporary to the artist’s painting of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (ca. 1599, Thyssen–Bornemisza Collection, Villa Hermosa, Madrid) for Del Monte, and is among the group of works that Bellori indicated as marking a shift in the artist’s style toward



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a darker manner. The scene unfolds along the frontal plane, with only the figures, Holofernes’s bed, and the canopy above visible, as pockets of darkness enshroud everything else in shadow. Once again, the light comes from an unseen source on the left, picking up primarily the white of Judith’s blouse and her pearly skin. Caravaggio’s use of tenebrism juxtaposes deep shadows and brilliant light in allegorical and theological terms (good versus evil, virtue versus sin). For Caravaggio, tenebrism was a means to bring out the figures, make them more palpable and immediate to the viewer, and as here, charge the scene with drama. Our eyes are drawn to Judith, the heroine who liberates her people from evil. Her white blouse brilliantly reflects the light emerging from the upper left, making her a beacon of light within the darkness of the painting. Yet, Caravaggio also placed a near equal emphasis on Holofernes. He occupies more than half of the canvas and the light similarly (but not equally) hits the white sheets beneath him as it does the top teeth in his gaping mouth and the white of his widened eyes. The red in the canopy above him and the blood spurting from his nearly severed neck, act as pictorial parentheses that draw the viewers’ eyes to his torment. It is not enough to be reminded and take comfort in the victory of virtue and faith, but for an artist maturing in the shadows of Borromeo’s penitential Milan, it was equally critical to understand what lies in store for those who sin. It is in this penitential function of the image that the tenebrism serves a further metaphorical purpose, which is intimately tied to Saint Francis and Franciscan spirituality. It was during Saint Francis’s prayer at the foot of the painted crucifix at San Damiano that he uttered this prayer: Most High, glorious God, enlighten the shadows of my heart, and grant unto me a right faith, a certain hope and perfect charity, sense and knowledge Lord, so that I may accomplish Thy holy and true command.62

In his Minds Ascent to God, Bonaventure further sheds light into the meaning of Francis’s words.63 Darkness (or shadows) symbolizes the earthly world, while light represents God and the knowledge of the spiritual. Bonaventure suggests that light/God cannot fully illuminate our minds without first leaving behind the darkness/earthly. We cannot see the light if we are in darkness for when mired in darkness we see nothing when looking into pure light. Yet, God’s light (wisdom) is revealed in darkness. I would suggest that this parallel is implicit in Caravaggio’s use of tenebrism in his sacred canvases. Caravaggio implies that even in the darkness of the senses—the earthly and material—there is hope.

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Girolamo Vittrice Around the same time that Caravaggio became acquainted with Costa, he found another patron in Girolamo Vittrice, with whom he also seems to have been put into contact through his friend Prospero Orsi. Vittrice was Orsi’s brother-­in-­law, having married Prospero’s sister, Orinzia di Lucio Orsi, in 1586.64 He had been an active member of the papal court and served as a sottoguardaroba (sub–wardrobe attendant) to the popes since Gregory XIII.65 In 1586, the year of his marriage, Vittrice was awarded a knighthood in the newly founded order of Loreto.66 In 1598, Vittrice numbered among the entourage who accompanied Pope Clement VIII and his cardinal-­nephew Pietro Aldobrandini to Ferrara, after the pope’s successful negotiations to transfer Ferrara back to the Holy See. Those traveling with the pope included Cardinals Federico Borromeo, Francesco Maria del Monte, Benedetto Giustiniani, and Girolamo Mattei, as well as future Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII), all of whom would come to own several works by Caravaggio.67 Vittrice also was connected to the banker Ottavio Costa, as the receipts of the Herrera and Costa Bank reveal his name among other Caravaggio associates and patrons, including the Colonna family and the Mattei.68 Vittrice acquired or directly commissioned three works by Caravaggio: The Fortune Teller (ca. 1595) in the Louvre, the Penitent Magdalen (ca. 1594) and Rest on the Flight into Egypt (ca. 1594), both in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. The latter two religious works, albeit without author, were once thought to have been originally commissioned by Olimpia Aldobrandini (niece of Pope Clement VIII), due to the listing of the works in Olimpia’s inventory of 1626. The discovery of the inventories of the Vittrice family, however, indicate that the Penitent Magdalen and the Rest on the Flight into Egypt were most likely Vittrice commissions (in all likelihood, Girolamo’s), as they are listed both in the Vittrice inventory of 1607 and then in the inventory of Girolamo Vittrice of 1612.69 In Counter-­Reformation Italy, Saint Mary Magdalene, like Saint Francis, began to rise in popularity as an effective and affective model of penitence and humility. All four Gospels reference different females who have been identified with the Magdalene: Mary of Magdala, Luke’s unnamed sinner, and Mary of Bethany.70 This conflation was joined by the popular notion that Mary Magdalene was a repentant prostitute, an identification made canonical and popular by Pope Gregory the Great’s Homily 33 on Mary Magdalene in the sixth century.71 In representations of Mary Magdalene prior to Caravaggio’s



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version, there is an established iconographic tradition of showing her in one of three ways: (1) as an attractive woman with long hair and exquisite garments; (2) as an ascetic woman, with long hair serving as a garment to cover her nudity; or finally, (3) as a voluptuous, beautiful nude woman, with eyes raised to heaven. In all three types, Mary Magdalene is typically coupled with her key attribute, her perfume jar. In the Penitent Magdalen, Caravaggio simultaneously stays within the bounds of tradition and departs from it. Caravaggio’s early biographers, his primary detractors, clearly had a problem with his representation of the Magdalene. The criticisms were centered almost exclusively on the manner in which she was depicted. For example, Scannelli can appreciate the painting’s naturalness, but undercuts this appreciation by his evaluation of its lack of decorum and “dead” quality, in all likelihood a reference to the artist’s reputation for staging his models in his studio and “copying” them without the necessary judgment of perfecting what he sees.72 Bellori, however, is more caustic and more pointed in his objections to the painting: Since Caravaggio aspired only to the glory of color, so that the complexion, skin, blood, and natural surfaces might appear real, he directed his eye and work solely to that end, leaving aside all the other aspects of art. Therefore, in order to find figure types and to compose them, when he came upon someone in town who pleased him he made no attempt to improve the creations of nature. He painted a girl drying her hair, seated on a little chair with her hands in her lap. He portrayed her in a room, adding a small ointment jar, jewels, and gems on the floor, pretending that she is the Magdalen.73

Like Scannelli, Bellori finds fault in Caravaggio’s choice of “copying” directly from nature, but more specifically, his use of real models. He does not refer to the young girl as the Magdalene, but merely one “pretending that she is the Magdalen.” Bellori’s objection centers on the classical notion of “perfecting nature,” something that Caravaggio clearly does not follow. Using the features of a live model for a saint, however, was perfectly in line with the Tridentine decree, post-­Tridentine treatises, and even manuals on meditation and sermons, based on the overriding concern to make sacred images as accessible and affective as possible. While the use of portraits for saints was proscribed by Borromeo, Paleotti and others, Caravaggio depicts not a straightforward portrait, but the suggestion of one. A flesh-­and blood-­person, rather than an idealized, ethereal one, is more tangible to the common viewer, making it a more effective incitement

142 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo to penitence and humility. It is unlikely that Caravaggio purposefully used a model (Anna Bianchini, a prostitute like the Magdalene) for the saint to flout decorum or the church, as at this stage in his early career, commissions were necessary for him to establish himself. It is rather because of his business acumen that he realized that, in order to garner more commissions, particularly from rich ecclesiastics, it would be necessary and advantageous to give them what the post-­Tridentine church prescribed: a tangible, affective image that moved the viewer. Vittrice, as the sottoguardaroba of Pope Clement VIII, would certainly appreciate this manner of approach—and apparently did, as he would continue to commission works from the artist. It is important in this regard to note that Vittrice was part of a circle of patrons who were members of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini. His wealthy uncle Pietro, who had been guardaroba of Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–85), was also closely tied to the Oratorians. Iconographically, Caravaggio adheres to the more decorous tradition of showing a clothed Magdalene, albeit with distinctive human qualities. Careful scrutiny of the iconography, moreover, places it entirely within Counter-­ Reformation orthodoxy and both biblical and hagiographic texts of the saint. Caravaggio’s Magdalene is shown in an austere room marked only by a tiled floor and a simple, plain wall. The light issues into the room from an unseen source at the upper left, bathing the Magdalene in light while creating an oblique shadow behind her. In these early religious works, Caravaggio has not yet developed the more characteristic tenebrism seen in his later works, but experiments with a more subtle chiaroscuro effect. The Magdalene is elegantly clothed in a white chemise, green damask dress, and an orange-­yellow mantle, both with similar brocaded floral patterns. Despite the luxuriousness of her garments, Caravaggio has chosen to show her at the moment of her conversion. All other details within the painting undercut the beauty of her clothing, as they clearly point to the fact that she has cast away her previous life. The Gospel of Luke is the biblical source most often utilized for the iconography of traditional representations of the Magdalene, as by Caravaggio. According to Luke, the sinner (ascribed to be the Magdalene) went to the house of the Pharisee and “brought an alabaster box of ointment. And standing behind at his feet, she began to wash his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.” (Luke 7:37–38). Caravaggio has included the ointment vessel, but it is not made of alabaster. This could be read as a deviation from the biblical text, however, it may not be as problematic as it would seem. Patrick Hunt



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has pointed to the fact that the word for “perfume vessel” found in the authoritative biblical Koiné Greek text, was mistranslated in to “alabaster stone” in the Latin Vulgate.74 Furthermore, it was not actually made of stone, but rather was a glass alabastron, as seen in Caravaggio’s canvas.75 Hunt emphasizes that Caravaggio followed the text faithfully, depicting a glass vessel. The appeal of staying true to the biblical text was probably amplified by the opportunity to display his skill at rendering reflections of light on the glass, a skill that Caravaggio’s biographers had noted in his early works. Nevertheless, the use of a glass vessel also provided a clear view of the ointment within it, which is of a golden transparent color.76 In identifying the young girl as the Magdalene, therefore, Caravaggio has followed the Gospel of Luke faithfully, not only by including the perfume vessel and perfume within it, but also by emphasizing her hair and, more important, her weeping. She sits on a low chair, close to the ground, underscoring her humility. Caravaggio poignantly portrayed the very private moment of the Magdalene’s penitence, in which no fault could be lodged by the Counter-­ Reformation church, despite the criticisms of the artist’s biographers, particularly Bellori. She wrings her hands in a gesture of contrition. Her hair is unbound, as if she hurriedly unfurled her once nicely styled coiffure as an expression of her conversion.77 The broken string of pearls and gold jewelry similarly conveys her penitence and conversion, as they lie discarded, cast aside to her right. The vessel of perfume, the ointment with which she anoints Christ’s feet, simultaneously refers to the luxurious perfume for the body. As such, the perfume vessel is placed to her side, distanced from her as a sign of her relinquishment of her former sinful life—it was Gregory the Great who had explained that the ointment used by the sinner in Luke’s Gospel was once used “to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts.”78 Moreover, her head is bowed and eyes are downcast, and from her right eye and down the side of her nose falls a single tear, the most perfect sign of her penitence. Whereas Luke’s narrative seems to suggest that her conversion takes place at the moment she kneels before Christ, washes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with her perfume, Caravaggio here suggests that her conversion occurred before her visit to the house of the Pharisee. Here, as in Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (see Fig. 24), the artist has combined the Gospel narrative with the devotional. The viewer can recognize the iconographical cues of the Magdalene’s acts described in the Gospel of Luke: her tear, for those with which she washed Christ’s feet, her unbound hair with which she dried them, the perfume with which she anointed them. At

144 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo the same time, Caravaggio has imbued the image with a devotional function by showing the Magdalene in the midst of her private conversion, isolated against a plain, shadowed wall. The viewer not only meditates upon her role in the Gospel narrative, but also is moved to penitence by her exceptional example. While Caravaggio seems to have made a conscious decision to make his painting evoke the Gospel text, it is his naturalism that plays a pivotal role in making the image effective and affective. She is like one of us, and we look at the image and adjudge our own worth. The subject itself is not unusual, but its selection likely came from the patron, Girolamo Vittrice. Though we have no evidence that Vittrice had a particular devotion to the Magdalene, a close examination of his social circle intimately ties the subject to Franciscan spirituality.79 One of the many preachers who delivered sermons on the Magdalene and contemporary to Caravaggio was the Franciscan Francesco Panigarola (1548–94). Panigarola was born in Milan, and educated in Pavia and Bologna. He entered the Observant Friars Minor on 15 March 1567, and by 1579 was nominated to serve as the general of his order. Panigarola refused the position, and instead was elected a general definitor and appointed visitator for all of Italy.80 Recognized as one of the most important Italian preachers in the second half of the cinquecento, he was invited in 1583 by Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo to preach against Lutherism and Calvinism in his diocese.81 Panigarola’s 1585 Cento ragiona menti sopra la passione di Nostro Signore—intended to increase the pain of the death of Christ within the reader—was written in Milan, commissioned by and presented to “Mons. Ill.mo Borromeo Card. di S. Prassede.”82 Panigarola was very close to Borromeo and, in fact, in 1585 he gave the sermon in Milan Cathedral to commemorate the archbishop’s death.83 Panigarola shared with his friend Carlo Borromeo the desire to promulgate the traditions and spirituality of the Franciscans, particularly to reach and move the general populace to humility, penitence, and piety. Religious reality was at the heart of his sermons. Casting aside social and intellectual differences, Panigarola’s sermons sought to appeal to all people of God—an objective, as we have seen, of the post-­Tridentine Church generally, and of Carlo and his close associates in particular. Sivigliano Alloisi has proposed, in fact, a close correspondence between Panigarola’s sermons (and thus, I would argue, by extension, Carlo Borromeo) and the paintings of Caravaggio.84 Both sought to engage their audiences, through truth and participation in concrete sensations, by using either simple and descriptive words or the physicality of figures and scenes, respectively. Panigarola and Carlo Borromeo were closely



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bound to the traditions of the Franciscans in their commitment to the common Christian faithful.85 Panigarola’s sermons drew on the traditions of the devotio moderna and the meditative arts, promulgated particularly by the Franciscans, urging the faithful to relive through such spiritual exercises the most painful moments of Christ’s Passion. To aid in such mental imagining of the scene, Panigarola would include vivid description when discussing a biblical passage. Alloisi speculates that Caravaggio may have heard Panigarola in Milan or Rome, before the preacher’s death in 1594.86 Several scholars have pointed to close parallels between Panigarola’s Lenten homily and Caravaggio’s Penitent Magdalen.87 These Lenten sermons were originally given in Rome in 1577, and they were published in Venice in 1597.88 Although these dates make it seem unlikely that Caravaggio would be aware of these sermons, Alloisi has pointed out that copies of the manuscript were available in Rome:89 Fear overwhelms [the Magdalen]: sacred fear, the basis of all that is good… our conversion must begin with fear…. Today let us take as our example the Magdalen… now she retraces her steps, her legs stagger, now she starts to take off all her vain ornaments, now to utter cruel invectives against indecent womankind, now to disparage the beauty of the eyes, now to groan, exclaiming “Oh roof, why don’t you fall down and crush me?” Casting down her necklaces and jewels, shaking out her tresses, violently wringing her hands, she trembled and declared, “Oh floor, why don’t you open up? Why don’t you swallow me? Oh bed, you who have witnessed so many of my evil deeds, why don’t you smother me?” Now she could not bear even to look at the walls of the house which concealed and surrounded her lascivious acts.90

As Bernard Aikema and Hunt have pointed out, the correspondence between text and image are undeniably close, from the necklaces and jewels that are cast aside, her tresses, the wringing of her hands, and even her downcast eyes— referencing not only her inability to “look at the walls of the house,” but her desperation to have the floor open up and swallow her.91 These parallels suggest that Caravaggio was aware of the text, or possibly had even been given a copy to use as an aid for his painting. The fact that Panigarola had been close to Borromeo may have further convinced Caravaggio to utilize this text, as some of the late archbishop’s closest associates (Cardinals Paleotti, Del Monte, and Federico Borromeo) were part of the artist’s own social circle. Moreover, all of them were also closely linked to the Oratorians, including Girolamo Vittrice. Contemporaneous to the Penitent Magdalen, but on a larger canvas, is Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt (see Fig. 27), also for Girolamo Vittrice. This painting, unlike the Magdalen, did not offend Bellori’s classical

146 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo sensibilities, and understandably so. It is probably the artist’s brightest canvases, and includes a full landscape. Here, toward the center, stands an attractive male angel who plays the violin, while Saint Joseph, seated at left, holds a book of music open for him. The angel, with his back toward us, is naked except for his wings and a little drapery. On the right sits the Madonna who, with her head inclined, seems asleep with her baby at her breast.92 Though one can understand Bellori’s lack of objections to this picture—a more retrospective example from Caravaggio’s oeuvre, in terms of its coloring, full landscape, and classicizing angel—it is surprising he had no problem with the artist’s naturalism in this canvas. The model for the Madonna is in fact the very same one used for the Penitent Magdalen, and her form is nearly identical to that of the Magdalene. One would also expect Bellori would deride Caravaggio’s inclusion of a rugged Joseph and, behind him, a rather realistic donkey. The lack of criticism regarding the naturalism in the Rest strongly suggests that what Bellori objected to with Caravaggio’s style may have been less his use of models per se, and more the artist’s tendency to paint scenes in which it is evident that the model was copied in his studio. As in his Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy and Penitent Magdalen, Caravaggio presents the viewer with a scene that combines the narrative with the devotional in a profoundly unique way. The subject of the painting evokes several passages in the Gospel of Matthew in which an angel appears to Joseph in a vision or dream following the visit from the Magi. The angel first appears in Joseph’s dream, warning him that Herod was in search of the Christ Child and intends to destroy him. The angel directs Joseph to leave Bethlehem and to take Mary and the Christ Child into Egypt. (Matthew 2:13) After traveling to Egypt, the angel of the Lord appears again to Joseph in a dream informing him of the death of Herod, and saying that he should now take his family into the land of Israel. (Matthew 2:19–20) Caravaggio underscores the vehicle of the messages not only by the inclusion of the angel, but by the references to sleep (and thus dreams) in the figures of the Virgin with bowed head and closed eyes, and the slumbering Christ Child cradled against her breast. There is also a dreamlike suggestion in Joseph’s trancelike gaze directed at the angel before him.93 This episode derives from apocryphal accounts of the Holy Family’s journey into Egypt, primarily medieval embellishments, which included a field of wheat that sprang up to shield the family, a date palm that provided them with fruit, and a spring that quenched the tired travelers thirst, among other details. The Gospel of Pseudo-­Matthew recounts that on the third day of the



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journey, Mary was fatigued and stopped to rest beneath a palm tree. Though Caravaggio does not include a palm tree here, Mary and the Christ Child are sheltered by the boughs of an oak above them. The inclusion behind Joseph of a realistic donkey, which tradition dictates was the mode in which they traveled, further points to a break in their journey. Moreover, Caravaggio has included a bundled sack (on which Joseph sits) and a wicker-­covered flask, both pointing to the journey. There is also, however, a uniquely devotional aspect to the painting signaled by the angel and the manner in which Mary is portrayed. Matthew’s Gospel provides no description of the angel, nor is there any mention of music or musical instruments. The inclusion of the angel playing a violin from a musical score held by Joseph is therefore original and perplexing. There is no precedent for these details in any earlier representations of the subject. Tradition has established two means of referencing the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt: (1) depicting the actual journey, with Mary and the Christ Child seated on the donkey, led by Joseph on foot; (2) depicting the Holy Family’s “rest” on their way. In both types, we sometimes see one or more angels (and even other saints) in the company of the Holy Family, adoring the Virgin and Child or leading the Holy Family into Egypt—but there is no precedent for a single musical angel. One can interpret this inclusion as merely a reference to heaven and heavenly music, but there is more to the angel than meets the eye. Paleotti had referred in his treatise to novel and unusual additions in scenes of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt that bordered on the “base and affected,” which included showing Mary “filling a vessel with water from the stream to give to her little son, and Saint Joseph picking a branch laden with fruit from a tree and extending it to his son.”94 These two novelties are clearly present in Federico Barocci’s 1570 Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Fig. 28), and though Paleotti does not name any specific artist here, one must wonder if he was thinking of Barocci’s work when writing this passage.95 Caravaggio’s addition of the musical angel, however, does not fall under the category of embellishment evidencing artistic cleverness or virtuosity; rather, it is of didactic and devotional import. The angel, placed slightly left of center in the foreground, compositionally divides the canvas in two. He is seen from the back, his head in sweet profile, his wings foreshortened perpendicular to the frontal plane. Unquestionably divine in his youthful beauty and lyrical form, the angel is decorously draped with a white cloth wrapped around his waist that cascades across his backside, pivoting around his left leg to the ground in front of him. In his hands

148 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo is a violin on which he plays the musical score held by Joseph. Unlike most instances where sheet music is included in paintings, this score is legible and recognizable: it has been identified as a motet written by the Flemish composer Noel Bauldewijn (or Bauldeweyn), and first published in 1519. The text of the motet is derived from the Song of Songs and is dedicated to the Madonna.96 Caravaggio shows the line Quam pulchraes et quam decors, charissima in deliciis (“How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights….”; Song of Solomon 7:6).97 The significance of Mary is further underscored by the fact that the ground on which she sits is verdant and green, whereas on the left, where Joseph and the angel are placed, the ground is barren and dry. She recalls images of the Madonna of Humility, a subject specifically developed by the Franciscans for contemplation. In Christian tradition, the love that lyrically binds the bride and bridegroom in the Song of Songs is not an erotic but a spiritual one, interpreted as referencing “the mutual love of Christ and his Church, and Mary was the symbolic bride of Christ.”98 Bert Treffers has aptly pointed to the importance of the perspective of divine love in Franciscan spirituality, noting that Saint Bonaventure, makes specific allusion to the Song of Songs in proclaiming, “So the true love of Christ transformed the lover in the image of the beloved.”99 Mary’s love for Christ transforms herself into his bridegroom, much as Saint Francis’s love for Christ transformed him into the image of Christ. In this sense, the two paintings, the Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy for Ottavio Costa and the Rest on the Flight into Egypt for Girolamo Vittrice, are intricately bound in Franciscan references to divine love. Caravaggio, however, has inflected the scene with an added dimension. Here, nestled in the bosom of his mother, Christ quietly slumbers, while the Virgin bows her head down to rest on his head. Caravaggio has merged the spiritualized love between bride and bridegroom with the nurturing, human love between mother and son. The iconography of Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt abounds with Franciscan spirituality. On the most basic level, there is a clear appreciation of nature, from the trees and plants to the tranquil stream just beyond the bank behind the Virgin. While the light-­filled setting implies the idyllic, there is also a pronounced presence of the realistic and tangible, including the unidealized depiction of Joseph, the naturalistic donkey, the feathered wings of the angel, the wicker-­covered flask with paper stopper, and a fungus-­covered oak tree, among other details. These are underscored by the tangible and human quality of the figures resting en route. The thirteenth-­century Franciscan tract



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Meditations on the Life of Christ evoked the all-­too-­human qualities of the Holy Family: It was also grievous that they had to go to a distant country of which they knew nothing, by rugged roads which were difficult for Our Lady on account of her youth and for Joseph because of his age, and also because of the sweet Infant, not yet two months old, whom they had to carry.100

In Caravaggio’s painting, the weariness of the youthful Virgin is acutely evident, as her head bows down in sleep. So too is the old age of Joseph, not only in his gray hair and wrinkled face, but also in his own physical fatigue from the journey and the emotional fatigue of the burden of responsibility he must carry. Added to this human quality of the figures are the references, many of them botanical, to Christ’s Passion, the Passion being at the core of Saint Francis’s devotion, Franciscan-­ inspired meditational tracts, and Carlo Borromeo’s own spirituality. For instance: a branch of rose thorns is positioned near the Virgin’s left arm, purposely placed near the Christ Child’s head. Sarah Johnson Jordan has pointed out that while rose branches are typically found among the plants in representations of the Rest on the Flight, these are typically the thornless varieties that relate to the purity of the Virgin.101 Here, Caravaggio’s rose branch exhibits not flowers but thorns—a clear reference to the mocking of Christ. Other symbols include the realistic oak, referring to the wood of the Cross; the reed, referring to Christ’s pain and humiliation during his mocking; and the blades of wheat referring to the Eucharist.102 (Beyond plant life, the bowed head of the Virgin calls to mind the Pietà.) This interest in nature as a means to praise God is intimately tied to Saint Francis. Moreover, the Franciscans underscored the importance of meditation by imagining the subject under contemplation in concrete, realistic, and tangible terms (e.g., the closely observed details in this painting).103 Finally, humility too abounds in the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Mary is seated directly on the verdant grass with bowed head, recalling representations of the Madonna of Humility. All four protagonists are depicted with bare feet, a widely recognized sign of humility. The virtue of humility in fact stands at the core of all of Caravaggio’s religious works, both early and mature. It means being humble before God; it speaks of human kindness, charity, and true love for Christ. To be humble is to be human, and Caravaggio’s pairing of humility with his naturalistic style uniquely binds him to the prevailing ideas of sacred art and Franciscan-­inspired spirituality, particularly those espoused by Carlo Borromeo and his circle.

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Maffeo Barberini Maffeo Barberini received his education from the Jesuits and received a doctorate of law from the University of Pisa in 1589. He would later be appointed papal nuncio to the French court (1604), cardinal (1606), and then ascend to the papacy as Pope Urban VIII (1623). Prospero Orsi lived only a few doors down from Maffeo and is likely to have introduced Caravaggio to the future pope. Moreover, Prospero’s brother Aurelio, a humanist and poet, was part of the literary circle known as the Accademia degli Insensati in Perugia.104 Among its members, besides Aurelio Orsi, were poet Gaspare Murtola (d. 1624/25) and Maffeo Barberini, who was mentored by Aurelio and in whose palace the Roman faction of the Accademia met. Caravaggio’s association with this group is supported not only by his friendship with Prospero Orsi, but also by the fact that both Aurelio Orsi and Murtola dedicated madrigals and epigrams to several of Caravaggio’s paintings.105 Barberini commissioned Caravaggio to paint his portrait (1603, Private collection, Florence) and a large canvas of the Sacrifice of Isaac (Fig. 29), mentioned in Bellori’s 1672 biography of the artist.106 In 1967, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin discovered four payments, totaling 100 scudi, recorded from the household of Maffeo Barberini—three dating to 1603 and one in 1604—paid to Caravaggio for an unidentified painting or paintings.107 These payments have typically been connected to the Sacrifice of Isaac, placing its date of execution around 1603. Stylistically, however, the painting falls more appropriately around 1594, contemporary to the Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, Penitent Magdalen, and Rest on the Flight into Egypt, which all share a brighter tonality and more detailed setting than those that followed them. The subject is derived from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament and represents one of the paradigmatic examples of the test of faith. God tempted Abraham, and said to him…“Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision; and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will shew thee.”…. And they came to the place which God had shewn him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it; and when he had bound Isaac his son, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. And he put forth his hand, and took the sword, to sacrifice his son. And behold, an angel of the Lord from heaven called to him….“Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake.” Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram, amongst the briers, sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son. (Genesis 22:1–13)



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Caravaggio follows the biblical account and stays within the parameters of the established tradition of the subject. In earlier representations, from Brunelleschi onward, Abraham is always shown with a knife (sometimes a sword) in hand; Isaac is variously shown nude or partially clothed; the angel stops the sacrifice; an altar is typically present, as are wood and fire; and the ram is depicted, sometimes shown caught in the bush or a tree. There are numerous variations, but Caravaggio does not stray far from tradition or the biblical text; in fact, he adheres to Genesis more closely than do others. Conrad Rudolph and Steven F. Ostrow have pointed out that typically Isaac is shown on or near a pile of burning wood.108 The Genesis text, however, indicates only that Abraham brought along wood and fire, and that he placed Isaac on the wood—not on burning wood. Here, we see Isaac’s head on the altar, and we assume that the wood is beneath, cut off by the frame of the canvas. Nevertheless, there are no signs of flames or smoke, indicating that the fire was not included in Caravaggio’s representation. The Christological import of the subject has long been recognized. Abraham, through his faith and love for God, is willing to sacrifice his only son, just as God sacrificed Christ. It therefore serves not only as a testament of faith and love, but also reminds the viewer of God’s own sacrifice of his son, Christ on the Cross for the redemption of man. Although the import of Abraham’s faith is implicit in the biblical passage, the parallel between Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac with God’s sacrifice of Christ, suggests that it is also about the faith of Isaac. All four Gospels recount that after the Last Supper, Christ went to the Garden of Gethsemane in his moment of anguish, praying first “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.” (Matthew 26:39) He said his prayer three times when “there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.” (Luke 22:43) In Caravaggio’s painting, Isaac too seeks strength and struggles especially with his faith: faith in his father Abraham’s decision to sacrifice him. The light falls at its brightest intensity on Isaac’s flesh, mainly his upper torso and head. The strong diagonals of the angel’s right arm and both Abraham’s arms direct the viewer’s gaze to Isaac. He is bound and helpless, his mouth frozen in what we can imagine is an ear-­splitting scream. Caravaggio humanizes the familiar story, not merely through his naturalism, but also by evoking Isaac’s own struggle of faith and his unwillingness to be sacrificed. His eyes appear to look toward his father, but are also seemingly directed toward us, simultaneously pleading with and implicating the viewer: “How strong is your faith? ” These themes form a consistent Franciscan-­infused thread in Caravaggio’s early religious works.

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Cardinal Francesco Maria Bourbon del Monte Cardinal del Monte, though certainly not Caravaggio’s first patron, was unquestionably his first major patron and protector. Del Monte (1549–1626) was born in Venice in 1549 to an aristocratic family with Tuscan origins. Through his father, Marchese Ranieri Bourbon del Monte, first count of Monte Baroccio, he was remotely related to the Bourbon royals of France. His mother was Minerva Pianosa, a noblewoman of Pesaro. He was educated at the Della Rovere court at Urbino, and his older brother, Guidobaldo (1545– 1607), was a mathematician, scientist, and patron of Galileo Galilei; both circumstances certainly shaped Francesco’s interest in art, music, and science. Del Monte eventually joined the service of Cardinal Alessandro Sforza (1534–81) in Rome, then after Sforza’s death, entered the service of Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549–1609). When the cardinal’s brother, Francesco I de’ Medici died in 1587, Ferdinando succeeded him as grand duke of Tuscany, thus renouncing his cardinal’s hat.109 Upon doing so, Ferdinando persuaded Pope Sixtus V to confer the title on Del Monte. Thus on 14 December 1588, Del Monte was elevated to cardinal, and he moved into the Medici’s Palazzo Madama in Rome in 1589. He is recognized as an extremely cultured cardinal who loved art and supported young artists; these included Caravaggio, who was taken into the cardinal’s household in 1595, remaining there till 1601. Del Monte too, seems to have had direct contact with Neri and the Oratorians. In his seminal two-­ volume study on the cardinal, Zygmunt Waz´   bin    ´ski suggested that Del Monte was introduced to the Oratorian circle shortly after his arrival in Rome by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici.110 During Ferdinando’s sojourn in Rome he had grown close to Filippo Neri, and served as protector of the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini; when he returned to Florence, he was succeeded as protector by Cardinal di Montalto—met earlier in this chapter as nephew of Pope Sixtus V, and employer of Prospero Orsi during 1594–95. Del Monte, however, would have other opportunities to meet and form a relationship with the Oratorians through colleagues and associates already linked with Neri and his brethren, such as Paleotti, Federico Borromeo, and the Oratorian cardinals Cesare Baronio and Francesco Tarugi.111 It was while Caravaggio was in the employ of Cardinal del Monte that we find the earliest document tying him to Rome. Sandro Corradini and Maurizio Marini have uncovered a record of an interrogation made by the tribunal of the governor of Rome (i.e., the magistrate of the Holy See), Tommaso de



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Richis, on 11–12 July 1597.112 The case involved an assault on an individual named Pietropaolo, an apprentice to a barber named Luca. The assault did not involve Caravaggio, but he was eventually named as a witness after he returned a cloak, found in the street, that he thought belonged to the victim. The document is noteworthy for several reasons. The barber, Luca, recounted that when the man (Caravaggio) returned the cloak, it was in the presence of a certain “Costantino, who buys and resells paintings, whose shop is attached to the Madonnella next to San Luigi [dei Francesi].”113 Corradini and Marini argue that the similarity of the name “Costantino” and “Valentino,” named by Baglione as the art dealer who first began to sell Caravaggio’s works, is not coincidental, and must be an error on Baglione’s part.114 When summoned, Costantino testified that he had been an active dealer since 1593, which is just after Caravaggio’s arrival in Rome. Costantino also provided some important information about the artist, describing him as nearly twenty-­ six years old and as “Cardinal del Monte’s painter.”115 Luca, the barber, also provides a vivid description of the appearance of Caravaggio, describing him as “around twenty or twenty-­five years old, stocky in build, with a thin black beard, black eyes with thick eyebrows and an abundant head of hair, long over his forehead; he was dressed in a somewhat disorderly fashion in black, and his black hose was rather threadbare.”116 The art dealer, Costantino, relates that Caravaggio was in the company of another painter, Prospero Orsi.117 Orsi was also called to testify, and indicated that Caravaggio was wearing a sword that night, which he often did as an individual in the service of Cardinal del Monte.118 Caravaggio merely served as a witness of an assault, but this document substantiates and corrects some of the information provided by the artist’s biographers, while also giving us a vivid description of the artist. Nearly all Caravaggio’s biographers mention the artist’s important relationship with Cardinal del Monte. According to Baglione, a “Maestro Valentino” (but perhaps “Costantino”), a dealer in paintings at San Luigi dei Francesi (across the street from Del Monte’s Palazzo Madama) sold some of Caravaggio’s works, and one of the buyers was Del Monte. The cardinal, an art lover, invited the artist to his home. In these quarters Caravaggio was given room and board and soon he felt stimulated and confident.119 Bellori does not mention Maestro Valentino, but he does indicate that it was after Cardinal del Monte bought a work by Caravaggio that he invited him into his household.120 The work purchased by Del Monte was more than likely either The Fortune Teller (ca. 1593, Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome) or The Cardsharps (ca. 1594, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth).

154 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo During his six years in Del Monte’s household, the cardinal commissioned numerous works from the artist, including several other secular paintings: The Musicians (ca. 1595, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); The Lute Player (ca. 1600, Private collection, New York); the Medusa (ca. 1597, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence); and a small painting of a Carafe (lost). Caravaggio also executed an oil on plastered wall painting of Jove, Neptune, and Pluto (1597) for the cardinal’s private study in the villa he acquired in 1596 (today the Villa Boncompagni–Ludovisi, Rome). The Uffizi Bacchus (1597–98) is also generally placed during Caravaggio’s stay in Del Monte’s household, although no documents have surfaced that suggests it was commissioned by the cardinal. The only sacred work that we can safely say was commissioned by Del Monte is Caravaggio’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria (ca. 1599, Thyssen–Bornemisza Collection, Villa Hermosa, Madrid), as we know he held a special devotion for the saint.121 The cardinal’s 1627 inventory lists “A Saint Catherine with her wheel, work by Michel Agnolo Caravaggio with a gilt frame seven Palmi.”122 Bellori marks the Saint Catherine (along with The Lute Player) as the moment in which a darker manner began to appear in the artist’s works: “[H]e painted the Concert of Youths [Musicians] portrayed from life in half-­figures; a woman in a blouse playing a lute with the music sheets in front of her; a kneeling St. Catherine leaning on the wheel. The last two paintings are also in the same rooms but have a darker color, as Michele had already begun to darken the darks.”123 Caravaggio’s experimentation with degrees of chiaroscuro in his early religious works develops here into the signature tenebrism that scholars have long identified with the artist’s mature works. It is interesting, however, that the first work in which he places his religious figures before an impenetrable dark background is this image of a single, isolated saint, a Saint Catherine that accords with traditional iconic devotional images. Although the narrative and the devotional were balanced in the Penitent Magdalen (see Fig. 26)—a narrative was integral to her story, and the image required a sense of transformation for its affectivity—it is the devotional that dominates in the Saint Catherine. Here, the saint is the focus of devotion, underscored by the plain, dark background and the halo above her head. Saint Catherine of Alexandria, born into nobility, was a princess-­scholar who converted to Christianity at a young age and was responsible for converting hundreds of others to the faith. The moment of her conversion, according to legend, occurred after receiving a vision in which the Blessed Virgin Mary gave her to Christ in mystical marriage. She attempted to convert the Roman Emperor Maxentius, pointing out the error of his ways, but to no avail.



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Maxentius gathered a group of the best philosophers and orators to dispute her, but Catherine won the debate and ended up converting them all. His failure to make Catherine relinquish her beliefs through torture and imprisonment resulted in his order for her death. She was to be broken on a spiked wheel, but an angel intervened and destroyed it. Maxentius thus decided to have Catherine beheaded. The tradition of representing the saint in isolation typically presents her as a beautiful, regally dressed woman, with a crown on her head, and the attribute of a wheel (or broken wheel) beside her. Caravaggio adheres to tradition, but also departs from it in accordance to contemporary prescriptions. The amendment of the Martyrologium Romanum, whose first edition had been published in 1583, was begun later in the decade under the supervision of the Oratorian and Cardinal Cesare Baronio.124 These revisions (1586, 1589) sought to eliminate from the legends of the lives of the saints, established beginning in the Middle Ages, any elements that could not be historically substantiated. In 1593, a decree was issued that prescribed that the wheel be placed at a distance from the saint, as it was not the implement of her martyrdom.125 In Caravaggio’s painting, Saint Catherine is shown as a lavishly dressed woman, in accordance with traditional representations of her. She is, however, kneeling on a red brocaded pillow, a clear sign of her humility and piety. The spiked wheel is still present, but it is now relegated to being a prop on which the saint leans, rather than an attribute. Moreover, in her hands, Caravaggio has included a sword, the true instrument of her martyrdom. Once again, Caravaggio remained within the expected parameters of hagiography and church prescriptions. Saint Catherine is elegantly dressed in a floral-­patterned brocaded dress of a rich purple, but she does not wear a crown on her head. That crown has been replaced with a halo, a more appropriate addition for a portrait of a saint, particularly one that was to serve devotional purposes. The human quality of the figure—its immediacy, tangibility—fully accords with the notion of presence in ancient icons, and with contemporary prescriptions on a more natural style for sacred imagery. The model for Saint Catherine was once widely considered to have been the courtesan Fillide Melandroni; however, a direct relationship between Fillide and Caravaggio has been recently called into question.126 Regardless, however, the distinctive features of the face, combined with the modern hairstyle and garments, suggest that the artist once again relied on a model posing in his studio for his Saint Catherine. There is also a significant Christological reference in this portrait of Saint Catherine. The sword in her hand is held at an oblique angle pointing to the

156 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo viewer’s right. The end of the blade is clearly marked by the deep scarlet of blood. But this blood-­stained sword tip overlaps, and is perfectly perpendicular to, the palm resting at the kneeling form of Saint Catherine, thereby forming an overt cross. The palm, of course, is a traditional attribute of martyred saints, and symbolized their victory over death. But here there is a second meaning being suggested: the cross formed by the sword and palm reference Christ’s Crucifixion; the red refers to the blood Christ shed on the Cross for the redemption of mankind. Del Monte may have held special reverence for Saint Catherine as a patron saint of learning and simply as a martyr; but the legends surrounding her conversion also functioned as a significant example of the importance of images—a topic of particular interest to the cardinal. According to one legend, a hermit who lived near Alexandria had a vision in which the Virgin appeared to him and instructed him to tell Catherine that her son, Christ, was the spouse whom she desired. The hermit went to Catherine and gave her a painting of the Virgin and Christ Child. When Catherine gazed upon the face of the Christ Child, all the things she took delight in became distasteful for her. This was a pivotal moment in Catherine’s path to her baptism, conversion, and mystical marriage to Christ. The bodies of mystical literature involving the power of images to move, convert, and evoke visions abounded in the late cinquecento and early seicento. Supporting the function of sacred images in the face of Protestant objections and criticisms, armed with the Trent and post-­Tridentine tracts, would have been important to anyone in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but especially so to Del Monte. Recall that, in 1595, Del Monte and Cardinal Paleotti had been named co-­cardinal-­protectors of the Accademia di San Luca, an institution founded to educate artists in sacred image making. Along with this title, Pope Clement VIII also named them “Educators of Reform.” While the role and functions of their titles are not known, his relationship with Federico Borromeo and Paleotti, certainly placed Del Monte within a particular Counter-­Reformatory ambient.

Cardinal Federico Borromeo In the protectorship of the Accademia di San Luca, Del Monte had replaced Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), and it was probably Del Monte who introduced Federico to Caravaggio. He may even have played an integral role in



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Borromeo’s acquisition of Basket of Fruit (ca. 1596, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan), for which there are no commission records. Some scholars have proposed that the painting was given to Federico by Cardinal del Monte as a gift, a commonplace practice among the ecclesiastical elite. Maurizio Calvesi, however, has provided evidence to the contrary. The idea that the Basket of Fruit was a gift from Del Monte to Federico stemmed from a letter dated 29 February 1596 in which Del Monte apologized for the delay in sending the “gift,” and that it was because he had to deal with “people that require a good dose of patience.”127 Though the gift is not identified in the letter, this sparked an association with Caravaggio’s still life. Calvesi’s discovery shows that the “gift” in fact comprised a clock and a painting by Scipione Pulzone, and that one of the “people” who had tried his patience was the clockmaker.128 Our knowledge of Federico’s love for still lifes, particularly by his favorite artist, Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625), suggests that he may have commissioned the Basket of Fruit, or at the very least purchased it from Del Monte, or directly from the artist. In any event, Federico is the only recorded owner of the painting, as it was listed among the works he donated to the Ambrosiana, a public library he founded in 1607. The Basket of Fruit is rendered with the utmost fidelity to nature. Federico highly esteemed this still life for its “lively color” (tinte vivaci).129 Borromeo’s misidentification of Caravaggio’s subject as “flowers” instead of “fruit” in the Musaeum (an abbreviated guide to his collection) has often been cited to indicate the cardinal’s low estimation of the artist and his painting. This, however, is due to the mistranslation of the original text, which, according to Calvesi, clearly references fruits, not flowers.130 Moreover, the mere fact that Caravaggio’s painting was included among the works from Borromeo’s collection featured in the Musaeum shows it was valued, and Federico wrote that he wanted another “basket” with which to pair it, but found no one who could equal its “beauty and incomparable excellence.”131 Federico certainly was aware of the fact that Caravaggio had been born, raised, and trained in the diocese of his now deceased cousin, Carlo Borromeo. According to Calvesi, it was because of the artist’s experiences in Lombardy, under the spiritual example and guidance of Carlo Borromeo, that Caravaggio understood the Counter-­Reformation concerns for the poor, as well as the importance of reaching and moving the populace through “natural things”: [Caravaggio had been] brought up as a follower of Saint Charles, [and] was far from being a non-­believer, as was once thought, and would have shared the latter[’s] sentiment [in regards to assisting the poor]. Along with followers of Saint Charles, the

158 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo keenest supporters of this philosophy included the painter’s own cousin Federico, who lived in Rome from 1586 to 1601, and the followers of Saint Philip Neri, the Oratorians.132

The Giustiniani It was during Caravaggio’s residence at Del Monte’s Palazzo Madama that he was likely introduced to the Giustiniani brothers—Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564–1637), a wealthy banker, and Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani (1554–1621)—who lived in the Palazzo Giustiniani, across the street. The brothers’ father, Giuseppe Giustiniani, had been the last Genoese ruler of Chios. In 1566, when the island was overtaken by the Ottomans, Giuseppe and his two sons had left for Rome, where he had brothers with influence: Giorgio, in whose Palazzo Giustiniani alle Coppelle (since destroyed) the family stayed, and Cardinal Vincenzo, a Dominican.133 Giuseppe became a banker and served as the financier to the Vatican, becoming one of the richest men in Rome. Benedetto, the elder brother, entered the church and became a cardinal in 1586. Vincenzo followed his father into the banking business. Although Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani has long been recognized as the individual responsible for the acquisition and commission of the ten Caravaggio works in the Giustiniani Collection, research has revealed that Benedetto Giustiniani was a patron of Caravaggio as well. In her two-­part article on the cardinal’s collections, Silvia Danesi Squarzina isolated Benedetto’s acquisitions from those of his brother, Vincenzo, made possible by the discovery of two early inventories of the cardinal, the “Entrata della Guardarobba.”134 Although Squarzina’s studies have made it clear that Marchese Vincenzo was not the only Giustiniani who favored Caravaggio’s works, the two earliest acquisitions do seem to have been made by Vincenzo: The Lute Player (ca. 1596, Hermitage, St. Petersburg) and the Portrait of Fillide Melandroni (ca. 1598, destroyed in World War II). Though the brothers seem to share an interest in art and in the patronage of Caravaggio, we only have Vincenzo’s estimation of the young artist’s work. In Vincenzo’s famous letter to Teodoro Ameyden (ca. 1620), the marchese grouped Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio together among artists who practiced the twelfth and highest mode of painting. The twelfth method is the most perfect of all since it is the rarest and most difficult. It is the union of the tenth with the eleventh method, that is to say, to paint di maniera



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and also directly from life. In our time, this is the way that Caravaggio, the Carracci, Guido Reni, and other world-­famous painters of the highest rank painted. Some of them were inclined more toward nature than the maniera and some more toward the maniera than toward nature, without however abandoning either method, and emphasizing good design, true colors, and appropriate realistic lighting.135

That Caravaggio’s style clearly was inclined more toward nature than maniera seemed to be one of the many reasons patrons, including Vincenzo, were so drawn to his works. Both brothers, however, maneuvered in a social circle tightly bound with adherents to Carlo Borromeo. Vincenzo and Benedetto were closely tied to the Oratorians and to Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who had even lived in the Palazzo Giustiniani alle Coppelle for a short while during 1597.136 Vincenzo was also a member of the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, connecting him therefore with another member and Caravaggio patron, Ottavio Costa. Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani was a papal treasurer, and in addition to being friends with Cardinals del Monte and Federico Borromeo, he was also close to Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, Cardinal di Montalto, Filippo Neri, and his successor, Cesare Baronio.137 His association with the Oratorians is further supported by the fact that among the silver donated (1589) by Pietro Vittrice for his chapel in the Chiesa Nuova (the Cappella della Pietà; see Chapter 5), some pieces bore the coat of arms of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani.138 Benedetto also surely knew Pietro’s nephew, Girolamo, who commissioned Caravaggio’s Penitent Magdalen and the Rest on the Flight in Egypt.139 Moreover, between 1596 and 1597, Cardinal Benedetto, through the support of Cardinal Baronio, endorsed the entry of his young relative, Fabiano Giustiniani, into the Congregation of the Oratory.140 He was also friends with Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, whose father (also Paolo) had been a member of Carlo Borromeo’s Accademia delle Notti Vaticane (see Chapter 2), and whose uncle, Niccolò Sfondrati (Pope Gregory XIV) had been a close associate and devotee of Carlo—and had entrusted his young nephew to the care of Neri in 1577.141 Benedetto would acquire several (primarily religious) works by Caravaggio in the early years of the new century (see Chapter 6). Vincenzo would also commission several other works from the artist, but more important, he played a crucial role in the artist’s first two public commissions at the turn of the century. In the last decade of the cinquecento, Prospero Orsi and Cardinal del Monte served as key promoters of Caravaggio’s work. Orsi facilitated Caravaggio’s introduction to new patrons, including Ottavio Costa,

160 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Girolamo Vittrice and Maffeo Barberini. Del Monte’s Palazzo Madama was in close proximity to the residence of other cardinal-­patrons (and his friends), including Cardinal di Montalto and the Giustiniani brothers. Del Monte may have been responsible for introducing Caravaggio to the Giustiniani and to Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who acquired the artist’s Basket of Fruit. Caravaggio’s early patrons can be tied to one another both directly and indirectly; they were either part of or closely tied to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and were actively involved with key confraternities and orders in Rome close to Carlo Borromeo’s heart, including the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini and the Oratorians. The momentum and profile of Caravaggio’s commissions, both public and private, would only increase in the early years of the seicento, thanks to the connections established upon his arrival in Rome. As we have seen, Caravaggio enjoyed great success in his first seven years in Rome, despite what his biographers stated to the contrary.



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24. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, 1594, oil on canvas. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1943.222. Photo: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT.

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25. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, ca. 1598, oil on canvas. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.



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26. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Penitent Magdalen, ca. 1594, oil on canvas. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

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27. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, ca. 1594, oil on canvas. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. Photo: HIP/Art Resource, NY.



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28. Federico Barocci, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1570, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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29. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1603, oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

·5· caravaggio ’ s public roman works

The principles of Franciscan thought and practice so famously adopted and promulgated by Carlo Borromeo—Christlike humility and charity, engaging all the senses through prayer and meditation before tangible imagery—had been coherently focused on sacred art by Paleotti’s Discorso. It is lifelikeness and truth to nature, qualities promoted by Paleotti to induce meditation and to bridge the gap between past and present that inform and characterize Caravaggio’s Roman sacred imagery, beginning with his public debut at San Luigi dei Francesi. The artist’s public works are among his most controversial. Caravaggio’s early biographers have suggested that many of his public altarpieces and lateral paintings for chapels were rejected. These claims continue to be repeated in the scholarly literature about Caravaggio without concrete documentation. His biographers pointedly refer to second versions of works being required after dissatisfaction with the originals. These proposed rejections and the making of new versions, however, can be seen as part of a complex bidding war among patrons to obtain a work by the most “distinguished painter of Rome.”

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Contarelli Chapel According to Baglione, Caravaggio received his first public commission for three canvases for the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome through Cardinal del Monte.1 Bellori, on the other hand, credits not Cardinal del Monte for this 1599 commission, but the Neapolitan poet Giambattista Marino (1569–1625). According to Bellori, Caravaggio painted the poet’s portrait, and Marino praised the Medusa that Caravaggio had produced for Cardinal del Monte. It was because of Marino’s delight in Caravaggio’s style that he recommended the artist to execute the oil paintings on the walls of the Contarelli Chapel.2 Indeed, both Cardinal del Monte and Giambattista Marino may have had a hand in securing the commission for Caravaggio, as documents cannot prove otherwise. However, Caravaggio had not been the first artist to be commissioned for the chapel’s decoration. In 1565, the French Monsignor Matthieu Cointerel (1519–85; Italianized to Matteo Contarelli) had acquired a chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi, the French mother church in Rome. The chapel was to be decorated by the Brescia-­born Lombard painter Girolamo Muziano (1532–1592). According to the contract dated 13 September 1565, Muziano was commissioned to paint scenes from the story of Saint Matthew, Contarelli’s name saint, that were to include the Calling of Saint Matthew, and Martyrdom of Saint Matthew on the side walls, and an altarpiece with Saint Matthew and the Angel on the main wall beneath the lunette window.3 But twenty years later, at Cardinal Contarelli’s death in 1585, the chapel had still not been decorated.4 Accordingly, he left an endowment and explicit instructions for the chapel to be decorated with scenes from the life and death of his name saint. The executor of his will, Virgilio Crescenzi, commissioned Flemish sculptor Jacob Cobaert (contract dated 25 October 1587) to complete within four years a sculptural group of Saint Matthew and the Angel, to be placed on the high altar.5 On 27 May 1591, the Cavaliere d’Arpino was commissioned to paint frescoes on the vault and the Calling of Saint Matthew and the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew on the side walls of the chapel.6 The subjects of the decoration remain the same as in Muziano’s original 1565 contract, but here more detail is provided regarding the iconography. By this date, Cobaert still had not made much progress on the statue. In June 1593, D’Arpino was paid for the vault frescoes.7 The rest of the chapel, however, was left incomplete until, in December 1594, the congregation of San Luigi dei Francesi petitioned Pope Clement VIII to intercede. They demanded



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that the current executor, Giacomo Crescenzi (who had succeeded his father, Virgilio), complete the work for the chapel so that it could be opened. The Jubilee of 1600 was fast approaching, so their urgency was not unfounded. A second petition was made to Clement in 1596, complaining that the chapel was still incomplete and closed. In July 1597 the pope therefore transferred the Contarelli endowment from the Crescenzi to the Congregazione della Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office responsible for the upkeep of the Vatican basilica.8 D’Arpino received a bank draft for 400 scudi in November 1597 as an incentive for him to complete the chapel decoration; but because he was pressed with other commissions, and because he traveled with the papal court to Ferrara in 1598, he did no work on the chapel, returning the bank draft in July 1599.9 On the 23rd of that month, the rectors of the congregation authorized a contract with Caravaggio to execute the two lateral paintings in the chapel for 400 scudi. In the contract, dated 1 August 1599, the artist agreed to complete the two paintings within one year for the stipulated price, following the program already established. The final payments for the paintings were received on 4 July 1600, which suggests that the two lateral paintings were completed on time, even though they were not installed until December.10 Caravaggio’s left lateral painting of the Calling of Saint Matthew (Fig. 30) is a tour de force in biblical drama, and one that departs from traditional representations of the scene. The subject, both in Northern and Italian examples, is depicted as occurring either indoors or outdoors. These variations in setting are understandable based upon the lack of precision in the accounts contained in three of the four Gospel texts: [H]e saw a man sitting in the custom house, named Matthew; and he saith to him: “Follow me.” And he arose up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9) And when he was passing by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the receipt of custom; and he saith to him: “Follow me.” And rising up, he followed him. (Mark 2:14) And after these things, he went forth and saw a publican named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said to him: “Follow me.” And leaving all things, he rose up and followed him. (Luke 5:27–28)

The Gospel texts all mention that Christ saw Levi (later, Saint Matthew) sitting in the custom house, but this neither indicates whether he saw him through a window of the custom house (as it is sometimes depicted) or if

170 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Christ walked into the custom house and saw him. In Caravaggio’s canvas, as in the Gospel texts, the location is indeterminable. There is a single window with an open shutter on the back wall, which can be interpreted as an indoor view of the window or outdoor one. The window is the only element that marks the space, save for the table and benches on which Levi and his companions sit. The entire space is enshrouded in darkness, broken only by a raking spotlight from an unseen source at the upper right. (In fact, light from the lunette window above the chapel’s altar would illuminate the painting from a similar direction.) The location could be a contemporized version of the tax house or an everyday Roman alleyway. The description for the iconography of this subject in the 1591 contract with D’Arpino interestingly suggests simultaneously an indoor and outdoor view: Saint Matthew is to be “in a store or large room used for tax collection,” but he “should rise in order to follow Our Lord who passes along the street.”11 In this sense, Caravaggio observes both the vagueness of the Gospel texts and the uncertain location in the 1591 contract. The space could be read as indoors, as the custom house, signaled by the table on which all the accoutrements of a tax collector are placed—books, money—items stipulated in 1591. The location can likewise be read as occurring outdoors, with the tax table brought outside into an alley or street, where Christ passes with his disciples. Christ appears at the far right, identified by his halo and his gesture of “summoning” Saint Matthew from the table. In front of Christ, but without obstructing his face or gesture, stands Saint Peter. At the custom’s table, which comprises slightly more than half of the width of the canvas, sit five individuals, one of whom is Saint Matthew. The light primarily illuminates the faces of the three men closest to Christ: an older bearded man dressed as a dandy, and two youths dressed in contemporary page garments. Standing to the left of the bearded man is an older man bending forward, adjusting his spectacles to inspect the transaction. Then, seated at the far left, is a young man absorbed in the counting of coins. But which figure is Levi? The identity of the future Saint Matthew in Caravaggio’s Calling has long been a contentious issue among scholars. The traditional view is that the bearded man behind the table should be Levi/Matthew, whose face is brightly lit. He seems to be counting money with his right hand, and he appears to be pointing to himself, a gesture long read as indicating, “Who, me?” in response to Christ’s call. This identification, however, rests largely on Bellori’s designation of the figure in his biography of the artist: “Christ Calling St. Matthew to the Apostolate is on the right side of the altar. He portrayed several heads from



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life, among them the saint’s, who, stopping to count coins, with one hand on his chest turns toward the Lord.”12 Troy Thomas concurred with this traditional reading as recently as 2006, adding that the account book and inkstand are near the bearded figure.13 In 1982, however, Nicholas DeMarco had written a rather short but provocative article establishing the young man at the far left, bent over and counting coins, as the real Saint Matthew.14 DeMarco asserts that the bearded dandy cannot be Matthew, despite his brightly illuminated face and gesture, as his dress is “too elegant and courtly for a mundane rather vulgar tax-­collector.”15 Moreover, DeMarco noticed that his gesture cannot be read as pointing to himself, “for his arm extends slightly outward, thumb toward breast, but index finger almost ninety degrees toward the left” directing the viewers’ eyes toward the left, to the seated youth bent over the table.16 He further notes that the bearded man’s right hand is not counting coins, but placing them on the table before the true Levi. The way Caravaggio depicted the position of the bearded man’s thumb and index finger is “digitally incapable of lifting coins from a flat surface.”17 Moreover, the bearded man cannot be Saint Matthew due to his advanced years: Matthew was a young man when he was called by Christ. Here, Caravaggio adheres to Paleotti’s warning to painters to depict saints accurately, including their age at the given moment of their life being portrayed. Paleotti deemed it improper (an abuse of quality) to paint “Saint John the Evangelist engaged in writing his gospel, a time when he was decrepit and almost a hundred years of age, with the face of a beardless youth.”18 Angela Hass further contributed to DeMarco’s reidentification of Matthew by tracing this youthful, beardless type to Leonardo da Vinci’s own portrayal of the saint in The Last Supper (1495–98, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan).19 The bearded man here, accompanied by his retinue, is therefore paying his taxes to Levi, the youthful man at far left, when he is startled by the appearance of Christ and Saint Peter. He is caught off guard, and points not to himself, but to the youthful man at his right, almost as a means of deflection. The younger man, however, is appropriately oblivious to the visitor; he is “riper for conversion,” as DeMarco states.20 Upon closer inspection, the younger man also greedily holds a sack of coins to his breast with his left hand, while his right hand counts the coins being placed on the table before him. The light barely touches his face, as he does not yet see, both in a physical and spiritual sense. He is too absorbed in his sinful profession—and that too identifies him. He has not yet converted, which makes the imminence of his conversion ever more so dramatic.

172 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Caravaggio here, as in his Judith Beheading Holofernes (see Fig. 25), combines narrative moments. Christ beckons with his right hand, indicating his words “Follow me.” Levi, however, is busy counting money from taxes paid a moment before Christ’s appearance. If you look carefully at Levi’s face, however, he seems to be directing his gaze both at the coins in front of him and beyond them, in inner reflection. The way the bottom of his face is lit also suggests that, as from the rising sun, a brilliant light will soon bathe his face. Caravaggio has thus indicated a moment of recognition, of truth—of impending conversion (as in the Penitent Magdalen). Levi’s preoccupation with the counting of money makes him easily identifiable for the viewer, while also making the subject more poignant. There could have been no better way to convey to the viewer the hope of divine grace. If a man like this, with such an unsavory profession, could be the recipient of divine grace and be called by Christ, then there was hope for the everyday man to receive the same gift. This message is the crux of Caravaggio’s canvas, and his style, combining naturalism with what would become his signature tenebrism, serves to underscore it. Christ and Saint Peter are both shown in standard biblical dress, with bare feet, signifying their humility; Levi and his companions are all dressed in contemporary clothes. The appearance of Christ and Saint Peter could therefore occur in the present day, making conversion, spiritual enlightenment, and divine grace in the reach of the contemporary faithful. Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Matthew presents a variety of colors, rilievo, consistent pictorial illumination, and overall unity. The viewer’s emotions are evoked through the colors and dramatic contrast of light and shadow, the “varietà de’ colori” and “l’ombre” described by Paleotti as elements that speak to our senses.21 Caravaggio confronts his viewers with a painted world that reflects their own. His figures project forward with an immediacy and tangibility that demand close attention and contemplation. The tenebrous, nondescript background in Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Matthew pushes the figures close to the frontal plane and thus closer to the viewer both physically and psychologically. Furthermore, his use of dramatic tenebrism not only maintained the verity and variety of the colors, but also removed any temporal or geographical anchors by obscuring or replacing the setting.22 Although Caravaggio depicted specific biblical narrative scenes, he elided the boundaries between the historical and the contemporary, depicting his protagonists as everyday individuals, both real and tangible. It is this very aspect of naturalism, of truth to nature, of living bodies, that many of Caravaggio’s contemporaries and early biographers praised.



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Caravaggio’s extreme naturalism may have drawn harsh criticism from some, but his work afforded a moving confrontation with veristic, tangible, flesh-­and-­blood figures. This was an experience of the kind Paleotti had identified as stimulating both sensuous and rational delight—an experience derived from naturalism (“imitation of nature”) and tangibility in sacred painting, which had the power to make those absent or remote appear present.23 Caravaggio’s approach and style connect not only to Paleotti’s conviction in truth to nature, but also to contemporary meditative practices and exercises. The contrast between the contemporarily clad figures at the table on the left and the historically garbed Christ and Saint Peter on the right is all (save one thin halo) separating the common men from the heavenly; each is portrayed as an earthbound figure. Viewers identify with Saint Matthew and his associates, who appear as everyday individuals, tangible and unidealized. They display real emotions—disbelief, incomprehension, surprise, and unawareness—through their gestures, poses, and gazes. An affective connection is thus forged that prompts the viewer to meditate upon the scene, bringing the realization that “miracles” or “visions”—both popular concepts at the time—can occur (as portrayed) in the present day, and to a common person. Caravaggio’s treatment of light and shadow also stimulates meditation in the viewer. The simple, tenebrous setting plays an essential role in the iconic formula, one formerly served by the gold background of traditional icons. This background isolates the scene, removes temporal boundaries, freezes the action: the scene takes place in the present moment. Yet despite its effectiveness in this Paleottian, post-­Tridentine context, Caravaggio’s stark lighting was remarked by several of his biographers as a stylistic deficiency. Both Mancini and Baglione claimed that Caravaggio’s use of dramatic contrasts of light and shadow was a function of his copying, aimed solely to give relief to his figures. Though this certainly may have played a part in Caravaggio’s formulation of his personal style, I would argue that the artist had another purpose, and one important to the Counter-­Reformation church: the resultant frozen action demands the viewer’s focus on the image. Caravaggio selects the most tension-­filled moment—here, Levi’s impending conversion— and dramatically stops time; this prompts the viewer to complete the action and the story internally, creating mental pictures as prescribed in meditative exercises. The tenebristic background, pushing the figures toward the viewers, not only encourages a personal, emotional relationship with them. The dark background also gives the image the appearance of an icon—or even a vision. One can imagine a viewer of the dramatic and tangible Calling of Saint

174 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Matthew in the dim, lunette-­and candle-­lit Contarelli Chapel being moved to meditation and spiritual ecstasy—much as Carlo Borromeo was when visiting the veristic chapels at the Sacro Monte di Varallo at night, with only a lantern to light the scene. The tenebrism of Caravaggio’s canvases, forces the viewers to focus on the figures and the import of the story. It facilitates visualization or the making of mental pictures in spiritual exercises by means of focalization. As a subject that centers on Matthew’s transformation from a life of earthly sin to a life with Christ, however, the juxtaposition of inky blackness and light serves as not only a visual metaphor for his conversion, but also profoundly alludes to the Franciscan lesson that even those mired in darkness can hope to see the light of God. The right lateral canvas in the chapel, which depicts the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (Fig. 31), exhibits stylistic conventions similar to those of the Calling. Once again naturalism and tenebrism prevail, engaging the emotions of the viewers. The subject is not recounted in the Gospels, but rather emanates from hagiographic texts. According to these traditions, Saint Matthew traveled to Ethiopia, where King Hirtacus asked the apostle to convince his niece, the virgin Ephigenia, to be his wife. When Saint Matthew instead converted and consecrated her as a bride of Christ, the king ordered his execution while the saint was celebrating Mass at the altar. As in the story of his calling, details of the event are cursory and obscure; but the 1591 contract with D’Arpino, as we have seen, outlined specific details in terms of the iconography of the subject: the Martyrdom must take place in a temple at a raised altar, and Saint Matthew must be in vestments to celebrate Mass when he is killed by soldiers. Artistic suggestions included showing Matthew “where he is wounded and already fallen,… while in the temple there are many… terrified by the event, others appalled, and still others filled with compassion.”24 With only a few minor exceptions, Caravaggio followed these prescriptions. The scene unfolds in an interior, clearly a church (or temple), and an altar, raised on at least two steps, can be seen in the background. A cross can be seen on the front of the altar, and a burning candle is visible on its left edge. A light raking from an unseen source at the upper left (where the chapel’s lunette is situated) breaks the dramatic darkness that engulfs the scene, enhancing the corporeal bodies and thrusting them toward the viewer. Here, as prescribed, Caravaggio shows many figures, of different ages and social status, and in different attitudes. Yet, contrary to the contract, he does not include women: all the figures are male. They are not beautiful or idealized, but average, realistic earthly beings. The light draws attention to the center of the



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painting, illuminating the vicious snarl of the executioner, and the wrinkled brow and supine body of Saint Matthew below him in his vestments. As the contract suggested, Saint Matthew has already been wounded (evidenced by the blood on his robes), yet the final blow has not been inflicted. It is a scene filled with tragedy and pathos, and the only sign of the saint’s triumph in death is the angel, approaching from a cloud at the upper right, who hands Saint Matthew the palm of martyrdom. The angel is the only visible representative of the heavenly realm, yet he is treated in a very tangible and earthy manner: there is no burst of heavenly light, no overt symbolic or literal division between heaven and earth. The setting is once again nondescript (other than suggesting an interior of a church or temple), with only hints of an altar in the background, and what may be a baptismal pool in the foreground. Bellori remarked that the composition and movements in the Martyrdom were insufficient for the narrative, and that Caravaggio had made it over twice.25 X-­ray examination of the canvas has indeed revealed that what we see today does not represent Caravaggio’s original idea. His initial composition was more traditional: it included two female figures, a more precise architectural backdrop, and Saint Matthew being attacked by armed men, including one wearing a helmet. The changes made reflect the artist’s desire to place less emphasis on classical notions of composition or movement. Caravaggio instead focused on the figures and the frozen action, not the particulars of setting or demarcations between realms. The Martyrdom, like the Calling it faces, is an experiential event taking place in the present, and in particular, a moment before a spiritual transformation: the Calling captures a moment before Levi’s conversion, while the Martyrdom depicts the moment before Matthew’s passage to the afterlife. This emphasis can be related to the peculiar iconography in the foreground. One aspect of the painting has drawn much speculation by scholars. In Caravaggio’s final version of the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, three seminude male figures are placed in the foreground. Some critics have passed off this inclusion as a mere pictorial device, with these men as repoussoir figures, directing the eye toward the center. This interpretation has been largely dismissed, however, particularly after the cleaning of the Contarelli canvases in 1966, when Giovanni Urbani identified these seminude males as “neophytes.”26 Maurizio Marini agreed with this reading, adding that these neophytes are seated on the steps of a baptismal pool.27 The presence of such a pool would certainly explain the seminude male figures at the foreground corners, and the dark, apparently sunken void in the extreme foreground center. Howard

176 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Hibbard rejected this reading, however, based on the fact that “a pool never existed in the nave of a basilica.”28 Other hypotheses have been put forward, but the interpretation of neophytes awaiting baptism at a baptismal pool still remains the most convincing. Franca Trinchieri Camiz’s study on the Martyrdom points to the relevance of including a baptismal scene in the painting.29 According to Camiz, the most obvious reference to the apostolic mission is the act of baptism in accordance with Christ’s command—as indicated, interestingly, in the Gospel of Saint Matthew: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:18–20)30

Camiz further points out that Matthew Baptizing the King and Queen of Ethiopia was one of the original scenes included in the program in the 1565 contract with Muziano.31 She suggests that Cardinal Contarelli’s heir may have suggested a reference to the baptism be included in Caravaggio’s Martyrdom.32 The most provocative and interesting idea that Camiz proposes is that what we may be seeing here is an Ambrosian rite of baptism, which is described quite clearly in Carlo Borromeo’s 1577 Instructiones.33 Borromeo identified two types of baptismal ceremony that were largely practiced in the late cinquecento: the Ambrosian rite and the Roman. The Ambrosian rite prevailed in Milan, the diocese of Borromeo and where Caravaggio had spent his formative years. The Ambrosian rite reflected an early Christian form of baptism by immersing the baptisand. The Roman rite, however, practiced baptism by aspersion, the sprinkling of water on the baptisand’s head. Borromeo further explained that a baptistery should be placed in the middle of the chapel, and that it should be eleven cubits wide and deep enough so that the descent to it from the floor of the chapel consists of at least three steps. By the descent and moderate depth it should bear some resemblance to a sepulcher. At the bottom of the steps there should be a circular space with a diameter of seven cubits and sixteen runes. The baptismal basin into which the water is to flow should be located in the middle of this space.34

Camiz points out that subsequent liturgical handbooks prescribe similar directions, adding that an altar should be placed near the baptismal pool.35 She



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asserts that Caravaggio was familiar with this early baptismal ritual, as the Counter-­Reformation demonstrated great interest in the traditions and practices of the early church. This interest in the early Christian church also explains the connection between the reference to the rite of baptism and the martyrdom of Matthew. Early Christian architecture largely took the form of a centralized building. Baptisteries and martyria (memorial shrines for martyrs) appropriated the centralized plans of Roman funerary monuments. Moreover, the Bible is replete with references to water, linking it to both life and death. The early Church saw baptism as participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (AD 325–AD 389), Byzantine theologian and Doctor of the Church, made this connection explicit in the “The Oration on Holy Baptism” delivered in Constantinople on 6 January 381: “Let us then be buried with Christ by Baptism, that we may also rise with Him.”36 Borromeo placed great importance on baptism as noted by Giussano: “St. Charles had a magnificent baptistery erected near the principal entrance [of the Duomo, Milan].”37 Borromeo even revived the ancient custom of the archbishop himself baptizing with his own hands, and began administering baptism twice a year at Easter and Pentecost.38 Could not this familiarity with baptism as central to life and death be by way of Caravaggio’s experiences in Milan and exposure to Carlo Borromeo and his associates? Caravaggio’s final contribution to the Contarelli Chapel was the altarpiece depicting the Saint Matthew and the Angel. As noted, the altarpiece had originally been commissioned from Muziano in 1565, then in 1587 from the sculptor Cobaert. By 1591, when the contract with D’Arpino was drafted to complete the decoration of the chapel, Cobaert still had not delivered his sculptural group of Saint Matthew and the Angel. An addendum (ca. 1592–93) to D’Arpino’s contract thus indicated that he was also to paint an altarpiece.39 By 1599, however, D’Arpino had completed only the vault frescoes; that same year, Caravaggio was contracted to complete the two lateral paintings by mid-­1600. Then, on 8 and 12 January 1602, payments were made for the transport of Cobaert’s sculptural group from his home to the Contarelli Chapel; but on 30 January 1602, Cobaert was released from the responsibility of the commission, suggesting that his work must have been rejected by the church fathers of San Luigi dei Francesi. A week later, on 7 February 1602, a contract was drawn up between Giacomo Crescenzi, executor of Cardinal Contarelli’s will, and Caravaggio for the execution of the altarpiece of Saint Matthew and the Angel with the added stipulation that “should the painting not satisfy the requirements of the abbot Michel Angelo will bear the expense

178 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo of replacing the painting with one that does.”40 The condition regarding replacement of the altarpiece if it did not satisfy the abbot was surely added due to displeasure with Cobaert’s work. The altarpiece (Saint Matthew and the Angel; Fig. 32), formerly in the Kaiser-­Friedrich-­Museum in Berlin (but destroyed in World War II), depicted Saint Matthew, seated with legs crossed on a medieval X-­chair, holding his Gospel propped on his lap, while a beautiful angel stands to his left apparently guiding his hand. The medieval X-­chair is significant: as Angela Hass has indicated, it is the same X-­chair in which Levi sits at the end of the table at the far left in the Calling of Saint Matthew (see Fig. 30).41 This further connects the two personages as Saint Matthew and, more important, supports the identification of the younger man in the Calling as the true Matthew. According to Baglione, this altarpiece did not please anyone, and thus was taken by Marchese Giustiniani. Bellori, however, gives a fuller account: After he had finished the central picture of St. Matthew and installed it on the altar, the priests took it down, saying that the figure with its legs crossed and its feet rudely exposed to the public had neither decorum nor the appearance of a saint. Caravaggio was in despair at such an outrage over his first work in a church, when Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani acted in his favor and freed him from this predicament. So, intervening with the priests, he took the painting for himself and had Caravaggio do a different one, which is now to be seen above the altar. And to honor the first painting more he took it to his house.42

Caravaggio scholars tend to conclude that a lack of decorum was the issue, whether from the close proximity of Saint Matthew and the angel, or from Matthew’s ignoble pose, particularly his foreshortened dirty foot, which projects toward the altar. It is certainly true that a second version was made by the artist, which now still stands above the altar, and that the marchese acquired the first version, as it appears in the 1638 inventory of his collection.43 What cannot be established, however, is that the altarpiece was, in fact, rejected. It is not a coincidence that in Caravaggio’s first version of the altarpiece for the Contarelli Chapel we find the overt appearance of bare feet. This pictorial device is intrinsic to Caravaggio’s formulation of sacred imagery that could connect with everyday viewers. The bare legs and feet of Saint Matthew may have upset Bellori’s classical sensibilities, but we have no documentation, other than his word, to validate his suggestion that this was the reason for the altarpiece’s rejection, if indeed it was rejected. In 1990, Maurizio Calvesi proposed that the function of Saint Matthew’s feet had been misread, and



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in fact can be linked to the humble example of Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo.44 Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who had endeavored to follow his cousin’s example, according to Calvesi, may have in fact suggested this motif to the young artist. The clue can be found in Federico’s 1624 treatise on sacred painting, De pictura sacra, in which he explains that, for angels, the exhibition of bare feet indicates “that angels are prepared to carry out God’s every command, for Moses, Isaiah, and even the apostles were ordered to stand barefoot in order to carry out divine bidding.”45 In this context, the clearly visible bare feet of Caravaggio’s Saint Matthew signal his obedience to and faith in God—obedience and faith articulated visually through poverty and simplicity. It is worth noting that, according to Tommaso da Celano, Saint Francis renounced his worldly goods on 24 February 1208 when he heard the Gospel at Mass on the Feast of Saint Matthew.46 According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Christ called his twelve apostles he directed them as follows: But go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And going, preach, saying: The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: freely have you received, freely give. Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff. (Matthew 10:6–10)

The bare feet thus function as reminders not only of apostolic poverty, but also of the essential quality of humility before God. In any event, it did not take long for Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani to acquire the first version of the altarpiece for his own collection. The second version (The Inspiration of Saint Matthew; Fig. 33), which still hangs above the altar in the Contarelli Chapel, conforms to the stylistic conventions employed in the lateral canvases. Here, however, the saintliness of Matthew is signified by a clear halo circling his head, an appropriate inclusion for an altarpiece. His figure, nevertheless, is depicted in human terms, and the prominence of his bare feet is indisputable. Caravaggio was not compelled to resort to the traditional manner of painting a beautiful, perfect, and heroic figure to suggest a divine being. Saint Matthew’s face and hands are wrinkled, and he half-­stands, half-­kneels precariously on the stool at his writing table. The angel above him, who seems to count off items for Matthew’s Gospel, is a heavenly being; but like the angel in the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (see Fig. 31), he too is portrayed without heavenly accoutrements and divine scenography. The inky blackness of the background and the raking light from the upper left enhance the verity of Saint Matthew’s red and orange robes,

180 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo and of his corporeal body. Caravaggio freezes the moment at the angel’s first appearance, which startles Matthew, jarring him from his seated position. His abrupt movement has rocked the stool, and as a result, its left leg hangs precariously beyond the ledge into the space of the chapel and toward the viewer. Caravaggio thus has given his Saint Matthew an attention-­grabbing and quite human reaction, once again (as in the Calling and Martyrdom) capturing a moment before: he is about to pen his gospel. Returning to the question of the reception of the first version: Why would a second version have been made if, in fact, the first was not rejected? Is there a possibility that Marchese Giustiniani simply wanted the altarpiece for himself, requiring that a replacement be made for the chapel? These questions remain to be answered; yet it cannot be suggested that the first version of the altarpiece was rejected because of the crudely bare feet, as bare feet abound in all of the canvases in the Contarelli Chapel. Saint Matthew in particular is shown barefoot by Caravaggio—except in the Calling, where he is not yet Matthew: he is still Levi, the shod tax collector (whereas Christ and Saint Peter are barefoot). The humility denoted by his bare feet is central to the decoration, and to Matthew’s life. According to the thirteenth-­century The Golden Legend, Matthew’s humility was one of the principal qualities that placed him among the blessed. He was unashamed of his former life as a publican, and did not deflect the fact that he had been a sinner: he wanted it to be known that a sinner like himself could be pardoned for his sins and receive the gift of grace.47 This aspect of his life is eloquently conveyed in the two lateral canvases. In the Calling, Levi still sits primarily in darkness, as he is still absorbed in his earthly life as a tax collector; but truth, realization, and conversion are clearly depicted as imminent. In the Martyrdom, the foregrounding of those awaiting baptism conveys the possibility of being reborn through Christ, once past sins were washed away. The fact that the executioner himself is seminude, with merely a loincloth to cover his lower torso, includes him among those who may be cleansed of sin. The memory of Carlo Borromeo’s humility and piety, which lived on among his close friends and associates, certainly informed Caravaggio’s canvases in the Contarelli Chapel. Humility is the starting point for one’s path to divine grace, and Caravaggio recognized this not only by emphasizing bare feet among the humble, but also by showing that he is not among them. In the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew there is a bearded (and shod) figure with dark hair in the left background (Fig. 34) who has largely been accepted as a self-­ portrait of the artist. He appears to be fleeing and has momentarily stopped



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to look back at the violent scene. His face shows concern, and his left hand stretches outward in the direction of the helpless Matthew. He wants to assist, but he cannot. He is not ready to walk the path of humility and charity. Caravaggio, at this stage in his life, does not see himself as worthy of being among the faithful.

Cerasi Chapel The success of his Contarelli Calling and Martyrdom brought Caravaggio another significant chapel commission in 1600: the opportunity to provide two large lateral paintings for the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. The commission came from the treasurer general of Pope Clement VIII, Tiberio Cerasi, who acquired the chapel on 8 July 1600 from the Augustinian fathers of the Congregazione di Lombardia in Santa Maria del Popolo. There are several interesting pieces of information provided in the contract, dated 24 September 1600.48 First, while the subjects of the paintings were specified—the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Martyrdom of Saint Peter—the iconography (and style) was left to the judgment of the painter. Second, Vincenzo Giustiniani, who already owned several paintings by the artist, was named the banker of the transactions between Cerasi and the artist. Third, and most significant, is that the contract refers to the artist as “egregius in Urbe pictor” (distinguished painter of Rome). Although the contract indicates that Caravaggio was asked to submit designs for the painting, no such preliminary designs by the artist have surfaced. In light of his nomination as a “distinguished painter of Rome,” this request may merely reflect an acknowledgment of the Council of Trent decree on images, which stated that no new images should be placed in a church without first receiving the bishop’s approval.49 The Oratorians, in fact, had asked Scipione Pulzone to provide a cartone of his Crucifixion (1585–90), before its installment in Santa Maria in Vallicella.50 Moreover, in December 1593, Cardinal and Vicar General of Rome, Girolamo Rusticucci (1537–1603), rigorously promoted a decree requiring artists to submit a cartoon or sketch of their paintings for chapels and churches for approval.51 There is no evidence that Caravaggio complied with the contract and submitted preliminary sketches. Nevertheless, there are suggestions that two versions of the lateral paintings for the Cerasi Chapel were executed, and therefore another implication of works rejected.

182 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo The first notice of two versions having been made due to rejection of the first appears in Baglione’s biography of the artist: In Santa Maria del Popolo on the right side of the high altar in the chapel of the Cerasi family, above on the wall there are his Crucifixion of St. Peter and on the opposite side the conversion of St. Paul. At first these two pictures had been painted in a different style, but because they did not please the patron, [the future] Cardinal Sannesio took them; in their place he painted the two oil paintings that can be seen there today, since he did not use any other medium. And—so to speak—Fortune and Fame carried him along.52

Baglione does not mention the reasons behind the rejection, and one must also question the validity of his words. Written in 1642, more than thirty years after the death of Caravaggio, Baglione clearly still harbored animosity for the artist. In August 1603, Baglione had charged Caravaggio with libel, accusing him of tarnishing his reputation by circulating acrimonious remarks and poems around Rome. Caravaggio was brought to trial (documents of the testimonies are extant), found guilty, and imprisoned in the Tor di Nona for two weeks.53 Even had the trial come out differently, Baglione’s dislike for the artist is evident throughout the biography. The accuracy of Baglione’s account, moreover, must be questioned in that he is the only source who mentions two versions and a rejection. We also know that Caravaggio received final payment of 50 scudi for the Cerasi Chapel laterals on 10 November 1601.54 The issue is complicated, however, by the fact that another painting of the Conversion of Saint Paul by Caravaggio has surfaced. The painting in question, currently in the Odescalchi Balbi Collection in Rome, has a complex provenance; but there is an inventory of Francesco Sannesio (heir to Giacomo, the cardinal), dated 19 February 1644, that lists “Two large paintings that represent a Saint Peter crucified and the other the conversion of Saint Paul, gilt frames.”55 There is no trace of the Crucifixion of Saint Peter from the Sannesio collection, but the Conversion of Saint Paul has been associated with the one currently in the Odescalchi Balbi Collection despite the absence of documentary evidence. The contract between Cerasi and Caravaggio clearly describes the Conversion of Saint Paul as a “mystery,” and that is what Caravaggio has delivered in the Cerasi Chapel canvas. The subject is drawn from the Acts of the Apostles, in which Saul (before converting and becoming Paul) is described as on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians:



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And it came to pass, as I was going and drawing nigh to Damascus, at mid-­day, that suddenly from heaven there shone round about me a great light: And falling on the ground, I heard a voice saying to me: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” And I answered: “Who art thou, Lord?” And he said to me: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.” And they that were with me saw indeed the light: but they heard not the voice of him that spoke with me. And I said: “What shall I do, Lord?” And the Lord said to me: “Arise and go to Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things that thou must do.” And whereas I did not see the brightness of that light, being led by the hand by my companions, I came to Damascus. (Acts 22:6–11)

Traditional representations of the subject are fundamentally similar. Artists from Fra Angelico to Michelangelo typically included several companions and their horses with Saul on his journey to Damascus, as described in Acts. All of them show him having fallen to the ground, but some show him with eyes directed to the sky, others shielding his eyes from the light. In the sky itself, almost all Italian paintings of the subject include the apparition of Christ among angels or a locus of brilliant light. Caravaggio, however, significantly diverged from this tradition. In the Conversion of Saint Paul (Fig. 35) in the Cerasi Chapel, Caravaggio pared down his composition to include one groomsman, one horse, and Saul. There is no emanation of brilliant light in the sky, nor the apparition of Christ and angels. The scene takes place in a nondescript setting marked merely by the earth of the ground, as the entire canvas is consumed by darkness. In a rather shallow space, closed off by the blackness of the background, a lone groomsman holds the bridle of Saul’s horse, one of whose hoofs is raised as if trying to avoid stepping on the rider, who has fallen to the ground. Saul is placed at an oblique angle to the frontal plane. He lies flat on his back, foreshortened toward the right corner of the canvas—which, as Leo Steinberg has pointed out, takes into consideration the placement of the viewer in front of the chapel looking at the canvas on the right wall.56 His hands are raised upward in an orantlike gesture reaching toward the light, which he does not see, as the biblical account indicates. His eyes are closed, and his head is angled slightly toward the right, the direction from which the light emanates from an unseen source outside the confines of the canvas. Here Caravaggio has accurately presented the viewer with the mystery of Paul’s conversion, a spiritually experiential rather than pictorially literal image. As Timothy Verdon describes, Caravaggio has represented “an internal and mysterious event, wrapped in light and silence.”57 Verdon has also aptly pointed to the significance of Saint Paul’s gesture, his arms outstretched in the orant pose, which early Christian artists used to

184 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo suggest prayer. The interest in the early Christian church (particularly the rediscovery and exploration of catacombs, in which Filippo Neri himself participated) explains Caravaggio’s use of an older gesture of prayer. How does prayer, however, fit into the story of the Conversion of Saint Paul? Verdon explains that the passage in Acts describing Saint Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus is preceded by a story of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, who, while being stoned to death, said a prayer: “Lord, lay not his sin to their charge.” (Acts 7:59) Saul was present at this event and heard Saint Stephen’s prayer. During his conversion, Saul, after falling on the ground, and hearing Jesus speak are a question—“Who art thou, Lord?”—but they are also a prayer: “The words heard as he watched Stephen die have finally penetrated the spirit of Saul…. That’s when the whole world collapses and the only words left are: ‘Who are you, Lord?’ They constitute prayer, supplication.”58 In the passage that follows this conversion, Christ speaks to a man named Ananias, informing him that the man who was persecuting the church is “to me a vessel of election, to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15–16) Verdon sees the orant gesture as signifying that Saul already shares in the experience of the Savior: “[W]ith Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me.”59 (Galatians 2:19–20) Saul, now filled with humility, is in the process of receiving divine grace. The mystery of the Conversion of Saint Paul is made relatable and palpable to the viewer through the artist’s stylistic choices. Caravaggio once more has confronted viewers with an image of unequaled naturalism, tangibility, and immediacy. He has removed all the traditional trappings of the miracle of Saint Paul’s conversion: we do not see the literal, heavenly appearance of Christ, but merely the divine light of grace. Light is the primary protagonist; it draws the viewer’s attention to the corporeal form of Saul, whose arms reach toward the divine light of God, demanding that the viewer identify with him and his spiritual experience. Moreover, Saul is depicted not as an exceptional being, but as a mere human—supine and vulnerable—in contemporary clothes, with dirt beneath his fingernails. Caravaggio presents the scene as a common travel accident, as if suggesting that it is through seemingly ordinary experiences that one attains spiritual enlightenment. The tenebrism in the Conversion of Saint Paul not only contributes to the mystery of the event, but also evokes the viewer’s imagination and participation. Caravaggio’s nondescript background invites one to compose the setting in the theater of one’s own mind. By breaking the barrier between



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the viewer and the painted image, by eliding the historical with the present, Caravaggio has provided the means for the viewer to become involved, to relive and thus share in Saul’s conversion, and ultimately to achieve the same spiritual cognition. The scene of the Crucifixion of Saint Peter (Fig. 36), on the left wall of the Cerasi Chapel, is isolated against Caravaggio’s archetypal black background. Other than the earth of the ground and a few stones, nothing more of the setting can be established. Like the Conversion facing it, the Crucifixion of Saint Peter functions both as a narrative and a devotional image. Its subject is based largely on tradition. The Gospel of John only hints at the death of Peter, through these words of Christ: Amen, amen, I say to thee, When thou wast younger, thou didst gird thyself and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and lead thee whither thou wouldst not. And this he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. (John 21:18–19)

Early church writers, such as Origen, interpreted this passage as indicating that Peter died by crucifixion, and that he desired to be crucified upside down, as he felt himself unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as Christ. The tradition of representing the crucifixion of Saint Peter varies little among earlier artists. Peter is typically shown already affixed to the vertical cross, surrounded by his executioners. The only artist to depart from this standard position of Peter on the cross, prior to Caravaggio, was Michelangelo. In his Crucifixion of Saint Peter in the Pauline Chapel, Peter is shown already affixed to the cross, but the cross itself is positioned at an oblique angle, as the soldiers are shown in the midst of raising it into position. This is the format that Caravaggio appropriated. It has been noted that Michelangelo’s Pauline Chapel frescoes may have served as inspiration for Caravaggio’s oils in the Cerasi Chapel, as the same two subjects are depicted opposite each other. Michelangelo also arranged the composition of each respective painting with respect to the viewer (primarily Pope Paul III) entering the chapel, much as Caravaggio did by foreshortening his title figures. But this is where the similarities end. Caravaggio’s judicious use of white projects the figures closer to the viewer. The scene is reduced to the essential actors, powerfully directing the viewer’s contemplation to the heart of the moment. It is clear from the composition of this canvas (as well as that of the Conversion of Saint Paul; see Fig. 35) that Caravaggio considered the viewer’s engagement. Leo Steinberg indicated that

186 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo the oblique perspective of Saint Peter’s cross conforms to the perspective of the spectator.60 The viewer looks directly into the face of Saint Peter, who has already been nailed to the cross. The executioners, in the midst of lifting the upside-­down cross to which Saint Peter is nailed, are anonymous, their faces hidden from view or engulfed in shadow. This both directs attention to Saint Peter and enhances their cruelty and unsympathetic natures. The viewer is clearly meant to identify not with their malice, but with Saint Peter’s quiet pain and isolation. As Paleotti had indicated in his Discorso, the Catholic church approved the representation of martyrdoms to the Christian populace as heroic insignia of the patience and great-­mindedness of the holy martyrs and trophies of their unconquered faith and glory…. [They] remind us of how incomparably greater the pains and afflictions of the martyrs were than the ones we are feeling in the infirmities and miseries of this life so that we learn to bear and disdain with virility things that may perturb us, faith in God and desire for his glory swelling within us.61

Caravaggio confronts the viewer with an aged, wrinkled Saint Peter with dirty hands and bare feet. He is exceptional, but he is not portrayed as such. In order to secure the viewer’s emotional and psychological connection with the saint, Caravaggio uses his mimetic powers to make Peter look as human and common as possible. Visually, Saint Peter seems like an average man from the popolo. Therefore, his unflinching faith and humility in the face of torture and impending death is impressed more strongly and permanently on the viewer’s heart and mind. Bellori had chastised Caravaggio for painting narratives “completely without action.”62 This quality, however, is what makes Caravaggio’s canvases so successful. They present viewers with a mystery, a presence, joining the devotional and the narrative seamlessly. Caravaggio’s Cerasi laterals follow Paleotti’s prescription that sacred images show “the saintly martyr practically materializ[ing]” so as to increase devotion that “wrenches the gut” (compunge le viscere) of the viewer; a response paramount to Carlo Borromeo’s own devotions before the vividly realistic sculptural tableaux at the Sacro Monte di Varallo.63

Vittrice Chapel Less than a year after completing the Cerasi laterals, Caravaggio received an important commission for Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova), the mother church of Neri’s Oratorians, consecrated in 1599. Caravaggio’s



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altarpiece of the Entombment (Fig. 37) was commissioned for the Cappella della Pietà, second chapel on the right, on 9 January 1602, and was to replace an older painting of the Pietà.64 Questions have long surrounded the identity of the patron. Many scholars have suggested that the altarpiece was commissioned by the chapel’s founder, Pietro Vittrice, who had been given the rights for the chapel in June 1577. Vittrice served as the guardaroba of Pope Gregory XIII and was closely associated with the Oratorians. Other scholars have argued that it was the Oratorians themselves who commissioned Caravaggio to execute the altarpiece. Lothar Sickel has convincingly demonstrated, however, that the altarpiece was commissioned by Girolamo Vittrice, Pietro’s nephew and heir, who already owned three works by Caravaggio.65 It had long been thought that it was only Pietro who had close ties with the Oratorians, but Girolamo may have been, at the very least, in close contact with them, as Sickel has suggested that he likely took over the patronage of the chapel.66 Two documents solidify Girolamo’s role as patron of Caravaggio’s Entombment. The first, dated 6 January 1602, is a notice from the Oratorian Fathers indicating that Caravaggio was commissioned to paint the altarpiece for the Chapel of the Pietà.67 The chapel at this time was in the midst of being expanded. There is no mention of the patron’s name, but Pietro Vittrice had already been dead for two years. This document, therefore, provides the earliest date for which we can ascribe the commission to Caravaggio. The second document, dated 6 September 1604, another notice from the Oratorian Fathers, secures Girolamo’s involvement: The painting of the Pietà, with its ornamented wooden frame, shall be given to the nephew of Signor Pietro Vittrice who has asked for it, since it was through his generosity that the new painting by Caravaggio was made; the said wooden ornament is of no use to this [new] painting.68

The nephew referred to here is none other than Girolamo, who is documented as his heir. The fact that the older painting of the Pietà was given to Girolamo, because a new painting was made by Caravaggio, provides a date for the altarpiece’s completion. The 1602 Oratorian document states that Caravaggio’s Entombment (Fig. 37) was reputed to be his masterpiece. Nearly all of the artist’s biographers mention this altarpiece and support its acknowledgment as Caravaggio’s best work.69 Neither the document nor the biographies mention the reasons why it was deemed so praiseworthy, but its power is undeniable. There are

188 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo still some questions regarding the subject of Caravaggio’s altarpiece, which today resides in the Pinacoteca Vaticana (while a copy of the painting is in situ). Some refer to it as a Pietà, motivated by documentation that identifies the chapel as dedicated to the Pietà and notes that Caravaggio’s altarpiece replaced an older one of the Pietà. There are certainly references to a Pietà here in the lamenting Marys in the background, and the pose of Christ, who calls to mind Michelangelo’s famous Pietà in San Pietro in Vaticano. Christ’s Entombment, however, is certainly the focal point, as his body is clearly being lowered to his tomb below (outside the picture plane). It is my contention that the success of this altarpiece, as conceded by the Oratorian Fathers and the artist’s biographers, can be attributed to Caravaggio’s perfected melding of two moments in Christ’s Passion, and to the balanced emphases on the devotional and narrative. Pontormo had attempted such an endeavor in his Capponi altarpiece (see Fig. 11) seventy-­seven years earlier, but with little success. It is in many respects a corrective of that Pontormo altarpiece, though it is unlikely that Caravaggio saw that painting in person.70 The circular movement and gazes of Pontormo’s figures undermines any focus to the painting or direction in which Christ’s body is being carried. These elements, combined with the mannerist devices, preclude the successful fusing of the devotional with the narrative. Caravaggio’s Vittrice Chapel altarpiece, however, does succeed in balancing the two. The vertical orientation of the figures alludes to the Deposition; the mourning gestures of the Virgin and the two Marys, and the affinities of Christ’s pose with Michelangelo’s Pietà in San Pietro in Vaticano, suggest the Pietà; while the carrying and lowering of the body of Christ signifies the Entombment. The canvas, however, is devoid of any narrative setting other than the stone slab on which the figures stand and the minimal vegetation in the foreground.71 Christ is being carried by Saint John the Evangelist and Nicodemus, both of whom bend at the waist, clearly suggesting that the body of Christ is being lowered. They stand on a stone slab, the corner of which projects toward the frontal plane. The tomb is situated beyond the lower confines of the canvas; but the placement of the canvas above the chapel altar profoundly merges the tomb of Christ with the altar below. This was a particularly important juxtaposition, for at Mass, the priest would elevate the Host, unifying it visually with the dead body of Christ in the altarpiece. The painting thus served a significant liturgical function as well, affirming the body of Christ as present in the Host. This was a crucial reaffirmation, as the doctrine of transubstantiation was harshly denied by the Protestants.



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The story of the Entombment is not depicted in a manner typical of narrative painting; it does not unfold in space and time. Christ, in fact, appears to be held in a position of presentation to the viewer. Saint John supports Christ’s upper torso, while Nicodemus holds his legs. His body is held horizontally, but tilted up slightly so his face and upper torso are more clearly visible to the viewer. The Virgin and the two Marys are depicted in gestures of mourning directly behind the men, so as not to obstruct the worshiper’s view. Mary of Cleophas at the far right looks upward with her hands spread and raised in the orant gesture, already remarked in the Cerasi Conversion of Saint Paul. Mary Magdalene stands before her with head bowed in grief, resembling not only the lowered head of the artist’s earlier Penitent Magdalen (see Fig. 26), but especially the mournful pose of the Magdalene in Caravaggio’s later Death of the Virgin (Fig. 39). The sense that Christ is being presented to the viewer is particularly underscored by the direct, staring gaze of Nicodemus, who seems to demand our attention. Caravaggio displays the body of Christ against the white sheet that will enshroud it, drawing our gaze to his form and ensuring that the light falls most forcefully on him. He also uses white judiciously elsewhere in the image: in the drapery of the Virgin and the sleeves of the two Marys. These secondary fields of white, being smaller, do not draw the focus away from Christ; but they do detach the group of figures from the dark background, and push them forward, creating a sense of immediacy and tangibility. As Marcia B. Hall describes, “The strategy of moving the mourners closer to the worshiper works psychologically to make their grief more urgent to us.”72 Worshipers at the Vittrice Chapel are urged to focus on Caravaggio’s Entombment by its immediacy and verisimilitude. We are confronted with figures that are tangible and real and a scene that projects out toward our space. The body of Christ is held forth in an unending moment of presentation. The intense effects of light and strong contours underscore the static poses and gestures, the overall absence of narrative action that emphasizes its iconic quality. This confrontation, particularly with the body of Christ, is accentuated by the realism of the figures. These are not idealized, beautiful, perfect beings: Christ is depicted with a pallor and open mouth that emphasize his death and thus sacrifice. The Virgin, in particular, is portrayed realistically, at an age befitting the mother of a thirty-­three-­year-­old man. In so doing, Caravaggio flings artistic tradition to the wind; but this is an important deviation, as already discussed in Chapter 3, Paleotti had explicitly stated that at Christ’s death, the Virgin should be portrayed as an older woman.73 We are therefore presented with a world that is truthful and reflects our own. The

190 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo “exacting naturalism” and the portrayal of the affetti were the elements that Bellori ironically esteemed the most.74 The extraction of the scene from a narrative setting and its placement before a dark background further induces the viewer to meditate on it not only as a historical event, but also as one occurring in the present. As he had done for the laterals in the Contarelli and Cerasi Chapels, Caravaggio transforms his Entombment altarpiece into an experiential event. The darkness both pushes the figures forward and isolates them, engaging the full attention and emotions of the viewer. Worshipers are intended to venerate Christ and his sacrifice for mankind, but are meanwhile encouraged to visualize and meditate upon his life and Passion—even his imminent Resurrection. The latter is poignantly suggested by the fingers of Saint John’s right hand on the wound in Christ’s side, evoking Saint Thomas’s later disbelief that Christ had resurrected, which was not quelled until he could see and feel the wound. The mechanics of painted and imagined scenes worked in tandem, with tangibility encouraging the worshiper to further visualization and meditation through focalizing on the tangible figures. In addition to offering tangible images for vivid meditation, Caravaggio’s Entombment in the Chiesa Nuova underscores, through bare feet, the quality of humility—a quality that Carlo Borromeo had perfectly embodied. Both Nicodemus and Christ are shown barefoot; and as Saint John stands a little behind Nicodemus, Christ’s body is at a slight angle, bringing his feet nearer to those worshiping in the Vittrice Chapel.

Cavalletti Chapel The steady succession of Caravaggio’s public commissions supports the orthodoxy of the artist’s work, not to mention its effectiveness in inciting devotion through his signature tenebrism and naturalism. Caravaggio’s awareness of the intricate relationship between art and devotion is clearly demonstrated in his altarpiece of the Madonna di Loreto (Fig. 38) for the Cavalletti Chapel in Sant’Agostino, Rome. On 19 July, Marchese Ermete Cavalletti left instructions and the sum of 500 scudi in his testament to secure the acquisition and completion of the decoration of a chapel in Sant’Agostino. A document dated 4 September 1603 indicates that the heirs of Ermete (who died in 1602) acquired the first chapel on the left. It was formerly dedicated to Mary Magdalene, and was now to be rededicated to Our Lady of Loreto. There is no



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mention of the altarpiece or Caravaggio in the surviving Sant’Agostino documents. Nevertheless, nearly all the artist’s biographers mentions Caravaggio’s altarpiece, and Bellori specifically indicates that it was painted for the “Cavalletti Chapel.”75 The Madonna di Loreto is not a biblical narrative, but rather a contemporary one that speaks volumes about the Catholic Church’s honored tradition of pilgrimages and the veneration of relics. According to a thirteenth-­ century legend, the Virgin’s house was transported from Nazareth to Loreto on the wings of angels. Rather than depicting this translation of her home, Caravaggio chose to represent a contemporary miracle. Two plebeian individuals, a man and a woman, have made a pilgrimage to the Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto, which had been built around the Virgin’s house during the sixteenth century. They kneel before the threshold of the Virgin’s house inside the basilica in prayer. An actual statue of the Madonna and Child, in fact, stood in a niche in the Santa Casa (Holy House), and popular prints of the late cinquecento reflect this.76 The painting, however, suggests that the pilgrims’ devotions are directed to the real Madonna and Child, not mere statues: Caravaggio has made art come to life. As a reward for their demonstration of faith, the Virgin, with the Christ Child in hand, has miraculously appeared before the pilgrims. The Virgin, with a thin halo around her head, stands barefoot, weightless on her toes— clearly a vision—yet the Virgin and Child’s corporeal forms suggest physical presence. Caravaggio has not only managed visually to support the importance of pilgrimages and the veneration of relics, but has also given visual proof of divine rewards even for the poor, common members of the faithful. The prominent dirty, bare feet of the male pilgrim may serve as a visual cue, that he and his female companion are intended to represent every pilgrim; not only those who traveled to Loreto, but especially Rome. There is reason to believe, however, that here we also have donor portraits. The painting was commissioned by Orinzia de’ Rossi, widow and executor of the will of Ermete Cavalletti, who was a member of the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini.77 The subject of the altarpiece (also called the Madonna dei Pellegrini) was specified in the contract of 1603, and its choice was undoubtedly due to Ermete’s devotion and his involvement in organizing the confraternity’s pilgrimage to Loreto in 1602.78 In 1999, Alessandro Zuccari suggested the pilgrims in Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto may be portraits of Ermete and his wife, Orinzia.79 Pamela M. Jones has pointed out

192 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo that the age of the male pilgrim does seem to jibe with that of Ermete, who died at 46.80 Moreover, the woman appears significantly older, making her unlikely as a portrait of Orinzia. Although Jones has suggested that they may be spiritual likenesses rather than precise portraits, it seems more likely that what we have collapsed within these figures of common pilgrims are portraits of Ermete and his mother, making their relationship to the Virgin and Christ Child more palpable. If we accept this identification, then we find in this altarpiece a very personal votive image. The earthly mother and son are not merely inserted into the painting; nor are they being introduced by a saint serving as intercessor between the human and divine. Rather, this pair of pilgrims interacts directly with the two sacred figures at the Santa Casa. To viewers other than the Cavalletti patrons, however, these two figures would have represented every plebeian Christian pilgrim—poor, barefoot, and dirty. Caravaggio here has effectively reconstructed the immediacy and stillness of early icons; but more important, he references an earlier tradition of devotional diptychs, particularly from the Netherlands, in which the dutiful, praying donor on one panel faces the Virgin and Child portrayed on the other. He has modernized this, however, by merging the sacred figures and praying faithful into one image, where they communicate with one another directly. Caravaggio here has combined not a biblical but a contemporary narrative with the devotional, specifically, the practice of pilgrimage and devotion to the Santa Casa in Loreto. The image makes clear that the quality of humility is not restricted to the apostles or the divine, but is a condition necessary in all Christians. This is poignantly demonstrated in the kneeling pilgrims, especially the man, whose bare and dirty feet are overtly displayed to the viewer. Yet these wayfarers were the focus of much criticism by Caravaggio’s biographers. Baglione singles out the pilgrims, noting “one of them has muddy feet and the other wears a soiled and torn cap; and because of this pettiness in the details of a grand painting the public made a great fuss over it.”81 Bellori includes the Madonna di Loreto among the offensive public works by Caravaggio because “we are presented with the filthy feet of the pilgrim.”82 Scannelli, however, who is overall less biased than Baglione and Bellori, makes an important observation about this altarpiece: In the church of Sant’Agostino, near the entrance, in the first chapel at the left, there is a painting that represents on its right [sic] side the standing Virgin holding the Holy Child to her neck; at the left [sic] side a pilgrim is kneeling with an old woman in the act of devotion; and whoever comes to view this cannot but admit that



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their spirit is well disposed, strengthened by their faith with the pure simplicity of the heart when worshipping the image.83

Although Scannelli seems to have only seen a print of the painting (based on his reversed placement of the Virgin and pilgrims), he clearly recognizes the significance of its iconography. The barefoot, kneeling pilgrims, according to Scannelli, appropriately demonstrate acts of devotion, pointing to their simplicity, their pureness of heart, and most of all, their faith. Here Scannelli points to these pilgrims worshiping an image (that is, the niche statue, now come to life), which serves as not only an appropriate model for image veneration, but soundly supports the veneration of both images and relics, long disavowed by the Protestants. Moreover, Marco Pupillo has noted that the wall in Caravaggio’s painting resembles one in the Spanish Jesuit Gaspare Loarte’s description of the actual walls of the Santa Casa, and Alessandro Zuccari has proposed a correspondence between the pilgrims in Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto and the actual modes of veneration at the shrine of Loreto.84 If these correspondences are accurate, the painting becomes an even more powerful and relevant response to Protestant criticism on Catholic veneration of relics and especially images. It is significant to note in this context that Borromeo had made his own pilgrimages to the Santa Casa in Loreto by foot, “his spirit intent upon God, meditating, praying, and saying psalms the whole way.”85 Giussano recounts that upon his arrival, the archbishop “went at once to the shrine, and remained there all night in prayer.”86 The next morning being the Nativity of our Blessed Lady, one of the principal feasts there, he sang Mass and preached with such fervour on the love of God, whose only begotten son had taken flesh for our salvation in that poor little room and had dwelt there in poverty and humility many years, that he drew tears from the eyes of all present.87

As the Council of Trent decree on images stated, images of Christ, Virgin, and saints are to be given due honor and veneration in “which we kiss and before which we… prostrate ourselves.”88 Caravaggio’s pilgrims, kneeling reverently before an image of the Virgin and Child, embody humility, and that makes them worthy of divine grace: according to Proverbs 3:34, “He shall scorn the scorners, and to the meek he will give grace.” Such humility, of course, had been exemplified for Caravaggio by Carlo Borromeo—who, like Ermete Cavalletti and the artist, was associated with the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini.89

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Cherubini Chapel A similar, effortless melding of the devotional and narrative can be seen in Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin (Fig. 39). In 1601, Laerzio Cherubini, a jurist and friend of Cardinal del Monte and Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, commissioned Caravaggio to paint an altarpiece for his burial chapel in Santa Maria della Scala.90 (The painting now hangs in the Louvre.) N. Randolph Parks discovered the original contract, dated 14 June 1601, in the Archivio di Stato in Rome, and it reveals several important facts: for instance, that Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani would provide the appraisal for the painting, and that Caravaggio was living in the house of Cardinal Mattei.91 By 1601, Caravaggio had moved out of Del Monte’s Palazzo Madama and into the house of Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, who shared it with his brothers, Ciriaco and Asdrubale.92 The Mattei, in fact, would later commission several works by the artist (see Chapter 6). The contract stipulated that the altarpiece was to be completed in a year; however, Cherubini’s testament, dated a year later (4 August 1602), indicates that the architecture of the chapel was not yet complete. Based on stylistic considerations, the altarpiece has been dated ca. 1605–6. The contract also identified the subject of the painting as a transito of the Virgin (her passage from death to heaven, i.e., her Assumption). Nothing is said about Mary’s death or Assumption in the Bible, and thus the subject derives solely from later writings that expanded on the life of the Virgin. In art, however, the earliest tradition was to show her on her bed with the apostles gathered around her, typically with the inclusion of the Virgin’s heavenly reunion with Christ above. Cinquecento and seicento variations most often show the apostles surrounding the empty tomb of the Virgin below and the assumed Virgin above, surrounded by angels. Caravaggio departs from both traditions: the dead Virgin is shown on her bed, surrounded by mourners; there is no heavenly apparition above, and no suggestion of an Assumption or eventual passage from death to heaven.93 Death of the Virgin is completely earthbound. The scene takes place indoors, marked by the thin line of ceiling at the top, and the dramatic red cloth canopy that hangs above the Virgin’s body. The Virgin lies on a bed (or table), weighted by the gravity of death, dressed in a contemporary red dress; there is a thin halo around her head. There is a mourning female figure in the foreground, typically identified as Mary Magdalene, and the apostles, in various stages of grief, surround the Virgin on the other three sides.94 The room is consumed in dark shadows, broken only



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by the light emanating from the upper left, outside the canvas, to illuminate the body; this enhances not only the figures’ relief and tangibility but also the solemnity of the scene. Once again, Caravaggio refers to the iconic traditions, but perhaps not as successfully as his earlier altarpieces. Iconic stillness and tangible presence pervade, but the implicit presentation of the scene does not involve a direct address with the viewer. Nevertheless, profound pathos permeates every inch of the canvas. Sacred paintings must be able to move the emotions of the viewer, and this altarpiece certainly does. So then, why was it rejected? According to his early biographers, the fathers of Santa Maria della Scala rejected the work because the Madonna was shown bare-­legged, swollen, and modeled after a dead woman, a prostitute no less. The often sensational narratives of Caravaggio’s personality, as characterized by those biographers, make it easy to believe that his decision to use live models—including prostitutes— for his sacred protagonists was a sign of defiance, proof of his indecorousness. The actual reason behind the use of models, however, seems to have less (or nothing) to do with impropriety, and more to do with practicality (ease of obtaining prostitutes as models), while employing naturalism as the common language through which to reach—and touch—the hearts of the simple, uneducated populace. Moreover, one must always question the validity of the biographers’ accounts: Baglione’s and Bellori’s low estimation of Caravaggio’s work can be explained by their own personal biases; but the alleged indecorousness of Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin may have been largely based on Giulio Mancini’s earlier account, which itself is highly problematic. Mancini is the first to mention that the altarpiece was rejected because he used “some dirty prostitute from the Ortaccio” as his model for the Virgin.95 Giulio Mancini’s letter to his brother Deifebo in Siena, dated 14 October 1606, elucidates his appraisal of Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin, in the process undermining the suggestion that it was rejected outright. Mancini indicates the altarpiece was removed by the Carmelite brothers because of “its lasciviousness and lack of decorum,” yet he deemed it “pleasing” enough to make a bid and attempt to acquire it.96 Apparently, the altarpiece was not too indecorous for Mancini’s taste, as he sought to buy it for himself—and most earnestly, I might add. There are five subsequent letters to his brother in Siena discussing his hopes of acquiring the altarpiece. The above letter, moreover, clearly indicates that the altarpiece was in fact initially accepted and hung in the chapel: Mancini notes that the Carmelite brothers of Santa Maria della Scala “had it removed”—meaning it had already been in place.

196 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo A letter dated 17 February 1607 further validates that the altarpiece had been in situ. Giovanni Magno, the Roman agent of the duke of Mantua, Vincenzo I Gonzaga, wrote to the duke’s chancellor, Annibale Chieppo, indicating that he had seen the painting that the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens admired, adding: “[Caravaggio is] the most famous modern painter in Rome, and this canvas is reputed to be the best of the works he has done, many factors favor the painting, and truly one sees certain parts that are quite exquisite.”97 The fact that Magno explicitly stated that he had seen the painting, and then lauded it without any mention of its rejection, calls into question Mancini’s words to his brother in October 1606. In fact, it is not until 24 February 1607 that a rejection is mentioned by Magno in a letter to Chieppo. The painting was in fact acquired by the duke of Mantua, through the intervention of Magno, Chieppo, and Rubens, but only after it been exhibited. In a letter of 7 April 1607, Magno indicates that it had “been necessary to allow the painters of the town to visit this week to see the painting recently purchased because of its fame and the curiosity it had evoked in many.”98 One has to question if in fact the altarpiece even had been rejected, if it evoked such praise. It seems likely that the rejection proposed by Mancini in 1606 may have been a means to deflect attention from the fact that he was trying to acquire the painting for himself. It seems unlikely that the painting would have been put into place, then found indecorous, and taken down. Moreover, Caravaggio’s portrayal of Mary as an everyday corpse is perfectly in keeping with Cardinal Baronio’s prescription in his Annales ecclesiastici, which underscored the importance of the physical death of the Virgin as an earthly being.99 The communication between an altarpiece showing the Death of the Virgin and the viewer is forged not through direct address, as for sacred portraits in early icons, but rather through the fundamental and universal experience of grief. What better way to communicate the grief of the apostles than to remind worshipers of the losses they have experienced with the deaths of their own loved ones. (This evokes the kind of emotional appeal to the viewer found in posticonoclastic icons, such as one in the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Greece, where the Virgin’s grief for her dead son is underscored by her expression and gesture.) Caravaggio’s ordinary yet sacred figures communicate through their grief, their tangibility (fostered by the dark, tenebristic setting), and their plebeian appearance. The bare feet—a motif found in nearly all of Caravaggio’s church paintings—visually ground the sacred figures and indicate not only the humility of the sacred protagonists, but their commonness. The Virgin’s bare feet are



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particularly prominent, as they extend over the edge of the bed/table. Beneath them is a copper basin, which must refer to Christ’s washing of the apostles’ feet, a lesson in humility. These are not otherworldly, exceptional saints— clean, beautiful, and elaborately dressed—but common folk, who experience pain as profoundly as anyone else.

Altar of Saint Anne On 1 December 1605, the Confraternity of the Palafrenieri (Papal Grooms) commissioned Caravaggio to paint an altarpiece intended for the altar of Saint Anne in San Pietro in Vaticano. There are several documents referring to the payments made to Caravaggio, the transfer and the installation of the painting in the basilica, and most important, the certification of the artist: “I Michel’Ang.o da Caravaggio, am content and satisfied with the picture that I have painted for the Company of Saint Anne, in faith I have written and underwritten this 8th day of April 1606.”100 The altarpiece, the Madonna dei Palafrenieri (Fig. 40), was therefore completed around 8 April 1606 and was installed by mid-­April that same year. This is the final public commission that Caravaggio received before fleeing Rome in 1606, and an important one, for it was intended for San Pietro in Vaticano. The painting depicts three standing figures: the Virgin, the Christ Child, and the Virgin’s mother, Saint Anne. The Virgin is depicted in a contemporary red dress, supporting and actively helping the Christ Child step on a snake. Their joint effort is emphasized by the fact that the Virgin’s bare left foot is placed directly on the snake, while the Christ Child’s left foot is placed squarely on top of his mother’s. The realistically elder Saint Anne stands to the right, hands clasped over her abdomen, dressed in a purple garment. The subject is not a narrative, but rather an allegory. The motif of the Virgin and Christ Child crushing a serpent symbolized the crushing of sin and heresy—a theme more relevant since the onset of the Protestant Reformation. The Virgin, who traditionally has represented the church, has also been referred to as the Second Eve, she who will redeem Eve’s original sin. The Virgin’s active role in crushing the serpent therefore refers not only to the church’s determination to conquer heresy, but also the Virgin’s role in the redemption of mankind. A prefiguration of the Virgin’s redemptive act can be found in Genesis. After Adam and Eve picked and ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, God asked Eve “Why hast thou done this?” (3:13) Eve

198 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo replied that the serpent had deceived her. Then God spoke these words to the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (3:15) The use of the pronoun “she” has through tradition been interpreted as a reference to the Virgin Mary. The serpent therefore also symbolizes original sin, and the Virgin and her son together stomp out the sin of Eve. There is thus a clear emphasis on the Virgin’s role in the redemption of humanity—a role significantly denounced by the Protestants. The Catholic position favored Mary, but the Protestants argued it was Christ who had stomped on the serpent. A papal bull of 1569, however, decreed that the Virgin, with the assistance of the Christ Child, had bruised the serpent’s head, and this is what Caravaggio depicts in his Madonna dei Palafrenieri. The odd placement of the Virgin’s left foot on the head of the serpent, and of her son’s left foot directly on hers, enacts this interpretation clearly and forcefully. Doctrinally, Caravaggio’s altarpiece is in perfect conformity with the Counter-­Reformation church. The image closely intimates a devotional function, with Caravaggio’s characteristic black background and the forceful light that together isolates and highlights the figures, while evoking their tangible presence. However, as the altar was dedicated to Saint Anne, there is cause to question Caravaggio’s choice in seeming to present Mary as a more significant figure than her mother, Saint Anne. Scholars have long remarked on the ignoble depiction of Saint Anne as an old hag and as a mere observer, cast to the side. It was of course appropriate to show Saint Anne as an older woman: as Paleotti had noted in his Discorso, the ages of sacred figures should be depicted accurately. Moreover, the fact that Caravaggio had included Saint Anne in the scene already, on a basic level, satisfied the altar’s dedication to her, and both she and her daughter have thin halos (tilted along the same diagonal), which joins them in a significant way. There is also an allusion to the Immaculate Conception, in which Saint Anne figures prominently. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was the belief that Mary had been born without sin, and thus that Saint Anne too was pure, sinless, and played a role in redeeming mankind. This belief emerged in late antiquity, but was not declared as doctrine until 1854. In 1477, however, the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV had introduced the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had seen increasing acceptance since, and particularly during the Counter-­Reformation, as this was yet another Catholic doctrine that the Protestants denounced. The Council of Trent, in fact decreed:



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If anyone shall say that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he who falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the contrary, that throughout his whole life he can avoid all sins even venial sins, except by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin: let him be anathema.101

Based on apocryphal accounts, it was believed that Anne, after years of barrenness, had conceived Mary in extreme old age. Images that show the embrace (or kiss) between Anne and her husband, Joachim, at Jerusalem’s Golden Gate, often symbolized the conception of Mary. It was, in fact, according to the Franciscans that “their kiss that brought about Mary’s conception and this was therefore the first redemptive act of God.”102 This belief pointed to Mary, like Christ, having been conceived without sin, and thus pure. The juxtaposition of the conceptions of Christ and Mary was emphasized by both Mary and Saint Anne having received a divine message from an angel saying that they would conceive Christ and Mary, respectively. Thus both conceptions were sinless and miracles of divine intervention. Although the Immaculate Conception was typically seen as signifying the importance and purity of Mary, Caravaggio has here, in his Madonna dei Palafrenieri, given Saint Anne special emphasis. She is the tallest figure of the group and stands with solemn dignity, watching her grandson. Her hands are clasped across her abdomen, alluding to her special conception without sin. Though the light primarily hits the figures of the Virgin and Christ Child, Saint Anne stands out in her stillness: she is isolated and iconic, presented to the viewer more as a subject of devotion than as a protagonist in the action occurring to her right. The Madonna dei Palafrenieri is yet another Caravaggio to which the charge of rejection has been attached. According to Baglione, “This work was painted for the Grooms of the Palace; but it was removed on the orders of the Cardinals in charge of St. Peter’s and subsequently given by the Palafrenieri to Cardinal Scipione Borghese.”103 Among the works of Caravaggio that Bellori mentions were met with dissatisfaction, and taken down from altars, was the picture “of St. Anne… removed from one of the minor altars of St. Peter’s because of the offensive portrayal of the Virgin with the nude Christ child, as we can see in the Villa Borghese.”104 Bellori suggests that the rejection was due to a lack of decorum, possibly referencing the visible décolletage of the Virgin and the Christ Child’s full nudity. Yet the former seems problematic, as Bellori seemed to have no problem with the similar appearance of the Virgin’s décolletage in the Madonna di Loreto (see Fig. 38), which seems to have used the same model. The Christ Child’s nudity, on the other hand, may have been

200 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo more of the issue, as the post-­Tridentine writers proscribed nudity in sacred images. The Flemish theologian Johannes Molanus, in particular, writing in his De picturis et imaginibus sacris—a treatise both Carlo Borromeo and Paleotti owned (see Chapter 3)—condemned the portrayal of the Christ Child nude: It is well known that artists often paint or sculpt the infant Jesus naked; but for this they are widely criticized by men of no little piety and wisdom. For what sort of edification can there be in this nakedness?… Certainly if these painters should look at the work of past time, they would soon observe that the boy Jesus was decently and modestly portrayed then, and realize how far they have degenerated from the simplicity of their ancestors.105

The Council of Trent decree on images, however, made no mention of nudity. Granted, the decree was brief and general, yet it did outline the major abuses found in sacred imagery that should be proscribed. Lasciviousness was to be avoided, but this can hardly apply to the figure of the Christ Child. Moreover, the depiction of a nude Christ Child did have a long tradition and, as Leo Steinberg pointed out, had theological significance.106 The nakedness of the Christ Child signified his humanity, his status as God made man. His humanity is likewise underscored by his human responses to the act of stomping on the snake: Caravaggio depicts him with a look and gesture mingling fear and distaste. Scholars have also noted that Caravaggio’s composition was likely based on Ambrogio Figino’s painting on the same theme, where not only are the Virgin and Child in a similar position, but the Christ Child is also nude, except for a thin, significantly transparent cloth over his genitals. San Fedele, Milan—a Jesuit church commissioned by Carlo Borromeo himself—once held in its interior not only paintings by Simone Peterzano (Caravaggio’s former teacher), but also this very painting by Figino, one of Carlo’s favorite artists: the Virgin and Child Crushing the Serpent’s Head now in Sant’Antonio Abate. In my view, it is unquestionable that Caravaggio had seen this painting in Milan and referenced it in his own version for San Pietro in Vaticano. There are, however, several contemporary documents that many interpret as confirmation of the rejection as recounted by Baglione and Bellori. A document dated 19 May 1606 records that the painting was already placed on the new altar of San Pietro in Vaticano, but on 16 June 1606, it seems to have been removed. In this document, the Palafrenieri approve the sale of the painting by Caravaggio to Cardinal Scipione Borghese. On 20 July 1606 the confraternity received from Cardinal Borghese 100 scudi for the painting (25 scudi more than the original price paid by the confraternity). It is important



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to note that these documents make no mention of a rejection, but merely that the painting was sold to Cardinal Borghese. This presents a convincing scenario in which the Madonna dei Palafrenieri was not rejected, but was removed from the altar because Cardinal Borghese wanted the painting for himself. It seems unlikely that the altarpiece would ever be placed above the altar if it was later to be taken down due to transgressions in decorum. The only reasonable explanation is that Cardinal Borghese requested to buy the painting. Who could deny the nephew of the sitting pope, Paul V (Camillo Borghese; r. 1605–21)? In addition to his pope uncle, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577–1633) probably sought the intervention of other key cardinals, particularly Cardinal del Monte. Zygmunt Waz´   bin    ´ski has suggested that Del Monte may have facilitated the sale of the altarpiece;107 as a collector and former patron and protector of Caravaggio himself, he would have been sympathetic to Cardinal Borghese’s desire to acquire the painting. Del Monte may also have been involved with the decorations for San Pietro in Vaticano: in November 1606, he was appointed by Pope Paul V to the Congregazione della Fabbrica di San Pietro, the committee in charge of all projects at San Pietro.108 Among the cardinals already on this works committee were Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani (another Caravaggio patron) and the Milanese Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni (1552–1616)—the new Secretary of the Inquisition, and a close associate of both the pope and Federico Borromeo.109 The manner in which events unfolded concerning the Madonna di Palafrenieri shows the likelihood that the other proposed “rejections” also resulted from the machinations of powerful, eager collectors who wanted a work by Caravaggio. Every single proposed rejected public altarpiece or lateral was bought or acquired by collectors: Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani acquired the first version of the altarpiece of Saint Matthew and the Angel for the Contarelli Chapel; Cardinal Giacomo Sannesio bought the two first versions for the laterals of the Cerasi Chapel; the duke of Mantua, Vincenzo I Gonzaga, bought the altarpiece of the Death of the Virgin for the Cherubini Chapel; and Cardinal Scipione Borghese bought the altarpiece intended for the Palafrenieri’s altar of Saint Anne at San Pietro in Vaticano. Moreover, if in fact these works were rejected due to dissatisfaction or transgressions in decorum or iconography, why would Caravaggio have been allowed to make second versions (as had occurred for the canvases in the Contarelli and Cerasi Chapels)? Federico Zuccaro’s altarpiece of the Votive Procession of Pope Saint Gregory against the Plague (ca. 1580) for Santa Maria del Baraccano in Bologna, was rejected

202 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo by his patron, Paolo Ghiselli (steward of Pope Gregory XIII). The altarpiece was lost ca. 1776, but preliminary sketches show that Pope Gregory XIII’s facial features were used on the figure of Pope Saint Gregory the Great; thus a breach of decorum.110 Zuccaro offered to paint another altarpiece, but Ghiselli refused. This precedent for a rejected altarpiece and its consequence brings cause to believe that there is more at play regarding Caravaggio’s “rejected altarpieces.” One must remember, that the flourishing of personal art collections in Rome began ca. 1600; a time when Caravaggio triumphantly emerged on the public scene. In all of Caravaggio’s Roman public works—altarpieces and chapel laterals—orthodox iconography is combined with not only profound signs of the human condition (particularly the poor), but also humility. Bare feet are present in all of Caravaggio’s paintings discussed in this chapter, beginning with the Contarelli Chapel commission of 1599–1600. All of Caravaggio saints and sacred figures are barefoot, with the exception of those whose conversion is imminent (Levi/Matthew) or occurring (Saint Paul). Caravaggio reminds viewers that the saints, while divine by their exceptional faith, love, and self-­ sacrifice, were also human, with their own vulnerabilities and sins; they too needed to seek forgiveness. Defined in human terms, Caravaggio’s Roman public sacred paintings explicate to the common man that the kingdom of heaven may be reached not only through faith, but above all, humility. For humility in the eyes of Carlo Borromeo and Caravaggio engenders faith. We know little of Caravaggio’s personality (other than from his biographers) and especially in regards to his personal faith. We therefore cannot determine whether Caravaggio followed the path of humility in his personal life during these Roman years, but he does so undeniably in his paintings.



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30. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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31. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.



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32. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Matthew and the Angel (first version), ca. 1602, oil on canvas. Formerly Kaiser-­Friedrich-­Museum, Berlin, destroyed. Photo: bpk, Berlin/ Gemäldegalerie/Art Resource, NY.

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33. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Inspiration of Saint Matthew (second version), 1602, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.



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34. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, detail of self-­portrait, Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, oil on canvas. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Photo: Scala/ Art Resource, NY.

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35. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Conversion of Saint Paul, 1600–1601, oil on canvas. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.



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36. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 1600–1601, oil on canvas. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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37. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Entombment, 1602, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.



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38. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Madonna di Loreto, 1603, oil on canvas. Cavalletti Chapel, Sant’Agostino, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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39. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin, 1605–6, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.



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40. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Madonna dei Palafrenieri, 1606, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

·6· caravaggio ’ s patrons and the cultivation of humility

Caravaggio’s initial success with private patrons upon his arrival in Rome in 1592 only increased with his public debut in the Contarelli Chapel in 1599. From 1599 to 1606, the artist was consistently occupied with important public commissions for altarpieces, as well as lateral canvases for chapels. Nevertheless, he continued to receive private commissions from those patrons who had previously commissioned works from him in Rome, and from new patrons who were part of the same circle of prelates and collectors closely tied to Carlo Borromeo and the Oratorians. The number of private commissions Caravaggio received in these years not only confirms his reputation as the most excellent painter in Rome (as noted in the Cerasi Chapel contract of 1600), but also proves that the negative responses to the artist’s style put forth by his biographers hold little merit. As has been discussed in the previous chapter, Caravaggio’s straightforward approach to sacred images was consonant with the taste for the natural and with post-­Tridentine prescriptions on the making of sacred paintings. His public canvases are both powerful and emotionally appealing—further evidence of the artist’s understanding of the intersection between art and devotion, narrative and icon. Nonetheless, between 1598–1606, Caravaggio’s name appears in police records at least fourteen times, ranging from minor offences such as carrying a

216 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo sword without a permit (4 May 1598), to assaulting a waiter (24 April 1604), and all the way to the murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni (28 May 1606). This last crime forced the artist to flee Rome. Nevertheless, the colorful and violent records of Caravaggio’s criminal or brutish behavior did not damage his success as an artist. Nor was he singular in his social transgressions: other artists, such as the Cavaliere d’Arpino, also had brushes with the law.1 As John Varriano has pointed out, crime was commonplace in seicento Rome: in fact, there were 658 executions for various criminal acts during Caravaggio’s sojourn there (1592–1606), and eighteen murder cases in 1605 alone.2 Caravaggio, then, was a product of his time. His brushes with the law did not forestall his continued success as an artist, even among cardinal-­patrons; nor did they mean he was not pious. Criminal proceedings certainly did not undermine his mastery of the rules of sacred art: as we have seen, he both understood and compellingly implemented those prescriptions.

The Mattei Upon leaving Del Monte’s Palazzo Madama, Caravaggio took up residence in the Palazzo Mattei in 1601 under the support of the brothers Ciriaco (the eldest; died 1614), Cardinal Girolamo (1547–1603), and Asdrubale Mattei (died 1638). The Mattei were also close friends of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte and the Giustiniani family.3 Cardinal Mattei had been part of a special commission of five cardinals responsible for overseeing and enforcing the decrees of the Council of Trent.4 The Mattei amassed four original works by Caravaggio for their family collection: Supper at Emmaus (1601), Taking of Christ (1602), Saint John the Baptist (1602); and Saint Sebastian (lost). Just which Mattei brother was responsible for commissioning these works, however, is not known. Creighton Gilbert has suggested that it is quite problematic to credit Ciriaco Mattei with this activity, as well as the decoration of their chapel and palace. During this time, the oldest son (Ciriaco) of an Italian noble family invariably becomes the heir, and the second born (Girolamo) is placed into the priesthood. Therefore, according to Gilbert, Ciriaco would have been expected to handle all the financial transactions. Thus, Gilbert proposed, many of the works, particular those with a religious subject matter, were probably commissioned by Cardinal Girolamo Mattei.5 A different opinion is provided by Catherine Puglisi, who claims that since all the payments were made by Ciriaco “he must have been the primary patron among the three brothers.”6



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Regardless, Gilbert’s study and those of Sylvia Danesi Squarzina are particularly relevant in terms of positing a possible circle of cardinal-­patrons who were not only important in implementing the Tridentine decrees, but whose collections demonstrated a strong predilection for naturalistic paintings. The study of the Mattei by Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa has furthered our understanding of the brothers’ collection, revealing new inventory documents and much about the underinvestigated Asdrubale.7 The duration of Caravaggio’s stay with the Mattei is unknown due to the confusing chronology of the documents. Caravaggio received three payments from Ciriaco Mattei dating 7 January 1601, 26 June 1602, and 2 January 1603 for three (of the four) paintings by the artist found in the Mattei collection.8 The 14 June 1601 contract between Caravaggio and Laerzio Cherubini for the Death of the Virgin (Fig. 39; see Chapter 5), records that the artist was residing in the palace of Cardinal Mattei.9 However, in October 1601, when Caravaggio was arrested for carrying a sword without a permit, the artist testified that he was a member of Cardinal del Monte’s household.10 These conflicting documents have led some to suggest that Caravaggio resided in the Palazzo Mattei from 1601–03 (relying on the payment records) to those that propose that the artist moved freely between the palazzi of Cardinal del Monte and the Mattei during these years.11 The length of Caravaggio’s residence in both the Palazzo Madama and Palazzo Mattei, however, are not as critical as the fact that the artist was continuing to build a strong web of patrons. While Caravaggio was still working on the canvases for the Contarelli and Cerasi Chapels, he completed several paintings for the Mattei. The Supper at Emmaus (Fig. 41) was purchased for 150 scudi in 1602, as recorded in the accounts of Ciriaco Mattei.12 The subject as stated in the account books was “Our Lord in the Breaking of the Bread.”13 The painting is mentioned in Scannelli as one among several works in private collections that demonstrate “terrible naturalism.”14 Bellori praised its “imitation of natural color,” but criticized its lack of decorum: “In the Supper at Emmaus, in addition to the vulgar conception of the two Apostles and of the Lord who is shown young and without a beard, the innkeeper wears a cap, and on the table is a dish of grapes, figs, and pomegranates out of season.”15 Bellori’s criticism regarding the rustic appearance of the two Apostles is understandable considering his own classical taste. His comments regarding the beardless Christ, the innkeeper with a cap, and the fruits out of season derive from his disapproval of the artist’s choice to move away from tradition. Nevertheless, Caravaggio’s imagery can be explained as orthodox.

218 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo The subject of the painting is taken from the Gospel of Luke, which describes the arrival of two disciples, Cleophas and an unnamed companion, at Emmaus after Christ’s Resurrection: And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus…. And it came to pass that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus himself also, drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know him…. And they drew nigh to the town whither they were going: and he made as though he would go farther. But they constrained him, saying: “Stay with us, because it is towards evening and the day is now far spent.” And he went in with them. And it came to pass, whilst he was at table with them, he took bread and blessed and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened: and they knew him. And he vanished out of their sight. (Luke 24:13, 15–16, 28–31)

Caravaggio captures the moment of revelation. Christ is shown beardless, dressed in a red garment and white mantle. His hands suggest that he has blessed and broken the bread, which results in the disciples’ recognition that they are in the presence of the risen Christ. The man on the left, dressed in a green garment and orange mantle, braces his hands on the arms of the chair, as though he is about to push his chair back and leap out of his seat in shock. His companion on the right, dressed in a white shirt and brown vest, spreads his hands outward in a gesture of astonishment. To the left of the seated Christ, Caravaggio has added an innkeeper, who does not share in the disciples’ revelation.16 Various interpretations have been proposed to explain Caravaggio’s decision to depict Christ beardless, but the prevailing (and most logical) explanation is that it visually explicates the fact that the disciples did not recognize him; the clean-­shaven face served as a disguise. The beardless Christ and his hand gestures also recall Michelangelo’s Christ as Judge in the Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, which further underscores the fact that this is the risen Christ. The white mantle, in fact, may suggest the shroud in which he was buried. As in Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Matthew (see Fig. 30), Christ is dressed in antique clothing, whereas the disciples are dressed in modern apparel. They are clearly humble pilgrims; they both wear dirty and tattered garments, and the disciple on the right wears a scallop shell—a traditional attribute of a pilgrim—on his breast. As he had done with his public altarpieces and laterals, Caravaggio combines visual references to the past and the contemporary, but casts the frozen, dramatically charged scene as occurring in the viewer’s present. The artist does not anchor the scene in



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a particular location, but rather obscures the setting through his signature tenebrism. Caravaggio was able to create effects of forceful illumination with the use of white, applying it in specific areas where “he wanted to indicate the full intensity of light.”17 As white, being of highest value, appears to advance forward more than other colors, its judicious use also enabled Caravaggio to create spatial effects to offset the plain, dark backdrop of his image—effects of relief, and thus tangibility.18 On the table we find a ceramic vessel, a glass with transparent liquid, bread, a fowl on a platter, and a basket of fruit. This still life image recalls the Basket of Fruit owned by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, in both its depiction of ripe and decayed fruit, and the precarious placement of the basket at the edge of the table, close to the frontal plane. Many have observed that the grapes are symbolic of the Eucharist, and the pomegranates, the Resurrection, thus reinforcing the subject of the painting and explaining why the “out of season” fruit (as Bellori indicated) were included here. But what about the other fruit? Susanne J. Warma, examining their traditional meanings within the church, asserts that those too have great significance with respect to the subject.19 The quince was connected to immortality and resurrection, the purple plum was symbolic of the death and passion of Christ.20 A full basket of fruit, moreover, held meanings of abundance and the first fruits.21 Warma notes that there is a direct connection among Christ, Resurrection, and fruit that can be found in Corinthians: But now Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep. For by a man came death: and by a man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But every one in his own order: the first fruits, Christ; then they that are of Christ, who have believed in his coming. (1 Corinthians 15:20–23)

According to Warma, the fruit in Caravaggio’s painting serves as “an earthly visual metaphor…. Salvation is, thus, close at hand.”22 The devices that Caravaggio utilizes—the foreshortened arms of the disciples, Christ’s forward gesture, and the basket of fruit protruding over the edge of the table—include the viewer at the table, among those in whom revelation has dawned. The import of Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus is found in the emphasis he places on revelation. The pilgrims’ journey is both a literal and spiritual one. They knew about Christ, they were aware that his tomb was found empty, and heard the remarks that he had risen. Yet, did they believe in Christ’s resurrection? One of the pilgrims recounts to the stranger (Christ) about Jesus’s

220 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo crucifixion and then makes a statement of doubt: “But we hoped that it was he that should have redeemed Israel.” (Luke 24:19–21) Christ prevents them from recognizing him as a lesson in faith. Many take the journey of life claiming to be followers of Christ, but do they truly know him? Do they really trust in his promise? It is only after Christ expounds on the lessons of the prophets that the scales from the pilgrims’ eyes fall and they recognize him. The pilgrims have managed to shed the darkness of their earthly doubts, yet the innkeeper remains still “in the dark.” The Taking of Christ (Fig. 42) is counted among the most powerful, as well as most intriguing, works of Caravaggio during his Roman period. According to the account books of Ciriaco Mattei, the artist was paid 125 scudi for “a picture with painted frame showing a Christ taken in the garden.”23 The painting was listed in the inventory and testament of Giovanni Battista Mattei (Ciriaco’s son and heir) as “a picture of the taking of Jesus Christ by Caravaggio with a black frame with gold arabesques [and] with red taffeta and hanging red silk cords and tassels.”24 It appeared in sources and guidebooks until the late eighteenth century, but then disappeared from the literature until it was rediscovered by Sergio Benedetti in 1992.25 The episode captured here occurs after Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (which was after the Last Supper): as all four Gospels mention, Judas approached with numerous soldiers and gave Christ a kiss—the sign that this was the man to be arrested. In Caravaggio’s canvas, Judas has just kissed Christ, and one of the armored soldiers is in the middle of seizing him, while two other soldiers and a lantern-­wielding man stand at the far right. At the far left of the canvas, a man with mouth agape and hands spread and raised, appears to flee. This is likely the figure mentioned in the Gospel of Mark: “Then his disciples, leaving him, all fled away. And a certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. And they laid hold on him. But he, casting off the linen cloth, fled from them naked.” (Mark 14:50–52) Caravaggio seems to have suggested this anecdotal moment, as the second soldier, in front of the lantern-­wielding man, grabs hold of the mantle of the fleeing man. Although this man is clearly not naked, such a departure from the text would have been deemed appropriate: nudity in sacred imagery was proscribed by Counter-­Reformation theorists. Bellori identifies this fleeing figure as Saint John: [T]he Taking of Christ in the Garden, also in half-­figures. Judas is shown after the kiss with his hand on the Lord’s shoulder; a soldier in full armor extends his arms and his



caravaggio’s patrons and the cultivation of humility 221 ironclad hand toward the chest of the Lord, who stands still, patiently and humbly, his hands crossed before him, as John runs away behind with outstretched arms.26

Although claiming this figure as Christ’s beloved disciple Saint John the Evangelist has been questioned by some scholars, due to the silence of the Gospels in regards to the young man’s name, Anthony Apesos provides a compelling argument for Bellori’s identification.27 Apesos points out that the cardinal and Oratorian Cesare Baronio had in fact validated this identification in his Annales ecclesiastici.28 Published beginning twenty-­five years after the closing of the Council of Trent, and each year thereafter, the Annales ecclesiastici were among the most important texts outlining the history of the church. Here, Baronio, a close associate of Carlo Borromeo, affirmed the identification of the fleeing figure in the Gospel of Mark as Saint John—a man who, moreover, is traditionally shown as youthful, beardless, and in garments of red and green. The Taking of Christ is only one of two works in which Caravaggio incorporated two sources of light: one external, the other internal. Caravaggio used his customary raking light, which strikes the figures from an unseen source at the upper left; but he also included an internal light source, the lantern, held by the figure at the far right edge of the canvas. The inclusion of a lantern is appropriate here as the Gospel of John mentions that the armed crowd held “lanterns and torches.” (John 18:3) Roberto Longhi was the first to recognize this figure as a self-­portrait of the artist, an identification that has met with general agreement among Caravaggio scholars.29 Apesos noted that the faces of the figure of Caravaggio at the right and the figure of Saint John at the left are both brightly illuminated, but express contrary attitudes: “John is fleeing open mouthed as if screaming in terror. Caravaggio is entering the scene. One tries to get away and not see, the other to be there and to see.”30 Here, the artist holds up the lantern to see the betrayal with his own eyes. Like the apostles at the Last Supper who cannot believe that one among them will betray Christ, this figure (Caravaggio) needs empirical proof that Judas was the betrayer. The figures are all rendered tangibly and naturalistically—so much so, that as John Spike commented, the scene has the “realism of a police documentary.”31 The figures are projected into powerful relief, drawing the gaze of the viewer. This is the second instance in which the artist inserted himself into a religious painting. The first, as discussed already, was the 1599–1600 Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (see Figs. 31, 34), in which the artist included himself in

222 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo the left background (see Chapter 5). There, among others who are fleeing, he turns back in apparent conflict: he wants to help the saint, but he cannot. In the Taking of Christ, the artist again placed himself along the edge. Here, though not fleeing, he positioned himself behind the soldiers—still not worthy to be included within the divine light of grace, but rather illumined by a secondary light, that of the lantern he holds. Nevertheless, it seems that within a two-­year period, Caravaggio has taken a step closer to being among the blessed and the enlightened. Here, he sheds light on the scene, physically facilitating the visibility of the episode for the viewer. The lanterns and torches, mentioned in John’s Gospel, rarely appear together in scenes of the arrest of Christ. Typically either one or the other is shown, and they are typically not of the hand-­held variety;32 the torches and lanterns are upheld by a long shaft. Caravaggio’s decision to dispense with the traditional type of lantern, for one that is held in his hand, not only may have personal references to his journey toward spiritual enlightenment, but also his memory of Carlo Borromeo. Recall that Bascapè described Borromeo’s routine of visiting the Sacro Monte di Varallo chapels at night, carrying with him only a lantern (see Chapter 2). The same year that Caravaggio painted the Taking of Christ, il Fiammenghino began his painting of San Carlo Preparing for Death at the Sacro Monte di Varallo (see Fig. 22) for a series of twenty canvases celebrating the life of the archbishop in the Duomo in Milan. The painting depicts the archbishop twice: once beneath the sanctuary in the right foreground, and once again winding his way up the dark and steep path marked by the individual chapels of the Sacro Monte, bearing only a hand-­held lantern in his left hand. There is no suggestion that Caravaggio knew about il Fiammenghino’s painting (in fact, it is unlikely). It can certainly be said, however, that Borromeo’s night-­time pilgrimages to the Sacro Monte with lantern were well known: it is mentioned pointedly by Bascapè in his 1592 biography of the archbishop; it is pictorially recorded in il Fiammenghino’s painting for the Duomo in Milan; it is depicted in Cesare Nebbia’s 1604 fresco for the Collegio Borromeo, Pavia; and it is once again vividly recounted in Giussano’s 1610 biography of Borromeo.33 Thus, I would argue it is likely that Caravaggio’s unique addition of his self-­ portrait in the guise of the lantern-­bearing man was inspired by this vivid recollection of Borromeo, who that same year (12 May 1602) was beatified. All three Mattei brothers are linked to key figures and institutions in Rome during the last decades of the cinquecento and into the seicento. Girolamo Mattei was elevated to the cardinalate, along with Benedetto Giustiniani, on 16 November 1586 by Pope Sixtus V.34 In 1588 Cardinal Mattei was named



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cardinal-­protector of the Observant Franciscans by Pope Sixtus V, who, as mentioned earlier, also appointed him to the five-­cardinal commission charged with assessing and reinforcing the implementation of the Tridentine decrees.35 Under the pontificate of Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592–1605), Cardinal Mattei was assigned to the commission in charge of the compilation of the Settimo delle Decretali (i.e., the seventh collection of decretals, papal letters regarding ecclesiastical law) with Cardinals Domenico Pinelli (1541–1611), Pietro Aldobrandini (nephew of Pope Clement VIII; 1571–1621), and Ascanio Colonna (brother of Costanza Colonna; 1560–1608).36 The Mattei brothers were also close to Saint Filippo Neri and the Oratorian circle. According to a testimony submitted for the beatification of Filippo Neri, the future saint often stopped at Ciriaco Mattei’s Villa della Navicella (on Caelian Hill) while making pilgrimage to the seven churches.37 The close association between Ciriaco and Saint Filippo Neri is further substantiated by the fact that a painting by Caravaggio’s colleague Prospero Orsi, depicting Filippo Neri and Carlo Borromeo, hung in Ciriaco’s chapel in his Villa della Navicella.38 Ciriaco was also a member of several important lay confraternities, and had a close relationship with the Observants, of which his cardinal brother was protector.39 The third Mattei brother, Asdrubale—like his brothers, a patron and collector of art—has the distinction of being associated with the newly founded Accademia di San Luca. Asdrubale Mattei’s name appears first on a list of “signori e gentil huomini amatori” at the very end of Romano Alberti’s Origine, which documents the Accademia di San Luca’s first year of activity (1593–94).40 As the list is not alphabetized, it is easy to conclude that he played an important role. Alberti’s involvement with the first year of activity at the Accademia, makes it relatively certain that Asdrubale was acquainted with three important cardinals: Federico Borromeo, Del Monte, and Paleotti. The Mattei were thus not only protectors and patrons of Caravaggio, and collectors of naturalistic paintings, but they had important links to key cardinals, the Oratorians, and the Accademia di San Luca—all closely tied to Carlo Borromeo through his legacy and associates.

New Commissions from Early Patrons: The Giustiniani and Ottavio Costa As discussed in Chapter 4, the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, a wealthy banker, and his brother, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, both favored the

224 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo works of Caravaggio.41 It was Vincenzo who bought Caravaggio’s first version of the Saint Matthew and the Angel (see Fig. 32)42 for the Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi. The Giustiniani Collection also included nine others works by Caravaggio: The Lute Player (ca. 1596, Hermitage, St. Petersburg); Portrait of Fillide Melandroni (ca. 1598, formerly Kaiser-­Friedrich-­Museum, Berlin; destroyed 1945); Amor Vincit Omnia or Amor Victorious (1601–2, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin); Incredulity of Saint Thomas (ca. 1603); Crowning with Thorns (ca. 1604); a now lost Portrait of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani; an Agony in the Garden (ca. 1604, Kaiser-­Friedrich-­Museum, Berlin; destroyed 1945); a lost Penitent Magdalene in the Desert; and a lost Penitent Saint Jerome (1605–6). Of these works, the most compelling and poignant is the Incredulity of Saint Thomas (Fig. 43). The subject is depicted in a horizontal format, with half-­length, close-­up figures, a composition that Caravaggio utilized for many of his narrative works for private patrons. The painting is recorded in the 1638 inventory of Vincenzo Giustiniani. Silvia Danesi Squarzina, however, has succeeded in connecting several of Caravaggio’s works to Benedetto as patron, rather than to his lay brother, Vincenzo—largely through her discovery of two early inventories relating to Benedetto’s collection, plus his will and other documents. Among the other Caravaggio works that can be ascribed to Cardinal Giustiniani’s patronage are the lost Portrait of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, the lost Penitent Magdalene in the Desert, the Agony in the Garden destroyed in 1945, and the lost Penitent Saint Jerome. Saint Jerome, like Saint Mary Magdalene, was a model of penitence and humility, subjects appropriate for a cardinal. Although the Incredulity of Saint Thomas does not appear in any of the cardinal’s documents, Squarzina believes it should be added to works Benedetto commissioned, as the subject was “suited to Benedetto’s religious ideas” and “there is early evidence of numerous copies of the painting in the Bologna area, which might suggest that Benedetto took the canvas with him to decorate his legate’s residence there, the Palazzo Accursio.”43 Caravaggio isolated Christ and the three apostles against a dark, neutral background that is broken by only a single stream of raking light coming from the upper left; its source hidden. The figures are tangible and extremely realistic. The viewer can sense the astonishment of Saint Thomas as he, at that very instant, receives the proof of Christ’s Resurrection. His eyes are wide in wonder, his fingers having already penetrated the wound in Christ’s side. As Paleotti had indicated in his Discorso, a painting cannot reach the common



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person if it fails to delight the senses and stimulate the emotions. Here, Saint Thomas’s fingers can be likened to the viewer’s eyes; as the Doubting Thomas could not believe in the bodily Resurrection of Christ without touching his wounds, the Christian viewer cannot believe or emotionally connect with painted figures or scenes that cannot be tangibly perceived. Caravaggio’s sacred style remedies such deficiencies: Thomas receives his proof through the sense of touch; the viewers through their sense of sight. Vincenzo Giustiniani’s commissions are primarily those of a secular nature, including The Lute Player, Portrait of Fillide Melandroni, and the Amor Victorious. As discussed already, while it was he who acquired the first version of the Contarelli Chapel altarpiece, Saint Matthew and the Angel (see Fig. 32), only one other religious work may have been commissioned by the marchese: the Crowning with Thorns (Fig. 44). In the 1638 inventory of Vincenzo Giustiniani, this is described as “an over-­door painting of the Crowning with Thorns of Our Lord, four half figures painted on canvas 5 palmi high by 7 long—by Michelang.o da Caravaggio with a carved and gilt frame.”44 As he had done for his canvases in the Cerasi Chapel, Caravaggio seems to have designed the work for its specific destination: the Galleria Grande. The painting is depicted in a horizontal format, with half-­length figures that are rendered in a slight di sotto in sù (from below, upward) manner, correlating with a viewer standing below it. Christ, seemingly nude save for the red mantle that falls off his right shoulder and across his lap, is being tortured by two men standing behind him. His body slumps forward as he endures the pain they inflict by ramming the crown of thorns onto his head with their staffs. At the left, a man in armor leans on a wooden railing that defines the frontal plane of the painting, observing unemotionally the torture of Christ. The inclusion of this unmoved observer implicates the viewer of the painting, who also silently watches the pain inflicted on Christ, thus demanding his or her penitence. When, shortly after Caravaggio completed the two lateral paintings in the Contarelli Chapel, he received another important commission to complete two paintings for the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, it was Vincenzo Giustiniani who was named the banker of these transactions.45 As detailed in Chapter 4 the Giustiniani had many strong ecclesiastical connections through Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, whose collection of Caravaggio works reflects themes of humility and the Passion of Christ. These were themes consonant not only with the interests of the Oratorians, but also with those of Carlo Borromeo. In fact, Benedetto seems to have commissioned or acquired

226 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo a painting of San Carlo in Prayer by Giovanni Lanfranco right around the time of Carlo Borromeo’s canonization.46 Ottavio Costa, for whom Caravaggio had painted Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, Judith Beheading Holofernes, and Mary and Martha (see Figs. 24, 25), commissioned one more work from Caravaggio before the artist’s departure from Rome: the Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (Fig. 45). A receipt in the artist’s hand, dated 21 May 1602, indicates that he received an advance payment of 20 scudi from the banker Ottavio Costa for an unspecified painting.47 This receipt has generally been connected to this painting. Caravaggio portrayed a youthful Baptist in the wilderness, decorously covered by his animal skin and mantle, which falls across his genitals and his left leg. The mullein plant appears at his feet, and he holds a reed cross in his right hand, both attributes of the Baptist. The figure of the Baptist is compressed close to the frontal plane, surrounded by darkness and the dark foliage of the forest behind him. The forceful light emanates from the upper left and highlights the saint’s body in palpable relief. The shadows on his open eyes accentuate the meditative quality of the canvas. According to the Gospel of Luke, “the child grew and was strengthened in spirit: and was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation to Israel.” (Luke 1:80) The solemnity of the image was certainly a function of its original location. Costa intended this canvas to serve as an altarpiece for the altar of the Oratory of the Compagnia della Misericordia in Conscente.48 He apparently was so pleased with the finished canvas, however, that he kept the original for himself and sent a copy to the oratory. Here, Caravaggio seems to explicate a key passage in the Gospel of John: You yourselves do bear me witness that I said that I am not Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth Him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase: but I must decrease. (John 3:28–30)

The elimination of the lamb (another traditional attribute of the Baptist) and the inclusion of the reed cross transform it into a painting evoking penitence. The dark setting and the shadows that hood his eyes further enhance this interpretation. Costa’s Baptist turns away from light, not toward it. Here we see a model of penitence similar to images of Saint Francis and Saint Jerome. In fact, a 1624 description of the oratory’s copy describes the saint in exactly these terms. That description is found in a manuscript on the holy sites of Albenga (from which Conscente is several miles inland): the “Sacro e vago Giardinello,”



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written by none other than Pier Francesco Costa, son of Ottavio Costa. Pier Francesco describes Caravaggio’s Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness as “painted by the celebrated and renowned Michel Angelo Caravaggio in the desert bewailing human misery moves to true penitence not only the disciplined devout but also outlanders.”49 According to Francesca Cappelletti, the copy was described as an effective vehicle for bringing true repentance from the viewer in “not only the members of the confraternity, but also the other visitors” who saw it at the conclusion of their journey through the forest.50 The importance of penitence was a central part of Carlo Borromeo’s reform of his diocese during his tenure as archbishop of Milan (1564–84), and it informed the numerous canvases of episodes of Christ’s Passion and isolated saints in meditation Caravaggio painted for Roman private patrons during these years.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese In 1606, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of the recently elected Pope Paul V, not only purchased the rejected Madonna dei Palafrenieri (see Chapter 5),51 but also acquired the Saint Jerome Writing (Fig. 46).52 The pope-­ uncle commissioned a portrait of himself (1605–6) from Caravaggio around the same time as the Saint Jerome Writing; in fact, Bellori tells us that the cardinal-­nephew personally “introduced Caravaggio to Pope Paul V, whom he portrayed seated and by whom he was well rewarded.”53 Scholars have suggested that the painting of Saint Jerome Writing may have served as a token of thanks to the cardinal for this connection. Jerome, one of the four great church fathers, is typically shown as an old man, and portrayed either as a penitent in the desert, a man of learning, or as a doctor of the church. Caravaggio’s canvas seems to focus on the saint as a man of learning, a reference to the fact that he translated the Old and New Testaments into the Latin Vulgate. This had been declared the official Latin text by the Council of Trent, and a new edition had been recently published (9 November 1592) under Pope Clement VIII who had directed a committee of cardinals to make corrections and revisions to the edition prepared by Sixtus V. Among those cardinals responsible for the Clementine edition of the Vulgate included those who were closest to Carlo Borromeo: the Jesuit Cardinals Francesco Toledo and Roberto Bellarmino, Oratorian and Cardinal Agostino Valier, and Carlo’s younger cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo.

228 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo At first glance, the painting appears to capture Saint Jerome at work on his Latin translation of the Bible. The haloed saint sits bent over the Hebrew text, which is propped at the right edge of the table. His left hand holds the left side of the book closer to his face, indicating intense concentration and possibly even poor eyesight. His right arm is splayed across the book, and in his hand he holds a quill at the ready. Near Saint Jerome’s right hand is another open book with white pages—likely the book in which he is recording his translation. But this is more than a portrait of the author of the Vulgate. Saint Jerome is also shown in a traditional manner of a penitent. He is a gaunt, old man with a bald pate and long gray beard. His hands are coarse, with dirt beneath his fingernails. He wears a voluminous red mantle, which may refer to his ahistorical identification as a cardinal; but red was also associated with courage and sacrifice, and often with the blood of martyrs. Moreover, propped on the open white pages of his Vulgate book is a skull, symbolic of death and the transience of life. The contemplation of death as a spiritual exercise, largely practiced and promulgated during the seicento, was not only especially associated with saints in prayer, but was a particular attribute of penitent hermit saints such as Saint Francis of Assisi and Mary Magdalene.

Penitent Saints The Saint Jerome Writing for Cardinal Borghese brings to the fore the question of the numerous penitent saints Caravaggio painted between 1594 and 1606 for private patrons. The Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (see Fig. 24) and the Mary and Martha for Ottavio Costa, the Penitent Magdalen (see Fig. 26) for Girolamo Vittrice, and the lost Penitent Magdalene in the Desert and Penitent Saint Jerome for the Giustiniani—all of these lack contracts and payment records, and appears only in later testaments. Even the Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (see Fig. 45) for Ottavio Costa, regarding which there is a documented advance payment for a painting, the subject is unspecified. All of this makes it highly probable that Caravaggio selected the subjects of these penitent saints on his own. There are, interestingly, two more paintings of penitent saints that Caravaggio executed during his time in Rome. Both of them are undocumented (no contracts or payments), and thus likely uncommissioned, and both depict Saint Francis. The painting of Saint Francis in Prayer (Fig. 47) may have been owned by Monsignor Benedetto Ala from Cremona, as his



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heraldic device appears on the original frame; but no documents, notices, or references make note of the painting as a commissioned work.54 Saint Francis is shown dressed in a Capuchin habit and a halo in a forested landscape obscured in deep shadow. He is placed near the frontal plane, kneeling on the ground before an open book, propped on a skull at the left, and held open by a large wooden crucifix. His left knee is pressed into the earth, while the other supports his right elbow. Saint Francis thus leans intently forward and to his right, with his bowing head resting on his intertwined hands. The intensity of his gaze and gesture evokes fervent prayer. Caravaggio’s representation of the saint can be connected with a particular passage on the life of Saint Francis by Saint Bonaventure. According to Bonaventure, Francis went to Mount La Verna to fast, and during his contemplation and prayer his spirit rose on high, not curiously to scrutinize the Divine Majesty, and so to be overwhelmed with its glory, but as a faithful and prudent servant seeking out the good pleasure of God, to which with the utmost ardour of love he desired to conform himself. It was infused, therefore, into his mind by Divine inspiration that it should be revealed to him by Christ, on opening the Book of the Gospels, what in him, or from him, should be most acceptable to God. Having first prayed with great devotion, he therefore took the holy Book of the Gospels from the altar, and caused his companion, a devout and holy man, to open it thrice in the name of the Holy Trinity. Seeing that the book opened each time at the Passion of the Lord, the man of God understood that, as he had imitated Christ in the actions of his life, so, before he should depart from this world, he was to be conformed to Him in the sufferings and pains of his Passion.55

Caravaggio seems to have chosen to depict the saint after he received the divine message, as Francis already appears to be meditating intently on the Passion. He looks raptly at not merely a cross, but a crucifix. The light shines forth from the upper left and clearly picks out the saint’s furrowed brow of concentration, and his piercing and focused gaze. He is rendered as a perfect model of a penitent saint, devoted to humility (kneeling pose, downcast head), asceticism (tattered habit, hollowed cheeks), and piety (in the midst of fervent prayer). The choice to depict Saint Francis in a Capuchin habit rather than a Franciscan one contemporizes the saint, and was also used in his earlier Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (see Fig. 24). The Capuchins were a branch of the Friars Minor formed in the early cinquecento (ca. 1520), when Matteo da Bascio, an Observant dismayed by how far his fellow Franciscan brothers had strayed from the example and life led by Saint Francis of Assisi, sought to return to the humility, asceticism, and penance practiced by their founder.

230 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo The Saint Francis in Meditation (Fig. 48; from the Church of San Pietro, Carpineto Romano), similarly depicts an isolated Saint Francis in the wilderness. Here, however, the saint is shown in pensive reflection on death and the transience of life as he meditates on a skull held in his hands. He is once again kneeling on the barren ground, cloaked in a tattered habit, with a halo above his head. Below his kneeling form to the right, a large cross is placed at an oblique angle, resting on a large rock. As in the case with the saint in Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (see Fig. 24), many scholars have considered the saints in the Cremona and Carpineto Romano canvases to be self-­portraits of Caravaggio. However, I find difficulty not only in seeing the resemblance, but also in crediting that this particular artist, given his appearances as mere witnesses in other paintings, would have chosen to impart his features to a saint. It is more likely that in these images of Saint Francis we have visual evidence of Carlo Borromeo’s impression on Caravaggio. These images remind us of textual descriptions of Borromeo praying at night before the sculptural tableaux at the Sacro Monte di Varallo. The ties with Carlo Borromeo, however, are not confined to these images of Saint Francis. As we have seen, the archbishop had a taste for the tangible and realistic images of Lombardy. He believed that the exterior devotion of tangible images could engender interior spiritual transformation. There were intimate interconnections among the cardinal-­patrons and patrons of Caravaggio who had been closest to Borromeo, and the commonalities of their collections indicate a cultivation of taste centering on Caravaggio and the style of Lombard naturalism and tangible presence. Like Carlo, Caravaggio’s patrons were closely tied to the Oratorians, and the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, which played a central role not only in catering to pilgrims, but in caring for and nurturing the poor, illiterate, common Roman populace. Central to Carlo’s reform of his diocese was penitence. Caravaggio’s decision, after establishing his artistic reputation with the Contarelli laterals, to represent saints who exemplify penitence cannot be deemed coincidental. As seen in both his public and private works, Carlo Borromeo’s emulation of Saint Francis loomed large in the memory of Caravaggio, fostered by those very same Roman patrons who had been closest to the late archbishop of Milan.



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41. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601, oil on canvas. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

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42. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Taking of Christ, 1602, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Jesuit Community of Leeson Street, Dublin, who acknowledge the generosity of the late Dr. Marie Lea-­Wilson. © National Gallery of Ireland.



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43. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Incredulity of Saint Thomas, ca. 1603, oil on canvas. Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-­Brandenburg, Potsdam. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-­Brandenburg/Gerhard Murza/Art Resource, NY.

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44. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Crowning with Thorns, ca. 1604, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.



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45. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, ca. 1604, oil on canvas. Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Photo: Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY.

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46. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Jerome Writing, 1606, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.



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47. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Francis in Prayer, 1603–4, oil on canvas. Museo Civico, Cremona. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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48. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Francis in Meditation, 1606, oil on canvas. Church of San Pietro, Carpineto Romano (in deposit at Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome). Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.

·7· scaling the ladder to the divine with bare feet

Tra devoto et profano The profundity of Caravaggio’s Roman works, both public and private, points to an acute awareness of Franciscan thought, one I have suggested was filtered through the impression made on the young Caravaggio by Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo. The artist’s sacred paintings are informed by the example of Saint Francis’s humility, piety, and love of nature, which was reinforced by the contemporary model of Carlo Borromeo, who emulated the saint in his humility, devotional practices, and belief in the edification of all, as God’s creatures. After Carlo’s death in 1584, his memory was perpetuated by his closest friends, including Paleotti, the Oratorians, and Caravaggio’s cardinal-­patrons. Borromeo’s ideas and practices in modes of exterior devotion, particularly his reputation of meditating before realistic images, inflected Caravaggio’s formulation of a post-­Tridentine sacred style: one that appeased the church and spoke to the emotions of all Christians—particularly the unlettered, general populace—through the intersection of devotion and art, or the sacred and profane. The decree “On the Invocation, Veneration, and Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images,” formulated at the twenty-­fifth session of the Council of

240 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Trent, explicitly proscribed the exhibition of anything profane in sacred images. The decree’s generality, however, left a lot of room for expansion and clarification, which both Borromeo and Paleotti fulfilled in their respective treatises on sacred architecture and painting. The definition and demarcation of the sacred and profane, I would argue, are not as straightforward as one would expect. This blurring of the boundaries between the sacred and profane can be traced to Franciscan thought, with its emphasis on reaching the spiritual realm via the earthly, and in many ways was embodied in the person of Carlo Borromeo. He understood the rules and expectations of his sacred office, yet was compelled by his personal humility to live as a common man; a conviction supported by Borromeo’s adoption of humilitas as his motto. Carlo Borromeo’s 1577 Instructiones (see Chapters 2 and 3) provided the prescriptions for the architecture and decoration of ecclesiastical buildings based upon the Council of Trent decrees. Borromeo dedicated only a small section to sacred images, yet this brief passage articulated key points reflecting his opinions regarding their style. To be sure, he reiterated many of the rules already outlined by the Holy Council, but he also proclaimed something new: that accuracy in the semblance of saints was critical, but in doing so, cautioned against reproducing the likeness of another person, living or dead.1 He also required that saints have halos and that Christ’s be distinguished from theirs by the inclusion of a cross.2 Borromeo, however, also made room for nontraditional aspects, be they artistic or stylistic, as long as they “incite men to piety” and do not “offend the soul and eyes of the faithful.”3 For instance, he noted that anything “outlandish” that does not incite piety in the individual is strictly forbidden. If we qualify this statement, Borromeo is not objecting to “outlandish” additions that, without being offensive, do incite piety. He also stipulated that decorative elements—“deformed human heads commonly called mascaroni, or the birds, or the sea, or the green fields”—should not be used unless they are integral to the story represented (or clarify ex-­votos).4 In terms of following Borromeo’s positions on sacred images, then, Caravaggio can be seen as highly observant. There are only two points that Caravaggio did not follow entirely, but even these can be qualified. He did not follow Borromeo’s demand for halos on saints and a cross-­halo for Christ, but frankly, no one did. This includes Borromeo’s favorite artists the brothers Campi (see Chapter 2) and Filippo Neri’s favorite artist Federico Barocci; the latter’s Visitation in Santa Maria in Vallicella is particularly notable as Neri was recorded by his biographers as experiencing ecstasies in front of it.5 Although the artist used real models for his sacred personages, he never copied their



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exact likenesses; rather, he provided just enough specificity to make them earthbound figures—in short, human. Gabriele Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso (see Chapter 3) applies Borromeo’s brief prescriptions and expands them in profound way. The issue of verisimilitude is at the heart of Paleotti’s treatise, and is developed beyond Borromeo’s instruction for accurate resemblance in the portraits of saints. Paleotti provides more latitude to sacred images as long as they adhere to scriptural truth and are painted with truth to nature in mind. According to Paleotti, every Christian image must delight the viewer, and this delight—whether sensual, rational, or supernatural—relies initially on imitation. For Paleotti, more delight is experienced when imitation makes distant things (Christ, Virgin, saints, people, subjects) immediately present to viewers.6 It is not merely tangibility, however, or nature as God’s creation, that Paleotti promotes, but also accuracy in imitation, both in terms of scriptural correspondence and in showing figures aged appropriately for the chronology of a given event.7 Caravaggio followed these prescriptions consistently. His style made accessible, both visually and psychologically, the sacred scenes and figures through tangibility. He also adhered to even the smallest rules regarding the depiction of correct ages. For example, in the Contarelli Chapel, Saint Matthew accurately ages from the Calling (see Fig. 30), to the Inspiration (see Fig. 33), and finally to the Martyrdom (see Fig. 31), based on scriptural and hagiographic texts. Saul in the Conversion of Saint Paul (see Fig. 35) in the Cerasi Chapel is correctly shown as a younger man, and the Virgin in the Entombment (see Fig. 37) for the Vittrice Chapel is properly depicted as an older woman, a mother whose son is thirty-­three. It is Paleotti’s characterization of sacred and profane art, however, that is particularly significant in understanding Caravaggio’s style. An image is “called sacred when it is elevated out of the common use of the people and applied to the cult of religion.”8 Thus an image is sacred: 1.  if it was an image commanded by God; 2.  if it came into contact with Christ or the saints; 3.  if it was made by a holy person; 4.  if it was miraculously produced; 5.  if it was an image on which God worked signs and miracles; 6.  if it was anointed; 7.  if it was blessed with the procedure and prayers of the church; 8.  if it represents anything religious and was made for that purpose.9

242 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Paleotti, however, identifies only three reasons why an image should be called “profane”: 1.  if it references the laity; 2. if the sanctity of a formerly consecrated thing is violated through some crime or accident; 3. if it represents things that were never violated or sacred in the first place, but is somehow offensive.10 It is the first reason that is extremely pertinent for the discussion of Caravaggio’s sacred images. According to Paleotti, “Profane things were those that remained in their native state of potential service to the common needs of the population; sacred things were ones elevated out of commonality and applied, for greater privilege, to the divine cult and religious matters.”11 Profane images were introduced for specific purposes, as Paleotti points out: [M]an is by nature what they call conversational, meaning he interacts with others and because of his weakness continually needs help of various kinds, so he finds himself forced to signify his needs to others. Words alone are inadequate because they extend only to speakers of the same language who are within earshot. Some instrument had to be found to overcome those two defects, and it was: the making of profane images of created things like animals, plants, techniques [artificii = man-­ made objects], or the parts of the human body… the second reason for profane images being introduced—utility—will easily be grasped by anyone… as for the third reason—what is there to say about delight? Or rather, what is there not to say, the topic being infinite.12

If profane images were those that served the common needs and good of the population, then it follows that this aspect of profane images was necessary to meet an objective of the Counter-­Reformation church—to reach the general populace. In order to reach the everyday Christian, the sacred image must therefore be grounded in the recognizable or, in Paleotti’s words, in “commonality,” and simultaneously address the sacred, through purpose. Caravaggio’s sacred images fulfill this objective of outreach. His potent realism and tangibility are grounded in the profane, the everyday world, while his adherence to scriptural and hagiographic texts, combined with his emphasis on apostolic humility, serves a sacred purpose. His works are therefore somewhere between the sacred and profane. This characterization of Caravaggio’s paintings was made during his lifetime, but modern scholars have always read it in a negative light. Take for example the letter (August



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1603) written by Oratorian and Cardinal Ottavio Paravicino to the cleric Paolo Gualdo from Vincenza: Michelangelo da Caravaggio, excellent Painter, says that he came as a shade or spirit to Vicenza, and met a galant’huomo who loves paintings and who asked him wondrous many questions. He describes, but does not paint with his brush, a priest with the air of a solemnly reformed cleric, a man who, if he did not speak, would appear to be a Theatine. But when he does open his mouth he touches on every topic, and does so in a spirit of gallantry. It seems to me that he has a tincture of all the sciences, says Caravaggio, but since I lack the necessary expertise myself I cannot touch the marrow of his actual knowledge. He describes himself as extremely keen to have something painted, one minute speaking of various churches, the next of having some beautiful work painted for his lordship the Bishop of Padua. But Caravaggio would have made for him some painting that would have been in that middle area, between the sacred, and the profane—a kind of picture that he would not have wanted to see from a distance.13

Caravaggio’s works are indeed somewhere between the sacred and profane. But did Paravacino intend his remarks to be read negatively, as modern art historians have interpreted them? The truth of the matter is there is no way of knowing. The true import of Paravicino’s words may still confound us, but it is significant to note that Paravicino was an ardent follower of Filippo Neri. Therefore, he would have understood the importance of establishing a communal language in order to reach the general populace. Neri’s Oratory, in fact, functioned based on a spoken, communal language: discussions and sermons were delivered simply, as in familiar conversation. I would argue that Caravaggio’s paintings were the pictorial equivalents to Neri’s words: sacred figures and scenes were depicted in a realistic, straightforward way. Caravaggio mixed the directness, stillness, and simplicity of older images with the artistry of the modern, thereby placing his works somewhere between devotion and art, and ultimately between the sacred and the profane.

Caravaggio’s Final Years On 12 May 1602, at the height of Caravaggio’s career, Carlo Borromeo was beatified by Pope Clement VIII. The beatification of the former archbishop of Milan pervaded all of Rome, and therefore could not have escaped Caravaggio’s notice. Moreover, by 1602, he had positioned himself within a circle of cardinal-­patrons who revered Carlo, and the memory of Borromeo

244 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo was almost certainly imprinted on the mind of the artist. After the murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni on 28 May 1606 by Caravaggio’s sword, the injured artist sought the assistance of his former protectors. All those involved in the brawl, which resulted in the seemingly unintentional death of Tommasoni, went into exile: Onorio Longhi and Petronio Troppa are among those that were identified.14 It seems, however, that Caravaggio received a harsher sentence, for an avviso dated 31 July 1610—news digest of the artist’s death—indicates that Caravaggio died at Porto Ercole, as he was making his way back to Rome after receiving a pardon and removal of the bando capitale (death sentence) by Pope Paul V (r. 1605–21).15 Caravaggio’s biographers provide contradictory information regarding where the artist spent his initial exile. Mancini and Bellori inform us that he fled to Zagarolo, whereas Baglione indicates that he went to Palestrina.16 Both are correct it seems. Caravaggio may have sought refuge at the Palazzo Colonna after the murder of Tommasoni, for Costanza Colonna and her brother Fabrizio II Colonna (married to Anna Borromeo, Carlo’s sister) was still in Rome, and both were likely responsible in helping Caravaggio reach safety in the Colonna estates, which included Zagarolo and Palestrina.17 Zagarolo, located around twenty-­one miles south-­east of Rome, was under the control and protection of Duke Marzio Colonna, a distant cousin of Costanza. Palestrina, around twenty-­two miles east of Rome, was also the home of Costanza’s nephew Luigi Carafa Colonna, and “where Costanza’s brother, Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, was appointed bishop in the summer of 1606.”18 It was probably during his initial exile at one of the Colonna estates that Caravaggio painted another canvas depicting the Supper at Emmaus (Fig. 49). According to Mancini and Bellori, Caravaggio painted a Magdalen (untraced) and a “Christ going to Emmaus.”19 Mancini suggests that it was not a commissioned work, as he mentions that it was purchased by Ottavio Costa in Rome.20 The work, however, can be traced only to the collection of Marchese Costanzo Patrizi in Rome in 1624.21 This Supper at Emmaus, now in Pinacoteca di Brera, differs markedly from his earlier version for the Mattei (see Fig. 41): darker and pared down to a greater degree, the canvas evokes a more somber and meditative feeling. The scene takes place against an impenetrable black abyss. The light that emerges from the upper left picks up the forms enough to see them, yet the darkness threatens to obscure them. Christ is shown at the table with his left hand on the table, while the right is elevated in the blessing of the bread. He is no longer shown as youthful, but appropriately mature and bearded.



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The vibrant red and white of Christ’s garments in the Mattei Supper at Emmaus have here been replaced by a dull green. The two disciples are positioned similarly to those in the Mattei Supper, but their gestures are reversed and relatively restrained. The disciple at the right places both hands on the table and looks toward Christ—an action far more subdued than in the Mattei canvas, where his counterpart on the left seems to be jumping out of his seat. Conversely, the disciple on the left in the later Supper appropriates the gesture of the one on the right in the earlier version, with arms raised and spread in surprise; yet it has been tempered, as his arms do not extend nearly wide or as high as in the Mattei Supper. Caravaggio has also changed the position of the innkeeper: he is now on the right, older, and accompanied by an elderly woman who holds a platter with a rack of lamb. As did the innkeeper in the Mattei canvas, these two figures act as foils to the disciples; they do not recognize Christ, and thus exhibit no sign of surprise. None of the figures is robust, the colors have been reduced primarily to dull earth tones, and the light is subdued, less forceful. Even the still-­life elements have been pared down and simplified. The shift in style seen in the Brera Supper at Emmaus—apparently the first work the artist painted after he was exiled from Rome—has been largely read as symptomatic of his more somber mood as an artist on the run. It may also, however, reflect a change in Caravaggio’s personal spiritual state: as a murderer, an outlaw on the run, the artist may have experienced a transformation, a realization that he needed to change his ways. The dark setting and dull colors certainly convey a bleak mood, but there is also a more introspective and meditative quality here that cannot be ignored, one compounded by the humbler depiction of the figures and the still life. Even in exile, however, Caravaggio continued to receive commissions. He traveled to Naples sometime between 23 September and 6 October 1606 (the latter date is when he opened a bank account there), likely thanks to the help of the Colonna, who owned a palace in that city.22 There he painted the Madonna of the Rosary (1606–7, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), a painting that includes a number of visible bare feet. He also received a commission from the Confraternity of the Pio Monte della Misericordia for a high altarpiece for its church depicting the Seven Acts of Mercy (ca. 1607); a commission by a wealthy nobleman, Tommaso di Franco, for a Flagellation of Christ, intended for his family chapel in San Domenico Maggiore, Naples (1607, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples); a Salome Receiving the Head of John the Baptist (ca. 1608, National Gallery, London) for an unknown

246 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo patron; and the Crucifixion of Saint Andrew (1607, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) for the viceroy of Naples, Don Juan Alonso Pimentel de Herrera, count of Benavente. The Seven Acts of Mercy (Fig. 50) is among Caravaggio’s busiest altarpieces, yet its clarity is not lost. The Pio Monte della Misericordia was a new confraternity in Naples (founded in 1602) “dedicated to the practice of the Seven Acts of Corporal Mercy.”23 The Seven Acts of Corporal Mercy reflects one of the cornerstones of Catholic teaching—good works (in contrast to the Protestant sola fide)—thereby making the subject of the altarpiece central to the confraternity, but also as anti-­Protestant polemic. Six of the acts derive from the Gospel of Matthew—to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to give shelter to the homeless; to clothe the naked; to visit the sick; to give comfort to those in prison. The passage from the Gospel of Matthew from which the first six acts are mentioned appears in the context of the Last Judgment: And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before him: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand… For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me. (Matthew 25:31–36)

When the just inquire when they had done these acts for him, Christ responds: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40) The Gospel passage continues with Christ’s words to those on his left hand in which he repeats the same six acts, but this time, never performed, resulting in everlasting damnation. Caravaggio explicates each act clearly and economically; here in two instances the artist utilizes a single figure to serve two acts. In the foreground, a nearly naked man receives a piece of red fabric cut off from the cloak of Saint Martin who stands before him. The lowered gaze of Saint Martin is simultaneously directed at the crumpled form of a boy in the shadows, thus alluding to visiting or tending to the sick. Standing beside Saint Martin is a pilgrim (identified by his staff and the shell on his hat) who is addressing an innkeeper who is about to provide him shelter. Behind this pair is Samson who drinks water from the jawbone of an ass. Moving toward the right of the canvas, a woman resembling the personification of Roma caritas with bared breast gives



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food and comfort to a prisoner. In the right background, one of the pair carrying the corpse is visible, while a priest dressed in white, wielding burning tapers officiates. The seventh act —to bury the dead— “was added to the canon in the Middle Ages.”24 Although the burying of the dead is not mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, it is mentioned in the Bible as an act of charity. It appears in the Old Testament Book of Tobias: Tobias daily went among all his kindred and comforted them, and distributed to every one as he was able, out of his goods: He fed the hungry, and gave clothes to the naked, and was careful to bury the dead, and they that were slain. And when king Sennacherib was come back, fleeing from Judea by reason of the slaughter that God had made about him for his blasphemy, and being angry slew many of the children of Israel, Tobias, buried their bodies. (Tobias 1:19–21)

Based on the subject of the painting and the patrons, the inclusion of an episode that alludes to the burying of the dead is not unusual. However, the emphasis Caravaggio places on this act is significant. The episode is depicted in the background, yet it is underscored by the inclusion of a brilliant second light source—the flaming tapers—which draw viewers’ eyes beyond the episodes portrayed in the foreground. Was Caravaggio aware of this scriptural reference to the burying of the dead from the Book of Tobias? I suggest that he did. In emphasizing this seventh act, moreover, Caravaggio may have been fully aware of the fact that the Book of Tobias was one of several Old Testament books not recognized by the Protestants. Up above, Caravaggio includes an apparition of the Madonna and Christ Child borne by two winged angels. This addition references the dedication of the confraternity’s church to the Madonna della Misericordia.25 The left angel, however, serves a function beyond bearing the Madonna and Christ Child. His arms are outspread; his left hand is directed upward, while his right is directed below, palm facing downward. The Seven Acts of Corporal Mercy refer not only to charity, but penance, which is emphasized here with a reference to the Last Judgment. The gesture of the angel is not intended to suggest that judgment is being made, but rather evokes the passage from which the acts of charity are derived. It does not literally portray judgment, but rather alludes to it as reminder of penance. Penitence was a central tenet of Borromean Milan, but for an artist on the run, the meticulous manner in which he painted this altarpiece might also be read as his own personal desire to make amends for his past.

248 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Of these post-­Rome sacred paintings, the Crucifixion of Saint Andrew is particularly powerful. Andrew’s martyrdom is recounted in apocryphal texts and The Golden Legend, which describe that the proconsul of Patras, angered by the baptism of his wife by the apostle, ordered his death. The proconsul, Aegeas, commanded that the saint be tied to the cross rather than nailed, in order to prolong his agony. For two days the apostle suffered, but all the while preaching to the crowds who had gathered below. On the third day, the saint’s followers threatened the proconsul and demanded that he put an end to Andrew’s suffering. However, when the Roman soldiers tried to unbind the saint, they could not even touch him: their arms fell back powerless at their sides. Meanwhile Andrew, knowing that the people wanted to rescue him, uttered this prayer from the cross, as Augustine quotes it in his book On Penance: “Lord, do not let me come down alive! It is time for you to entrust my body to the earth….” As Andrew finished his prayer, a dazzling light shone out of heaven and enveloped him for the space of a half hour, hiding him from sight; and as the light faded, he breathed his last.26

Caravaggio’s painting perfectly captures the essence of the text and effortlessly merges various moments into an image where iconic stillness pervades. Andrew is bound to a Latin cross (crux quadrata), rather than the X-­shaped one (crux decussata, or saltire) traditionally associated with the saint as of the late Middle Ages. This decision conforms to then-­prevailing opinions by theologians who deemed the X-­shaped cross erroneous, as it was clearly labeled in Cardinal Cesare Baronio’s amendment of the Martyrologium Romanum.27 Moreover, using a Latin cross impressed on the viewer’s mind Saint Andrew’s yearning to imitate Christ in death. The cross itself is placed slightly askew from the picture plane, making the cross and the figure on the ladder on the left project outward toward the viewer. This figure is in the middle of unbinding Andrew, but he appears frozen, thanks to the function of the dark background and raking light that emanates from the left. Andrew is gaunt, sunburned, and clearly near death. He is completely nude save for the scarlet drapery that decorously covers his pubic area. His eyes are mere slits, as if he can barely muster enough strength to keep them open. Saint Andrew’s mouth, however, is slightly open, suggesting that the final words of his prayer have fallen from his parched lips. Meanwhile, down below are four observers: at the far left, an old woman with a goiter; and to the right of Andrew, three male figures—one, in shadow, with mouth agape, and another (likely the proconsul, dressed in armor) looking up toward the saint.



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The woman with a goiter is of special note here. A radiograph of the canvas reveals that Caravaggio had initially positioned the woman’s hands in prayer near her throat.28 Caravaggio’s decision to include the goiter, and a visible one at that, cannot be deemed as an artistic choice. According to Franz Merke, the goiter in art was utilized primarily for three reasons: to poke fun at people; to elicit appropriate disgust from the viewer for executioners in martyrdoms; and to instill compassion for the poor and sick.29 Ann Tzeutschler Lurie and Denis Mahon lean toward the last reason as Caravaggio’s objective, noting that “Caravaggio must have been familiar with them from Lombardy, since the Bergamasque Alps were notorious for people stricken with goiters.”30 The authors also suggest Caravaggio’s familiarity with those afflicted with goiters in the region around Naples, where they can also be found on figures in Neapolitan crèches.31 Despite their initial suggestion that Caravaggio was exposed to the poor and sick who suffered from goiters in Lombardy, they neglect the fact that goiters appeared in significant works of art in that region. For example, Leonardo’s interest in grotesque heads includes drawings of two men with goiters: one in Christ Church Oxford (ca. 1503–5) and another known through a copy of ca. 1500 by one of his followers in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Moreover, in a preliminary survey of Renaissance art that include figures with goiters, F. G. Vescia and L. Basso have shown that most of these examples appear in works of art in Lombardy.32 Even more important is that a man with a goiter appears in Gaudenzio Ferrari’s sculpture of the man with a sponge in the Crucifixion Chapel. I would argue that his inspiration derived from his native Lombardy; this further underscores the permanence of what he saw, heard, and experienced during his formative years, including the example and teachings of Carlo Borromeo, particularly his concern for the poor. In the Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, Caravaggio has truncated all the witnesses just below their upper torso, suggesting that they are standing in a space contiguous with the viewer. In the source materials, the flash of light enveloped Andrew as he uttered the final words of his prayer. Here, Caravaggio condensed time by showing the light fading in the far right distance, Andrew now drawing his final breath before the sweetness of death. The viceroy possessed a special devotion to Saint Andrew, as he had been involved in the early seventeenth-­century renovation of the crypt of the apostle in the Cathedral of Amalfi.33 This painting was taken by the viceroy when he left Naples in July 1610 for Spain, and was likely used for his own devotions. It seems that Caravaggio, despite the turmoil in his life, still succeeded in creating effective paintings that merge the devotional with the narrative. These later works,

250 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo however, are far more penetrating and moving, in their heightened realism, somber colors, and enveloping shadows. Bellori informs us that Caravaggio traveled to Malta because he was “eager to receive the Cross of Malta.”34 The Knights Hospitaller of Saint John were among the oldest military orders descending from the Crusades. Costanza Colonna’s son, Fabrizio Sforza Colonna, was a member of the order in Venice and transferred to the order in Malta in 1607. According to Ebert-­ Schifferer, Fabrizio Costanza, and Caravaggio embarked from Naples on 25 June 1607.35 Whether Caravaggio went to Malta because of his desire to obtain knighthood, as suggested by Bellori, cannot be proven. Nevertheless, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John, Alof de Wignacourt, was in need of a painter, and he appears to have corresponded with Costanza. Thus it may have been for more lucrative reasons that Caravaggio traveled to Malta. Wignacourt must have quickly become an admirer of the artist, as he sent two requests to Pope Paul V seeking permission for the investiture and knighthood of a man who had committed murder,36 whom most scholars associate with Caravaggio. On 15 February 1608, the papal authorization arrived, and on 14 July, Caravaggio was named a Knight of Obedience.37 Caravaggio painted numerous works during his sojourn in Malta, including a Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page (ca. 1608, Musée du Louvre, Paris), most likely commissioned by the sitter himself; a Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli, commissioned by the sitter, who was a member of the Knights of Malta (1608, Palazzo Pitti, Florence); an Annunciation (ca. 1608, Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Nancy); a Saint Jerome Writing (1608, Museum of Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral, Valletta, Malta) for Fra Ippolito Malaspina, a Knight of Malta; and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Figs. 51, 52; 1608), commissioned by Wignacourt. Caravaggio may have received these commissions merely as a result of his association with the Knights of Malta, but it is significant to note that in addition to Fabrizio Sforza Colonna, another of Caravaggio’s closest associates was also connected to the order: Ottavio Costa. One of Costa’s sons became one of twelve pages serving under the Grand Master Wignacourt.38 The banker was also a relative of Malaspina, who was the great-­uncle to Costa’s sons, Alessandro and Antonio, both of whom became Knights of Malta. It is therefore possible that Malaspina was already aware of Caravaggio before the artist arrived in Malta and before the commission for the Saint Jerome Writing. The Jerome canvas bears Malaspina’s stemma (coat of arms) at the lower right corner. The painting was bequeathed on 10 May 1629 to the Chapel of Italy in Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral.



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The Malaspina Saint Jerome Writing is the last image of the saint that Caravaggio painted during his career. Some scholars have proposed that the features of Saint Jerome resemble those of Alof de Wignacourt and may have been included as a reference to the friendship between Malaspina and Wignacourt. The fact that this Saint Jerome lacks a halo (present in the earlier two versions) has been interpreted in support of the portrait. This justification, however, lacks merit, as Caravaggio omitted halos for numerous religious paintings, both public and private, and included halos even for those saints in which a recognized model was used. The Malaspina canvas includes elements of the earlier version. Here we find the meditative saint merged with the horizontal format of the image of the saint writing the Vulgate in the Borghese Saint Jerome Writing (see Fig. 46). The interior setting appears more descriptive; however, the badly abraded background makes it difficult to make out the details. The saint sits at the edge of his bed as if he has suddenly awoken with the compulsion to write his Vulgate. He is posed in a seated contrapposto, his lower torso turned toward the left while his upper torso and head are turned toward the right. Quill in hand, he writes on the pages of the book before him. His expression does not portray the degree of intensity in writing as seen in the Borghese version, but seems more meditative. As in his earlier version of the saint, his upper torso is bare, revealing the meager and ascetic life of the saint in his body’s gaunt appearance. His face is weathered and careworn, and while his eyes are directed to the words he writes, he seems to look beyond them in a wistful and reflective manner. To the left, hanging on the wall of the saint’s cell, is one of his traditional attributes, the red cardinal’s hat. Placed on the right side of the table are an extinguished candle, a skull propped on a large stone, and a large crucifix, which is placed obliquely on the table extending beyond the edge, projecting into the viewer’s space. At the far right edge, a sliver of a door or post can be seen on which is placed the Malaspina coat of arms. The crucifix and the door serve to define the painted space and link it with the viewer’s space. The Malaspina Saint Jerome Writing encapsulates the essential elements of the saint’s identity, but all the while emphasizes the saint’s penitent, meditative nature. An imaginary line can be drawn from the diagonal of his right arm, which writes the words of God, to the stone with which he beat his breast in penitence, the skull that symbolizes vanity and material things, and, finally, the crucifix. It is as if the artist wanted to convey that the word of God—particularly the good works (Matthew 5:16) of Jerome in translating the Bible—penitence, and humility will lead to divine grace: a gift bestowed upon mankind through Christ’s sacrifice.

252 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Despite this positive turn of events, Caravaggio’s subsequent involvement in a criminal assault led to his imprisonment. On 6 October the artist escaped and fled to Sicily; but as a result, he was expelled from the order, and his knighthood was revoked. Caravaggio stopped in Syracuse first, where he painted the Burial of Saint Lucy (1608) for the church of Santa Lucia al Sepolcro. He then traveled to Messina, where he painted two altarpieces, The Raising of Lazarus (Fig. 53; 1608–9) and The Adoration of the Shepherds (1609)—both now in the Museo Regionale, Messina—and finally to Palermo, where he painted an altarpiece of the Nativity with Saints Lawrence and Francis (1609; stolen 1969) for the Oratorio di San Lorenzo. The fact that Caravaggio was a murderer on the run and a newly defrocked Knight of Malta did not seem to impede his success in obtaining commissions; in fact, his Messina works fetched 1,000 scudi, by far his highest fee to date.39 Sometime in October 1609, Caravaggio was back in Naples, where he painted a series of paintings for private patrons, including the Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (1609–10, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), The Denial of Saint Peter (1610, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Saint John the Baptist (1609–10, Galleria Borghese, Rome), Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (Fig. 54; 1610), and David with the Head of Goliath (Fig. 55; 1610). According to Bellori, The Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist was painted in Naples and was sent to Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, in order to placate him. The same has been suggested for the Borghese David with the Head of Goliath and the Saint John the Baptist. Some scholars maintain that the David with the Head of Goliath was sent to Cardinal Borghese to persuade him to intervene and secure a pardon for Caravaggio’s murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni. The Borghese Saint John the Baptist, another painting of the same subject, and a Mary Magdalene were in the artist’s possession when he embarked on his voyage to return to Rome, believing that he would receive a papal pardon secured by the cardinal-­nephew, Scipione Borghese. Although one of these three paintings would eventually reach Rome, the artist would not: Caravaggio died of an illness in Porto Ercole on 18 July 1610.

Canonization of Carlo Borromeo On 12 May 1602, a mere eighteen years after the archbishop’s death, Pope Clement VIII beatified Carlo Borromeo. Eight years later, Pope Paul V canonized Borromeo as a saint. Although the cult of saints had a long history, it was at first reserved for those who suffered martyrdom. By the fourth century,



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however, people who had publicly demonstrated their faith in life, yet who did not suffer a martyr’s death, began to be venerated publicly after approval of the local bishop. In 1170, Pope Alexander III responded by decreeing that only the authority of the church could deem someone worthy of veneration as a saint.40 In the year 1234, Pope Gregory IX established specific procedures to investigate the life and miracles of any candidate for canonization, and in 1588 Pope Sixtus V formed the Sacred Congregation of Rites to oversee the process of canonization.41 In the seicento, in order to achieve sainthood, the candidate would first need to be beatified. The pope was required to recognize that the person was “blessed” and worthy of consideration for sainthood. After the lengthy investigation for beatification, the canonization examination began; if that was successful, the pope would formally recognize that person as a saint. The canonization of saints was not a commonplace event, then, particularly because it involved a complicated, time-­consuming process and great expenditure. In the seicento, there were very few canonizations, and when they did occur, it was rare that a pope would canonize more than two individuals during his pontificate.42 During the reign of Pope Paul V, only two individuals were canonized: Francesca Romana (Frances of Rome; 9 May 1608) and Carlo Borromeo (1 November 1610).43 The significance of Borromeo’s canonization was that, unlike Francesca Romana—and, indeed, unlike the vast majority of the canonized saints that preceded him—Borromeo had only recently died. In contrast, Francesca Romana had died in 1440 and thus was canonized 168 years after her death. In 1614, four years after Borromeo’s canonization, the Milanese canon Marco Aurelio Grattarola published his Successi maravigliosi della veneratione di S. Carlo (Marvelous achievements regarding the veneration of San Carlo) recording the history of its process, which included an entire chapter on the miracles produced by San Carlo Borromeo.44 According to Grattarola, the Congregation of the Oblates of Saint Ambrose, founded by Borromeo, had begun the process for his canonization.45 Grattarola was among the delegation of clergy sent to Rome in 1609 to begin the process, but the Oblates had already begun to take the initial steps for canonization in 1601,46 assembling a record of the miracles worked by the late archbishop. Giussano recounts six categories of miracles in his 1610 biography of Borromeo: 1.  miracles worked during the life of the cardinal; 2.  those that occurred at his death;

254 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 3.  those miracles achieved through prayers; 4.  miracles that occurred after his burial; 5.  miracles worked by garments and other things used by the cardinal; 6.  miracles that occurred by means of pictures.47 Words by high-­ranking prelates and prominent individuals were recalled, including Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, and the Oratorian and Cardinal Cesare Baronio. Popes from Pius IV to Clement VIII had spoken highly of Carlo Borromeo; in fact, according to Giussano, Pope Clement VIII would have canonized him much sooner, but his death in 1605 left the task to his successors.48 The drafting of a written record of the virtues and miracles wrought by Carlo Borromeo was the first step toward achieving Pope Clement VIII’s sanction for the beatification of the archbishop. Meanwhile, in anticipation of that beatification, the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano (established in 1387)—the organization responsible for the preservation of the Duomo’s physical structure and artistic decoration—commissioned twenty-­eight large paintings (known as Quadroni di San Carlo Borromeo), all tempera on canvas, depicting scenes from the life of the archbishop.49 This first cycle of twenty paintings (the remaining eight were added well after Borromeo’s canonization) were painted between 1602 and 1604 and centered on Borromeo’s tenure as archbishop of Milan. Il Cerano, who designed the program for the cycle, also painted four of the canvases.50 The other sixteen canvases were painted by Giovanni Battista della Rovere and his brother Giovanni Mauro della Rovere (called i Fiammenghini), il Duchino, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Carlo Buzzi, Domenico Pellegrini, and il Morazzone.51 According to Grattarola, the first ten paintings were produced and displayed in time for the celebration of Borromeo’s beatification on 4 November 1602.52 The final ten canvases for the cycle were completed in 1603–4. A second cycle was intended for the celebration of Borromeo’s canonization on 4 November 1610 (three days after the actual canonization), and featured scenes of Borromeo’s miracles. These too were painted in tempera on canvas, twenty-­four canvases in all. Four of the artists had already contributed canvases to the first cycle, which include: il Cerano, il Duchino, Procaccini, and Buzzi.53 Commissions for the remaining canvases were given to an unknown artist named Giorgio Noyers and a Florentine artist named Alessandro Vaiani.54 The Milanese Giovanni Battista della Rovere (known as il Fiammenghino)55 records Borromeo’s Christlike role in these processions (Fig. 16) in one of fifty-­two scenes in Milan Cathedral dedicated to the life



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and miracles of Carlo Borromeo. Here Borromeo appears under a large canopy processing through the streets of Milan with a noose around his neck, holding a large cross with the Holy Nail, and with bare feet, which clearly bleed and stain the earth on which he has just trod. The noose, cross, and nail are more prominent in Antiveduto Grammatica’s half-­figure San Carlo Borromeo with Two Angels and Signs of the Passion (1619–21, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University). In Penitent San Carlo Borromeo in Procession during the Plague (1613–14, Cathedral, Faenza) by Ferraù Fenzoni (1562–1645), Borromeo is shown again with the noose around his neck and barefoot. Borromeo here bears a large cross in imitation of Christ’s road to Calvary. Another cycle, similar to the two for the Duomo of Milan, was made for the canonization ceremony of Carlo Borromeo in San Pietro in Vaticano on 1 November 1610.56 The series comprised tondi painted in gold chiaroscuro; these were hung from the center of thirty-­five arches (part of an ephemeral architectural structure before the choir) in San Pietro in Vaticano, which in 1610 was still under construction. The thirty-­nine scenes (the two tondi at the entrance were double-­sided) depicted the life and miracles of Borromeo. The San Pietro cycle, however, emphasized Borromeo’s role as cardinal versus his role as archbishop, which was the focus of the first Duomo cycles in Milan. Nevertheless, the extravagance and expense of the canonization celebration as examined by Niels Krogh Rasmussen, O.P., underscores the singularity of Borromeo among the canonized saints. For instance, the canonization of Francesca Romana two years earlier had cost 19,000 gold scudi, whereas the canonization of Borromeo exceeded 31,143 gold scudi.57 The elaborateness of the decoration of San Pietro in Vaticano (exterior and interior) was matched by the number of distinguished guests. According to Grattarola, among those who participated in the canonization ceremony were all the regular orders and all the secular clerics of Rome, the procurators of four mendicant orders, seven ordinary canons of the Duomo in Milan, ten penitent Jesuit priests, forty-­six bishops, and thirty-­six cardinals.58 Among the latter group were several close to Carlo who also served as Caravaggio’s patrons (see Chapter 4): Cardinals Federico Borromeo, Maffeo Barberini, and Francesco Maria del Monte. There were also those who were part of Caravaggio’s patrons’ ambient: Cardinals Pietro Aldobrandini (Clement VIII’s nephew), Ottavio Paravicino (Oratorian; see the letter of August 1603 excerpted above), and Alessandro di Montalto (patron of Prospero Orsi, Caravaggio’s close friend). The reverence for Carlo Borromeo was as tremendous in Rome as it was in Milan, and Caravaggio, during the frenzied process toward canonization, was

256 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo enmeshed in an environment of patrons and collectors who had been closely associated with the archbishop.59 The impression made on Caravaggio by the prospective saint could thus only have increased during the artist’s time in Rome—though, of course, he had to flee the city four years before the canonization occurred.

Humilitas As we have seen, Caravaggio included his own features as spectators in numerous sacred images, beginning with the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (see Figs. 31, 34) for the Contarelli Chapel at the start of his public commissions, and then in the Taking of Christ (see Fig. 42) for the Mattei family. The remaining self-­portraits, however, appear in the artist’s late canvases, a fact that has been relatively underemphasized and may be more revealing of the artist’s spiritual transformation. According to Giovanna dell’Orto, when the fleeing Caravaggio surrogate in the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew glances back at the violence unfolding in the center, Caravaggio’s own eyes are the only discernible ones, and they reveal intense participation in the scene; however, in contrast to the gestures of other characters, Caravaggio’s eyes convey a sense not of a dramatized horror but of an immense, painfully conscious sadness of undeniable existential reference. The hypotheses about the meaning of this self-­portrait vary among the two extremes of interpretation of Caravaggio as sure of God’s healing grace in the spirit of the Counter Reformation, or Caravaggio as tragic, powerless sinner.60

Dell’Orto is correct in her reading of the figure’s expression. This is not a man sure of his salvation, but one who is conflicted: he seems to desire God’s healing grace, but does not feel he merits it. Compare this to his self-­portrait in the Taking of Christ (see Chapter 6), where he arrives (not flees) and directly observes (and illuminates) the encounter between Christ and Judas. Here perhaps he has inched toward the divine grace for which he yearns; but still he keeps his distance, behind the soldiers. Psychoanalytic readings are often problematic, and so little is known of Caravaggio’s temperament, but in the case of Caravaggio’s self-­portraits, there is an element of the personal that cannot be denied. There are few Renaissance or Baroque artists who portrayed themselves as frequently as Caravaggio. Moreover, when artists did include themselves in their own paintings, they were typically easy to point out; normally, at the right, facing and looking



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directly at the viewer. Caravaggio, however, did not use the traditional formulas for self-­portraits in images; rather, he cast himself as an observer, not entirely part of the scene, but also not completely separate. This decision, combined with the variance in his position and the manner in which he depicts himself, suggests that a more personal statement is being made, one unconnected to issues of fame or self-­promotion. Between 4 May 1598 and 19 October 1601—during which time he painted both the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and the Taking of Christ—Caravaggio appeared in police records four times for various assaults. His motivation for these various criminal acts, or whether he felt remorse for inflicting injury on several of the complainants, is irrelevant to this study. As John Varriano has shown, codes of honor were central to daily life in early seicento Rome, and criminal violence was not uncommon.61 Based on these criminal records, however, it is reasonable to suppose that the artist could not justify his position among the recipients of divine grace. This self-­ referencing trend increases significantly toward the end of the artist’s life. In 1608, two years after the murder of Tommasoni and Caravaggio’s exile from Rome, there comes a work that, though certainly not a traditional self-­portrait, nevertheless references the artist directly. For the Knights of Malta, the artist painted his largest canvas, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Fig. 51), destined for the altar wall of the new Oratory of Saint John next to the Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral of Valletta. This painting may have served in lieu of the obligatory tribute all knights were required to pay upon joining the order.62 The canvas represents the martyrdom of the order’s patron saint, Saint John the Baptist. This occurred after the episode recounted in the Gospel of Mark (6:21–28), in which Herod held a banquet where his step-­daughter Salome danced for him. He was so pleased with her performance that he promised to grant her any wish. His wife, Herodias, angry at the Baptist for having rebuked her marriage to Herod, her half-­uncle, ordered her daughter to ask for the head of the saint on a dish. Herod could not refuse. Caravaggio’s canvas presents the moment of the actual beheading. In a prison yard, and observed by two prisoners through the bars of their cell at right, Saint John the Baptist lies prostrate on the ground. He has already been wounded by a sword, which lies on the ground next to his head. The executioner leans forward, grasping the saint’s hair in his left hand; his right wields the knife with which he intends to sever the head. Ebert-­Schifferer indicates that this detail “invests the act with the character of a sacrificial slaughter, an impression that is reinforced by the fleece on which the saint lies.”63 At the far

258 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo left of the canvas, Salome leans forward, platter in hand, to receive the head of the Baptist. Beside her stands a female servant who holds her wrinkled face in horror, and a jailor who points toward the platter. Caravaggio includes himself not physically within the painting, but rather symbolically. The artist has written his name in the blood that gushes forth from the wound in Saint John’s neck: “f. MichelAn(gelo)” (Fig. 52). The “f” probably stands for “Fra” or “Brother” Michelangelo, which suggests that the painting was completed after his admission to the order. Here, with this signature, Caravaggio seems to submit that, as a member of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John the Baptist, he has been cleansed of his sins with the blood of the order’s patron saint. His optimism in receiving forgiveness from Wignacourt for his transgressions in Malta and a papal pardon is apparent in the Raising of Lazarus (Fig. 53), painted shortly after arriving in Messina from Syracuse. The commission came from Giovan Battista de’ Lazzari, a wealthy merchant. Lazzari had just obtained the rights to a chapel in the church of the Padri Crociferi (“cross-­bearing fathers”), another confraternity devoted to the care of the sick, and wanted Caravaggio to paint the altarpiece. The initial request appears to have been for a sacra conversazione, but this was later changed (possibly at the instigation of the artist) to the Resurrection of Lazarus. The subject is recounted in the Gospel of John (11:1–44). Christ received word that Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary Magdalene, was on his deathbed in Bethany. By the time Christ arrived, however, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Christ therefore went to his grave and raised him from the dead. Tradition had established the raising of Lazarus from the dead as a “type” of resurrection, prefiguring Christ’s own. Here in Caravaggio’s altarpiece, Christ extends his right arm toward the body of Lazarus, commanding him to “come forth.” (John 11:43) Just above Christ’s extended wrist, Caravaggio included his own self-­ portrait among the witnesses to the miracle. The artist’s proximity to Christ is significant. In his two earliest self-­portraits inserted into religious scenes, the artist placed himself at a distance from the holy protagonists. In the Raising of Lazarus, however, not only has he, near Christ, now bridged that distance, but he turns his head in the direction of the divine light, which highlights his profile against the dark abyss of the setting. He yearns for divine grace. He is hopeful and ready. A similar self-­portrait appears in his Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (see Fig. 54), painted for the Genoese Prince Marcantonio Doria, upon Caravaggio’s return to Naples in anticipation of the pardon he was certain was forthcoming.64



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In the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, whose story is recounted in The Golden Legend, the chief of the Huns shoots an arrow through Saint Ursula’s breast as punishment for rejecting his amorous overtures. Among the witnesses to the gruesome event is the artist himself, who appears behind Saint Ursula’s head to the right. As in the Raising of Lazarus, Caravaggio has placed himself near the holy figure, Saint Ursula, and his face is brightly lit by the divine light. He looks toward the light, mouth agape, eyes glazed over, as if transfixed. It is as if he is experiencing spiritual elation or conversion. Could it be that Caravaggio finally believes he merits divine grace? The answer is provided by what must be his final canvas, the Borghese David with the Head of Goliath (see Fig. 55). The painting has been variously dated to the artist’s final years in Rome (1605–6), or to his post-­Rome years either in Naples, Malta, or Sicily. The painting, however, is first documented only in 1613 in the accounts of painter-­gilder Annibale Durante, where he records a payment by Cardinal Scipione Borghese for a frame for a David.65 The technical analysis of the painting, executed in the 1990s during the restoration of all of Caravaggio’s works in the Borghese collection, has revealed that the David with the Head of Goliath is, in fact, closer in technique to the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, thus placing it toward the end of his career.66 The subject of David and Goliath was a popular and familiar one (I Samuel 17) in both cinquecento and seicento sculpture and painting. David, the young shepherd boy, was an unlikely hero. Refusing the armor Saul offered him, David confronted the eight-­foot-­tall Philistine giant with only his sling and five stones. He slung one stone, which found its mark in the middle of Goliath’s forehead. David then grabbed the Philistine’s sword and cut off his head. Caravaggio’s representation of the youthful David proffering the severed head of Goliath to the viewer appears fairly straightforward. The identification of Caravaggio’s features on the head of Goliath, however, has mired the understanding of the canvas in sensational psychoanalytic and homoerotic interpretations; a problem that also plagues the readings of the artist’s early work. Among the earliest accounts of the painting (1650), Jacopo Manilli, the guardaroba of the Villa Borghese, records the painting in the cardinal’s collection and identifies the head of Goliath as a “portrait of himself and, in the David, of his Caravaggino.”67 Manilli’s reference to the artist’s “Caravaggino” has been linked to Cecco del Caravaggio, the artist’s servant, possible pupil, and reputed lover—the latter motivated by suggestions of the artist’s homosexuality. In 1672, Bellori repeats Manilli’s identification of the head of Goliath as a self-­portrait of the artist.68 While most scholars accept the identification of

260 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo the head of Goliath as a self-­portrait of the artist, Manilli’s suggestion that the head of David shows a portrait of the artist’s “Caravaggino” is largely dismissed. The homosexual implications of Caravaggio’s canvases are beyond the scope of this project. Nevertheless, it must be noted that piety was not correlated with a chaste sexual life or a clean criminal record, especially during this period. David stands against a background of black drapery in what we must assume is the dark interior of Saul’s tent. In his right hand, he holds Goliath’s sword, while in his left, he proffers the gruesome head of Goliath toward the viewer, breaking the liminal boundary of the canvas. The head of Goliath bearing the artist’s features appears simultaneously alive and dead. Goliath bears the mark of David’s death blow, inflicted by the stone from his sling. His eyes are open, but glazed over, and his mouth is agape, like that of the half-­severed head of Holofernes in his early Judith Beheading Holofernes (see Fig. 25) for Ottavio Costa. David, meanwhile, looks down at the head of Goliath with sympathy and even a note of sadness. With neither the powerful determination seen in Michelangelo’s 1501–4 David, nor the triumph of a David triumphantly standing above (or on) the bodyless head of Goliath (with which the tradition is replete), Caravaggio’s David is not heroic. He appears regretful, pensive, but certainly not victorious. How can the unusual mood of Caravaggio’s David be explained? What if the youthful figure of David represents the “younger Caravaggio”—or, as Manilli put it, “Caravaggino” (little Caravaggio)? The identification of the David as another self-­portrait of the artist has been made and supported by Herwarth Röttgen (1974) and Sergio Rossi (1989), suggesting that the artist was torn between his two selves—the one deserving of punishment and the other who yearned for salvation.69 Michael Fried, on the other hand, seems to interpret the double self-­portraits as self-­serving. According to Fried, David’s gesture was described “as a disguised mirror representation of the act of applying paint to canvas, though there is also an important sense in which the head of Goliath may be taken as standing for the painting itself.”70 Caravaggio, in this double self-­portrait, seems to identify with the executioner as well as the Philistine Goliath. The young Caravaggio portrayed on the wistful face of David holds up the head of Goliath, also a self-­portrait, but one symbolic of his work of art, according to Fried. As a final painting, however, in a career where the influence of Carlo Borromeo permeated every sacred work executed by his brush, Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath cannot be reduced to representing a mere confession, plea for mercy, or self-­aggrandizing overture.



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The key to the significance of the double self-­portrait can be found on the sword. On its blade are letters that have variously been read as “M A C O,” an abbreviation for M[ichaeli] A[ngeli] C[aravaggio] O[pus] (“work [of] Michelangelo [da] Caravaggio”);71 as a mark of the swordsmith;72 and as an Augustinian motto.73 In 1987, Maurizio Marini proposed that the letters on the sword be read as “H.AS O S,” an abbreviation of the Augustinian motto humilitas occidit superbiam (“humility slays pride”). The latter reading is largely favored and equally significant, I would argue, in relationship with Carlo Borromeo. It cannot be a coincidence that an artist whose sacred works are steeped in humility here chose a motto in which “humility” predominates, a word that also appears in the stemma of the late archbishop. As Pamela M. Jones has noted in her studies on Carlo Borromeo, humility was recognized— not only during his lifetime, but long after his death—as the archbishop’s most important virtue (Fig. 56).74 In an oration celebrating the feast day of the Blessed Carlo Borromeo in the Duomo of Milan on 4 November 1607, the Barnabite priest Bartolomeo Gavanti extolled Carlo Borromeo’s humility: Imagine yourselves, my Lords, seeing a triumphal chariot composed of all the virtues, Theological and Cardinal, whose foundation is Faith, on which rests its seat—Hope. The… [chariot’s] roof is Charity. The two wheels are Justice and Temperance. The two steeds are Prudence and Fortitude…. These [virtues] carry him as if in a triumphal chariot. But his Humility appears to me so admirable that in my opinion it sits crowned in the middle of the chariot of virtues with the Blessed [Carlo] nearby. Humility accompanied him from birth to life, and from life to death, and to this day beyond his death Humility has not abandoned him.75

Humility was the crowning virtue of a good Christian, and here, in his final canvas, Caravaggio at last proclaims that he has embraced it and is worthy of forgiveness and, ultimately, salvation. It is a revelation urged by the memory of Carlo Borromeo, who in Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto’s eulogy upon the death of Borromeo in 1584, described his former student as “a David in humility.”76 In David with the Head of Goliath, Caravaggio acknowledges his sins by representing himself in the head of Goliath, the embodiment of sin and evil. His decision to include his own rejuvenated features on David too, however, announces his conversion. He shows himself as a younger man before his altercations in Rome: clean-­shaven jaw, cropped hair, and wiry physique. Here the artist, in humility, slays his sinful, prideful, older self as an act of contrition. This explains his remorse: he is finally victorious over his sins, but in his humility he recognizes that this victory likely had come too late—as indeed it had. Caravaggio

262 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo embarked on a felucca headed for Rome between 10 and 11 July 1610. By the end of July, two avvisi report that Caravaggio had died of an illness in Porto Ercole as he was making his way back to Rome from Naples. The hospital in Porto Ercole, Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, records the death of the artist on 18 July 1610. Though some have suggested that David with the Head of Goliath was painted to secure Cardinal Borghese’s assistance in obtaining a pardon, there is no record of the painting entering the Borghese Collection until 1613, three years after the artist’s death.77 By 1610, Cardinal Borghese owned four paintings by Caravaggio: the Boy with a Basket of Fruit and the Bacchino Malato, both confiscated from the studio of Cavaliere d’Arpino by Pope Paul V, Borghese’s uncle, for unpaid taxes; the altarpiece of the Madonna dei Palafrenieri (see Fig. 40), originally intended for the altar of Saint Anne in San Pietro in Vaticano, and acquired by Borghese in 1606; and the Saint Jerome Writing (see Fig. 46), probably commissioned by the cardinal himself. The artist’s biographies, which state that the David with the Head of Goliath was commissioned by the cardinal, all postdate its entry into the Borghese Collection. Moreover, the avviso dated 31 July 1610 reports that when the artist died at Porto Ercole, he was on his way back to Rome from Naples “because a pardon had been granted him by His Holiness from the sentence of banishment which he was under for a capital crime.”78 This indicates clearly that the pardon had already been granted before Caravaggio left Naples. Receipt of the pardon is repeated in Bellori, who mentions, however, that Caravaggio “obtained his freedom from the pope through the intercession of Cardinal Gonzaga.”79 Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga (1587–1626) was the son of the Vincenzo I Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, who had acquired the artist’s Death of the Virgin (see Fig. 39). It seems that more than one supporter was working to obtain a pardon for the artist. A letter to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, dated 29 July 1610 and from Bishop Deodato Gentile, the new papal nuncio in the Kingdom of Naples, informs that Caravaggio had been arrested in the harbor of Palo; by the time he was released, the felucca with all his possessions had left to return to the palace of Costanza Colonna in Naples.80 Gentile continues by indicating that, at the Colonna palace, he could only find three paintings—two of Saint John the Baptist and one of the Magdalene—which were intended for Cardinal Borghese.81 It is these three paintings, therefore, that were probably meant to thank Cardinal Borghese for his intercession. Thus the David with the Head of Goliath may not have been destined for anyone other than the artist himself. David with the Head of Goliath is also the darkest of Caravaggio’s canvases. It is not, however, merely the pronounced humility and naturalism of



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Caravaggio’s sacred work that can be related to Carlo Borromeo. The darkness of his canvases is suggestive of Borromeo’s practice of meditating at night (Figs. 20, 22).82 He established public night prayers, and the days preceding the Provincial Councils he spent in devout communing with God, in spiritual exercises, prayer and contemplation, accompanied by fasts, disciplines and vigils. It was his custom to allow himself about four hours’ repose at night, but on these occasions he retrenched even from this, and spent nearly the whole night in prayer.83

In his pilgrimages to the Santa Casa in Loreto, Carlo spent the whole night in prayer, and during the Jubilee in Rome he would frequently visit the holy shrines, once again spending the entire night in prayer.84 He did the same the night before feast days, the night before the translation of relics, and he would be among those who prayed and watched over the Blessed Sacrament all night during the celebration of the Forty Hours’ Devotion.85 Most important, however, Carlo would visit each of the little chapels at the Sacro Monte di Varallo at night with only a small lantern in hand.86 For Borromeo, night was conducive to prayer, meditation, and reflection, and this is echoed in Paleotti’s anecdote of a man meditating on a night sky (see Chapter 3). Both the placement of the anecdote at night and the basis of Paleotti’s delights in the imitation of nature correlate with Borromeo’s description of the earthly existence as the “darkness of this clouded world.”87 This is the world in which Caravaggio’s scenes are grounded, penetrated only by a raking light from an unseen source, like “the light of Christ our Lord, the everlasting Sun… to drive away darkness from the minds of men.”88 Three consistories in Rome, held in August and September of 1610, marked the final stages for the canonization of Borromeo. Caravaggio may have learned about Borromeo’s imminent canonization through the Colonna and his patrons when he departed for Rome in July 1610. Although scholars interpret the papal pardon granted by Pope Paul V as Caravaggio’s primary motivation for returning to Rome, might he also have desired to be back in the Holy City to bear witness to Borromeo’s canonization? We may never know the answer. The David with the Head of Goliath, however, is particularly revealing. As the only work in which Caravaggio utilized his own portrait for the face of a biblical figure, it serves as the culmination of his personal struggle for salvation. At the very end of his life, he has come closer to achieving that through humility—a lesson from Carlo Borromeo, one long carried and oft painted, but now finally fully embraced.

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49. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1606, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.



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50. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Seven Acts of Mercy, ca. 1607, oil on canvas. Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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51. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1608, oil on canvas. Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral, Valletta, Malta. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.



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52. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, detail of Caravaggio’s signature, Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1608, oil on canvas. Saint John’s Co-­Cathedral, Valletta, Malta. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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53. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Raising of Lazarus, 1608–9, oil on canvas. Museo Regionale, Messina. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.



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54. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, 1610, oil on canvas. Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Naples. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

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55. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1610, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.



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56. Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano), San Carlo in Glory, 1615, oil on canvas. San Gottardo in Corte, Milan. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Art Resource, NY.

notes

Introduction 1. Anne H. Muraoka, “Il fine della pittura: Canon Reformulation in the Age of Counter-­ Reformation—The Lombard–Roman Confluence,” PhD diss., Temple University, 2009. 2. Note regarding titles of artworks: An attempt has been made to balance translations of titles from the Italian—many of which, of course, were not contemporary—with extant English titles. Sometimes a more widely known English title has been used; other times, a closer translation. Throughout, however, I have written San Carlo Borromeo where an English translation title might usually say St. Charles Borromeo. The Italian titles referenced were those in Paolo Biscottini, ed., Carlo e Federico: La luce dei Borromeo nella Milano spagnola, exh. cat., Museo Diocesano, Milan, 5 November 2005–7 May 2006 (Gessate [Milan]: Arti Grafiche Colombo, 2005). 3. Beginning in the early twentieth century with Roberto Longhi’s seminal essays on Lombard precursors to Caravaggio to the important 2004 exhibition, Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, the importance of Caravaggio’s Lombard predecessors on the artist’s own style have seen significant consideration. See Roberto Longhi, “Quesiti Caravaggeschi, I: Registro dei tempi,” Pinacotheca 1, no. 6 (1928): 17–33; Longhi, “Quesiti Caravaggeschi, II: I precedenti,” Pinacotheca 1, no. 7 (1929): 258–320; Flavio Caroli, ed., Il Cinquecento lombardo: Da Leonardo a Caravaggio, exh. cat., Palazzo Reale, Milan, 4 October 2000–25 February 2001 (Milan: Skira, 2000); and Andrea Bayer, ed., Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, exh. cat., Museo Civico “Ala Ponzone,” Cremona, 14 February–2 May 2004, and Metropolitan Museum of

274 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Art, New York, 27 May–15 August 2004 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2004). 4. Pamela M. Jones’s significant studies on Carlo Borromeo, particularly in connection with the archbishop of Milan’s profound humility, include the following: Pamela M. Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers in the Churches of Rome from Caravaggio to Guido Reni (Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 2008), especially chaps. 3 and 4; Jones, “San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery in Milan and Rome,” in Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague 1500–1800, ed. Gauvin Alexander Bailey et al., exh. cat., Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, 3 April–25 September 2005 (Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum; distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2005), 65–96; Jones, “The Court of Humility: Carlo Borromeo and the Ritual of Reform,” in The Possessions of a Cardinal: Politics, Piety, and Art 1450–1700, ed. Mary Hollingsworth and Carol M. Richardson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 166–84; and Jones, “Bare Feet, Humility, and the Passion of Christ in the Cults of Mary Magdalene and Carlo Borromeo in Seicento Rome,” in Gifts in Return: Essays in Honour of Charles Dempsey, ed. Melinda Schlitt (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2012), 321–36. 5. See Agostino Valier, Vita del beato Carlo Borromeo [1586] (Milan: per G. Ferioli, 1606); Carlo Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, Arcivescovo di Milano, Cardinale di S. Prassede [Ingolstadt, 1592] (Milan: Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, 1965); Giovanni Pietro Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, Prete Cardinale del titolo di Santa Prassede, Arcivescovo di Milano [Rome, 1610] (Rome: Nella Stamperia della Camera Apostolica, 1610). Giussano’s biography is the only one available in translation from the original Italian. The other two early biographies of Borromeo were written in Latin, but have been translated into Italian. For English translation of Giussano, see John Peter [Giovanni Pietro] Giussano, The Life of St. Charles Borromeo [1610], trans. Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, 2 vols. (London and New York: Burns & Oates, 1884). 6. Thomas of Celano, St. Francis of Assisi: First and Second Life of St. Francis, with selections from “Treatise on the Miracles of Blessed Francis,” trans. Placid Hermann, O.F.M. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1963). 7. Borromeo’s original Latin text of his Instructiones appears in Paolo Barocchi’s third volume of sixteenth-­century treatises on art, which is also available digitally. See Carlo Borromeo, Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae [1577], in Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento: Fra manierismo e controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1962), 3:1–123; accessed 17 August 2012, http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/scritti_borromeo.pdf. The studies of Evelyn Carole Voelker are particularly useful in understanding the content of Borromeo’s Instructiones, including her translation of that work. See Evelyn Carole Voelker, “Charles Borromeo’s Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 1577: A Translation with Commentary and Analysis,” PhD diss., Syracuse University, 1977; and Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred Art and Architecture,” in San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, ed. John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro (Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, and London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1988), 172–87. 8. Giovanni Andrea Gilio, Dialogo nel quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori circa l’istorie [Camerino: Antonio Gioioso, 1564], in Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, 2:3–115. Gilio’s text has yet to be translated into English.

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9. Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane [Bologna, 1582], in Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, 2:117–517; Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle immagini [sic] sacre e profane, trans. Gian Franco Freguglia (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002); Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre et [sic] profane, ed. Paolo Prodi (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1990); and Paleotti, Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images, trans. William McCuaig (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2012). I use Prodi’s edition for the original Italian text and McCuaig’s edition for the English translations. 10. Paolo Prodi, “Ricerche sulla teorica delle arti figurative nella Riforma Cattolica,” in Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà 4 (1965): 121–212. 11. A. W. A. Boschloo, Annibale Carracci in Bologna: Visible Reality in Art after the Council of Trent, 2 vols., Kunsthistorische Studièn van het Nederlands Historische Instituut te Rome, 3 (The Hague: Government Publishing Office, 1974), 1:121–55. 12. Donald Posner, Annibale Carracci: A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting around 1590, 2 vols., National Gallery of Art, Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, 5 (New York: Phaidon, 1971). 13. Charles Dempsey, Annibale Carracci and the Beginnings of Baroque Style, Villa I Tatti Monographs, 3 (Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1977); and Dempsey, “The Carracci Reform of Painting,” in The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Mary Yakush and Margaret Aspinwall, trans. Robert Eric Wolf et al., exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 19 December 1986—16 February 1987 (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1986), 237–54. 14. Pamela M. Jones, “Art Theory as Ideology: Gabriele Paleotti’s Hierarchical Notion of Painting’s Universality and Reception,” in Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America 1450–1650, ed. Claire Farago (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 127–39. 15. Claire Farago, “Gabriele Paleotti on the Grotesque in Painting: Stretching Old Cultural Horizons to Fit a Brave New World,” Medieval Feminist Forum 16, no. 1 (1993): 20–23. 16. Stefania Biancani, “La censura del nudo nel Discorso di Paleotti e nella trattatistica post-­ Tridentina a Bologna,” in Bartolomeo Cesi e l’affresco dei canonici lateranensi, ed. Vera Fortunati and Vincenzo Musumeci (Fiesole: Nardini, 1997), 204–15; and Ilaria Bianchi, La politica delle immagini nell’età della Controriforma: Gabriele Paleotti teorico e committente (Bologna: Compositori, 2008). 17. Marcello Beltramme, “Le teoriche del Paleotti e il riformismo dell’Accademia di San Luca nella politica artistica di Clemente VIII (1592–1605),” Storia dell’arte 69 (1990): 201–33. 18. Ruth Noyes, “‘Aut numquid post annos mille quingentos docenda est Ecclesia Catholica quomodo sacrae imagines pingantur?’ Post-­Tridentine Image Reform and the Myth of Gabriele Paleotti,” Catholic Historical Review 99, no. 2 (2013): 239–61. 19. Several scholars have addressed the importance of Franciscan spirituality in Caravaggio’s works, but they largely focus either on the prevalence of bare feet in the artist’s canvases or on singular works of art. The present volume expands upon these scholarly studies in considering a large majority of Caravaggio’s sacred works through a Franciscan lens. The work of Bert Treffers is particularly noteworthy. See Bert Treffers, “Il Francesco Hartford del Caravaggio e la Spiritualità francescana alla fine del XVI secolo,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 32, nos. 1–2 (1988): 145–72; Treffers, “In agris

276 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo itinerans: L’esempio della Madonna di Loreto del Caravaggio,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 (1996): 274–92; and Treffers, “I piedi dell’affetto,” in Arte francescana e pauperismo dalla Valle dell’Aniene: l’“exemplum” di Subiaco, ed. Claudio Crescentini, Atti delle giornate di studio, Subiaco, 1996 (Subiaco: Iter, 1997), 123–29. See also Marco Pupillo, “Pauperismo e iconografia francescana nella pittura del Caravaggio: Due contesti documentari,” in Crescentini, Arte francescana e pauperismo, 152–68.

Chapter 1 1. Hans Belting termed “biographical icons” as images with a centralized figure of a saint that is surrounded by a series of scenes taken from his life. See Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 257. 2. Ibid. 3. Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects [1568], 2 vols., ed. and trans. Gaston du C. de Vere (New York and Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). 4. Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting [ca. 1435], trans. John R. Spencer, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1966). Alberti’s treatise is considered the first modern study of painting, and written at a moment of great change in art. Divided into three books (fundamentals of mathematics, parts of a painting, function of the painter), Alberti’s On Painting is a manual that encourages a break from the style of the Middle Ages. In his prologue, Alberti acknowledges the greatness of the ancients, but places the artists of his time on a higher level. The ancients had models to imitate and from which to learn, which, according to Alberti, was not the case for his contemporaries. 5. Ibid., 56. 6. Ibid., 68–82. 7. Vasari, Lives, 1:425–28. Vasari weaves a rather confusing, and contradictory story of how the oil medium arrived in Italy. In the beginning of the “Life of Antonello da Messina,” Vasari explains that Antonello traveled to Bruges, in Flanders, to learn how to paint in oils from Jan van Eyck, a master Flemish painter whom Vasari credits for inventing the oil medium. According to Vasari, Antonello did not depart from Bruges until he had gained a complete understanding of painting in oil. Toward the end of Antonello’s “Life,” however, Vasari mentions that when Antonello was in Venice, Domenico Veneziano taught him the secret of coloring in oil. 8. Alexander Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 114. 9. Alberti, On Painting, 68. The example that Alberti provides for this is the antique relief of the Death of Meleager, in which the body of the dead Meleager appropriately weighs down those who carry him. Every member of the Meleager relief conveys his lifelessness, “everything hangs, hands, fingers, and head; everything falls heavily.” 10. Ibid., 72. 11. Ibid., 73. 12. Ibid., 85.

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13. Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, 49. For a discussion of the Byzantine tradition of the Man of Sorrows, see also Hans Belting, “An Image and Its Function in the Liturgy: The Man of Sorrows in Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34–35 (1980–81): 1–16. 14. Erwin Panofsky, “Imago Pietatis,” in Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1927), 261–308. 15. Sixten Ringbom, Icon to Narrative: The Rise of the Dramatic Close-­Up in Fifteenth-­Century Devotional Painting, 2nd ed. (The Netherlands: Davaco, 1984). 16. Ibid., 39. 17. Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, 28. 18. Ibid., 29. 19. The literature on the Protestant Reformation position on images is extensive. For a broad overview of the Protestant view on sacred images, and especially Reformation iconoclasm, see Sergiusz Michalski, The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe (London: Routledge, 1993). Carlos M. N. Eire’s War against the Idols provides a clear discussion on the differences between Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists regarding image worship. See Carlos M. N. Eire, War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986). For an overview of the Valdesian movement in Italy—group who were inwardly sympathetic to Protestant ideas, headed by the Spaniard Juan de Valdés—see Salvatore Caponetto, The Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth-­Century Italy, trans. Anne C. Tedeschi and John Tedeschi, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 43 (Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999). 20. Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, 13. 21. Ibid., 13–14. 22. The scholarship on mannerism (maniera) is vast. For a review of the essential scholarship, see Anne H. Muraoka, “Mannerism,” in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Margaret King (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 23. John Shearman, Pontormo’s Altarpiece in S. Felicita (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1971). Shearman asserts that Pontormo has depicted an Entombment, citing Raphael’s Entombment of 1507 as its inspiration. According to Shearman, the body of Christ is being brought forward to be lowered to the altar (liturgical symbolism), under which conveniently is the tomb of Lodovico Capponi the Elder (redemptive purpose of the patron). Leo Steinberg, on the other hand, suggests that the altarpiece depicts a transitional moment between the Deposition and the Entombment, focusing more specifically on the Pietà. Leo Steinberg, “Pontormo’s Capponi Chapel,” Art Bulletin 56, no. 3 (1974): 385–99. 24. Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, 33. 25. Belting, Likeness and Presence, 269–71. 26. Steinberg, “Pontormo’s Capponi Chapel,” 387. Steinberg asserts that the only precedent to the crescent swerve of Pontormo’s dead Christ is Michelangelo’s dead Christ in his marble San Pietro Pietà. Pontormo appropriates this formal motif, but conceives it as a dismantled Pietà. 27. Vasari, Lives, 2:359. 28. See Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, 73.

278 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 29. Andrea Bayer provides a useful discussion of the elasticity of the understanding of Lombard style in the cinquecento. See Andrea Bayer, “Defining Naturalism in Lombard Painting,” in Bayer, Painters of Reality, 4–5; and see Vasari, Lives, 2:445. 30. In 1646, Agucchi’s Trattato was published, in part, and posthumously under his known pseudonym, Gratiadio Machati. The Trattato is reproduced in Denis Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1947), and an excerpt is reprinted in Robert Enggass and Jonathan Brown, Italian and Spanish Art 1600– 1750: Sources and Documents (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1992), 26–30. 31. Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, 246. 32. Cited in Howard Hibbard, Caravaggio (1983; reprint, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985), 113. 33. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori [nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568], vol. 4, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi (Florence: Sansoni; Studio per edizioni scelte, 1976). 34. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vols. 4 and 6 (Florence: Sansoni, 1879, 1881) [hereinafter Vasari–Milanesi], 6:457. 35. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scultura ed architettura [1584], 3 vols. (Rome: Presso Saverio Del-­Monte Editore Proprietario, 1844). 36. Ibid., vol. 1, lib. 1, cap. 1, “Della definizione della pittura,” 27–42; translation mine. 37. Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo on Painting, 144; cf. Alberti, On Painting, 77. 38. Lomazzo, Trattato, vol. 1, lib. 2, cap. 1, “Della forza, ed efficaccia dei moti,” 173–77, at 176–77. 39. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 33, “On pictures that are obscure and difficult to understand,” 251; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 33, “Delle pitture oscure e difficili da intendersi,” 210r. 40. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue, insino a’ tempi nostri [“nell’edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino,” Florence, 1550], ed. Luciano Bellosi and Aldo Rossi, 2 vols. (Turin: Einaudi, 1991) [hereinafter Vasari–BR], 2:550. 41. Lomazzo, Trattato, vol. 1, lib. 2, cap. 2, 183–85. Translation mine. 42. Federico Borromeo, Sacred Painting [1624], Museum [1625], ed. Kenneth S. Rothwell Jr. I Tatti Renaissance Library, 44 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 65–68. 43. Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 108; Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, trans. Christopher S. Wood (New York: Zone Books, 1997), 67. 44. Vasari, Lives, 1:630; Vasari–Milanesi, 4:26: “È cosa mirabile che quello ingegno, che avendo desiderio di dar sommo rilievo alle cose che egli faceva, andava tanto con l’ombre scure e trovare i fondi de’ più scuri, che cercava neri che ombrassino e fussino più scuri degl’altri neri, per fare che ’l chiaro, mediante quegli, fussi più lucido; et infine riusciva questo modo tanto tinto che, non vi rimanendo chiaro, avevon più forma di cose fatte per contraffare una notte che una finezza del lume del dì: ma tutto era per cercare di dare maggiore rilievo, di trovar il fine e la perfezione dell’arte.” 45. Mina Gregori, “Caravaggio and Lombardy: A Critical Account of the Artist’s Formation,” in Bayer, Painters of Reality, 23–43, at 30. 46. Vasari, Lives, 1:639–40; Vasari–Milanesi, 4:50: “Nell’arte della pittura aggiunse costui alla maniera del colorire ad olio una certa oscurità, donde hanno dato i moderni gran forza e rilievo alle loro figure.”

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47. Giovanni Battista Armenini [Ravenna: F. Tebaldini, 1586], On the True Precepts of Painting, ed. and trans. Edward J. Olszewski (New York: Burt Franklin, 1977), 195. 48. For a general history of the Sacro Monte di Varallo, see Luciano Vaccaro and Francesca Riccardi, eds., Sacri Monti: Devozione, arte e cultura della Controriforma (Milan: Jaca Book, 1992). For studies on the function of the Sacro Monte in religion, see Ryan Gregg, “The Sacro Monte of Varallo as a Physical Manifestation of the Spiritual Exercises,” Athanor 22 (2004): 49–55; Christine Göttler, “The Temptation of the Senses at the Sacro Monte di Varallo,” in Wietse De Boer and Christine Göttler, eds., Religion and the Senses in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 393–452; William Hood, “The Sacro Monte of Varallo: Renaissance Art and Popular Religion,” in Monasticism and the Arts, ed. Timothy G. Verdon, with John Dally (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 291–313; D. Medina Lasansky, “Body Elision: Acting out the Passion at the Italian Sacri Monti,” in The Body in Early Modern Italy, ed. Julia L. Hairston and Walter Stephens (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 249–73; Pier Giorgio Longo, “Il Sacro Monte di Varallo nella seconda metà del XVI secolo,” in I Sacri Monti di Varallo e Arona: Dal Borromeo al Bascapè (Novara: Interlinea, 1995), 41–116; Angelo L. Stoppa, “I quattro pellegrinaggi di San Carlo al Sacro Monte di Varallo,” in Da Carlo Borromeo a Carlo Bascapè: La pastorale di Carlo Borromeo e il Sacro Monte di Arona, Atti della giornata culturale, Arona, 12 September 1984, Studi novaresi, 5 (Novara: Associazione di Storia della Chiesa Novarese, 1985), 57–82; and Danilo Zardin, “I Sacri Monti e la cultura religiosa e artistica della Controriforma,” Memorandum 9 (2005): 105–20. Göttler argues that the mountainous and remote location of the Sacro Monte di Varallo was conducive to such spiritual exercises; Göttler, “Temptation of the Senses,” 394. 49. Hood, “Sacro Monte of Varallo,” 300. 50. Ibid. 51. The guide, published in Novara, is cited in Paolo Venturoli, “Le statue in legno e in terracotta della Cappella della Crocifissione e il problema di Gaudenzio scultore,” in Gaudenzio Ferrari: La Crocifissione del Sacro Monte di Varallo, ed. Elena De Filippis (Turin: Allemandi, 2006), 35. The English translation is my own. 52. The ties between Leonardo’s works and Lombard sculpture have been noted as early as 1922. Francesca Ricardi’s 1991 essay significantly contributed to this dialogue by examining the influence of Leonardo’s works and theories on the moti dell’animo of the sculptures of Gaudenzio Ferrari at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, particularly in the Chapel of the Crucifixion. Francesca Ricardi, “Traccia da Leonardo ai Sacri Monti,” in I leonardeschi a Milano: Fortuna e collezionismo, ed. Maria Teresa Fiorio and Pietro C. Marani, Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Milan, 25–26 September 1990 (Milan: Electa, 1991): 141–46. Other highly significant studies on Leonardo and Lombard sculpture include the following: Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri, Leonardo da Vinci e la scultura (Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1922); Maria Teresa Florio, “Uno spunto leonardesco in un rilievo del Bambaia,” in Florio and Marani, I leonardeschi a Milano, 87–99; and Göttler, “Temptation of the Senses,” 411. 53. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Libro de Sogni, in Scritti sulle arti, vol. 1, ed. Roberto Paolo Ciardi (Florence: Marchi & Bertolli, 1973–75), 101. 54. Longhi, “Quesiti Caravaggeschi, II: I precedenti,” 258–320.

280 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 55. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina pittrice: Vite de’ pittori bolognese [1678], 2 vols. (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1974), 1:264. 56. There is a lack of consensus among historians regarding the usefulness and validity of “Counter Reformation” as a period designation. For a concise discussion on the various arguments between historians, regarding the period label “Counter-­Reformation,” see John W. O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000). Although “Counter-­Reformation” is still a point of debate, I utilize this term throughout this book in reference to the Catholic Church’s response to the threat of Protestantism, marked by the opening of the Council of Trent in 1545. I also utilize “Post-­Tridentine” when referring to literature and art produced after the closing of the Council of Trent in 1563. 57. Some of the primary discussions regarding the context, motivation, and objectives of the Council of Trent’s decree on images can be found in the following key texts: Hubert Jedin, “Entstehung und Tragweite de Trienter Dekrets über die Bilderverherung,” Tübingen Teologische Quartalschrift 116 (1935): 134–88, 277–99; Alain Tallon, La France et le Councile de Trente (1518–1563) (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1997); and John W. O’Malley, “Trent, Sacred Images, and Catholics’ Senses of the Sensuous,” in The Sensuous in the Counter-­Reformation Church, ed. Marcia B. Hall and Tracy E. Cooper (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 21–48, particularly 32–36. The formulation of the decree on images has been largely explained as motivated by French pressures over the outbreaks of iconoclasm in France. I would argue, however, that the decree also responded specifically to Protestant criticisms regarding images. The Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509–64) penned a small tract How to Shun the Unlawful Rites (1537) in which he defined idolatry not as the veneration of other gods, but rather as a lack of faith leading one to promulgate and believe in cults and superstition. The expanded edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1539) further expands on this observation. It is man’s weakness, his lack of inner faith and devotion that necessitates a carnal presence of God. These physical representations, in turn, deceive Christians by stimulating their senses and moving them to believe falsely that a divine presence is housed within the image. Calvin disavowed spiritual or instructional benefits through the recourse of the senses or though emotions procured of them. The Council’s decree on images promoted these very functions in validating the need for sacred images. See Giuseppe Scavizzi, The Controversy on Images from Calvin to Baronius, Toronto Studies in Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), 9–16. 58. Rev. H. J. Schroeder, O. P., ed. and trans., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (Rockford, IL: Tan Books, 1978), 216. 59. Roberto Longhi recognized a Lombard-­inspired quality in Lodovico Carracci’s work. Though Lodovico remained in Bologna for most of his career, his work beginning in the latter part of the 1580s shows a familiarity with the Lombard aesthetic—possibly absorbed from his two cousins (Agostino and Annibale) after their trip to Venice and Lombardy. See Roberto Longhi, “Momenti della pittura Bolognese,” Archiginnasio 30 (1935): 111–35. In 2004, Charles Dempsey suggested that the Carracci, particularly Lodovico and Annibale, began a reform in painting, which successfully assimilated Florentine disegno, Venetian color, and Lombard illusionism and affective colorism; Charles Dempsey,

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The Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art: The Third Italian Renaissance: Art of the Lombard Plain, podcast audio, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., accessed 6 September 2013, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/audio-­ video/audio/freedberg-­ dempsey.html. Although born in Urbino, Barocci’s family can be traced to Lombardy; his grandfather, Ambrogio Barocci, was a Lombard sculptor. A visit to Lombardy, although still a matter of conjecture, is plausible, as Barocci’s familiarity with the work of Correggio is evident in his own work. Luigi Lanzi was among the first art historians to recognize a mixture of Lombard and Venetian qualities in the work of Federico Barocci. It is equally likely, however, that Barocci was exposed to the ideas of Lombard sacred style through his relationship with Archbishop of Milan Federico Borromeo. Ian Verstegen has placed Federico Borromeo within a larger Oratorian ambient, and has importantly noted that the cardinal commissioned several works from Barocci, including an altarpiece for the altar of Santa Prassede in Milan Cathedral (never executed); a Nativity; and later two altarpieces for Milan Cathedral, Saint Ambrose’s Pardon of Theodoric and the Lamentation of Christ. Equally important in supporting Barocci’s exposure to Lombard sacred style is Stuart Lingo’s observation of the retrospective elements in Barocci’s works, as well as their vaghezza and divoto (“alluring” and “devout”) qualities; qualities, I would argue, that draw from Lombard aesthetic. See Luigi Lanzi, The History of Painting in Italy, vol. 1: The Florentine, Sienese, and Roman Schools [1795], trans. Thomas Roscoe, rev. ed. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1847), 451; Ian Verstegen, “Federico Barocci, Federico Borromeo, and the Oratorian Orbit,” Renaissance Quarterly 56, no. 1 (2003): 56–87; and Stuart Lingo, Federico Barocci: Allure and Devotion in Late Renaissance Painting (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2008). Santi di Tito had presumably made an important trip to Venice in 1571–72. Marcia B. Hall has noted “a new appreciation of color and light,” after his presumed visit to Venice. See Marcia B. Hall, The Sacred Image in the Age of Art: Titian, Tintoretto, Barocci, El Greco, Caravaggio (New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press, 2011), 132. The Lombard style also had a powerful presence in Venice, particularly in the works of Giorgione and Savoldo. The figures in the Supper at Emmaus, painted only two years after his return from Venice, shows the Lombard interest in realistic figures and tangible forms. Although Santi does not employ the dark backgrounds of Lombard precedents, he does incorporate a juxtaposition of light and shadow that contributes to the verity of the scene.

Chapter 2 1. The scholarship on the relationship between Caravaggio and religion is immense. I have included herein only a select bibliography. Scholars who have drawn parallels between Caravaggio’s religious paintings and the Oratorians, or those who acknowledge the relevancy of Neri and the Oratorians in discussing Caravaggio’s Roman works, include the following: John Gash, Caravaggio (London: Chaucer, 2003); Alfred Moir, Caravaggio (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989); Troy Thomas, “Expressive Aspects of Caravaggio’s First Inspiration of Saint Matthew,” Art Bulletin 67, no. 4 (1985): 636–52; and Alessandro Zuccari, “La politica culturale dell’Oratorio romano nella seconda metà del Cinquecento,”

282 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo

2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

Storia dell’arte 41 (1981): 77–112. Other scholars, such as the following, have found affinities between Caravaggio’s sacred works and both the Oratorians and Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises: Richard E. Spear, Caravaggio and His Followers (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1971); and Rudolph Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600–1750, vol. 1: Early Baroque (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999). Connections between Caravaggio’s treatment of light and narrative choices in his religious paintings and Augustinian ideas have been proposed most notably by Hibbard, Caravaggio; and Troy Thomas, “An Augustinian Interpretation of Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew,” Studies in Iconography 27 (2006): 157–191. A more balanced examination of Caravaggio’s sacred works as his response to a broader exposure to Counter-­Reformation theory and devotion has been made by Joseph F. Chorpenning and John Varriano: see Chorpenning, “Another Look at Caravaggio and Religion,” Artibus et Historiae 8, no. 16 (1987): 149–58; and Varriano, “Caravaggio and Religion,” in Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image, ed. Franco Mormando, exh. cat., McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1 February–24 May 1999 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 191–207. Maurizio Calvesi, Le realtà del Caravaggio (Turin: Einaudi, 1990). Calvesi’s book is the earliest and most significant study of Caravaggio’s connections with the Borromei of Milan, particularly with Federico. Numerous scholars have acknowledged a Franciscan parallel with Caravaggio’s humble approach to religious images, but the discussion is typically made in passing or with a restricted body of works. Most important, however, the Franciscan connection is typically not associated with Caravaggio’s Lombard years under the spiritual aegis of Carlo Borromeo. Recent studies have contributed to the understanding of importance of Carlo Borromeo to Caravaggio, but they are not expansive. The following is only a select bibliography of recent studies that have addressed Carlo Borromeo and Caravaggio: Treffers, “I piedi dell’affetto”; Catherine Puglisi, Caravaggio (London: Phaidon, 1998); Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers; and Andrew Graham-­Dixon, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2010). See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter-­Reformation Milan, ed. Heiko A. Oberman, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 84 (Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill, 2001); and Richard Schofield, “Carlo Borromeo and the Dangers of Laywomen in Church,” in Hall and Cooper, Sensuous in the Counter-­Reformation, 187–205. Paolo Maria Sevesi, “San Carlo Borromeo e l’ordine dei frati minori,” Echi di San Carlo Borromeo 2 (1937): 42–49. Rev. Cesare Orsenigo, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, trans. Rev. Rudolph Kraus (St. Louis, MO and London: B. Herder Book Co., 1943), 324–25. Sevesi, “San Carlo Borromeo,” 46. Ibid. Carlo’s Franciscan habit was made of silk, however, rather than the prescribed wool fabric. Sevesi argues that this is not so unusual, as Borromeo was not officially part of the order, and his high ecclesiastical position warranted a Franciscan habit made of silk. Orsenigo mentions that Borromeo’s habit was preserved in St. Barnabas in Milan. Ibid., 47. Among its noted members were the following: Paolo Sfondrati, baron of Valle Assina and brother of Niccolò Sfondrati (the future Pope Gregory XIV, r. 1590–91); Cardinal

notes

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

283

Francesco Gonzaga; Cesare Gonzaga, brother of Francesco and brother-­ in-­ law of Borromeo; Ludovico Taverna, count of Landriano (later bishop of Lodi); the Milanese nobleman Pietro Antonio Lunati; Venetian nobleman Giovanni Delfino (later bishop of Torcello); Tolomeo Gallio (later created cardinal by Pope Pius IV); Guido Ferreri, bishop of Vercelli (later cardinal); Silvio Antoniano, secretary to Borromeo (later cardinal and disciple to San Filippo Neri); Agostino Valier, bishop of Verona and cardinal; Alessandro Simonetta, son of the count of Palatino and close friend of Borromeo; humanist and scholar Sperone Speroni; Giovanni Battista Amalteo, secretary to Carlo Borromeo (1562); Francesco Alciati, bishop of Civitate (later cardinal) and former pupil of Carlo in Pavia; Carlo Visconti, bishop of Ventimiglia (later cardinal); humanist Carlo de Monti; Ludovico Simonetta, bishop of Pesaro (later cardinal); nobleman and diplomat Curzio Gonzaga; and Ugo Boncompagni, who would rise to the papal throne as Pope Gregory XIII in 1572. See Luigi Berra, L’Accademia delle Notti Vaticane fondata da San Carlo Borromeo (Rome: Max Bretschneider, 1915), 10–12. Pietro Giacomo Bacci, The Life of Saint Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome, and Founder of the Congregation of the Oratory [1622], ed. Frederick Ignatius Antrobus, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1902), 1:35. Marco Pupillo, La SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini di Roma: Artisti e committenti al tempo di Caravaggio (Rome: Associazione Culturale Shakespeare & Company 2, 2001), 70; and Jones, Altarpiece and Their Viewers, 79. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:24–25; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 20–21. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:25; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 21. Berra, L’Accademia delle Notti Vaticane, 24. See also Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 31; Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:49: “Stimulated by the example of St. Charles, many members of the Ac[c]ademia took up sacred studies, in order to imitate him in learning, as well as in a holy life.” Stefania Stefani Perrone, “La ‘Gerusalemme’ delle origini nella secolare vicenda edificatoria del Sacro Monte di Varallo,” in Vaccaro and Riccardi, Sacri Monti, 27–57, at 30. Ibid. “E’ tanto il desiderio mio che ormai si attenda ad eseguire, appena sarà confermato, questo santo Concilio conforme al bisogno che ne ha la cristianità tutta, e non più a disputare.” See Pio Paschini, Cinquecento Romano e riforma cattolica: Scritti raccolti in occasione dell’ottantesimo compleanno dell’autore (Rome: Facultas Theologica Pontifici Athenaei Lateranensis, 1958), 109; and Richard Schofield, “Architecture and the Assertion of the Cult of Relics in Milan’s Public Spaces,” Annali di architettura 16 (2004): 79–120, at 79. Michel De Certeau, “Carlo Borromeo,” in DBI 20:267 (1977). These pilgrimage sites are all located in Northern Italy (Lombardy and its environs, with the exception of Loreto in Marche). Gabriele Paleotti’s 1582 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane provides a useful perspective on the definition of “sacred” images from a theologian who played an integral role in the final sessions of the Council of Trent. In book 1, chapter 16, Paleotti defines eight categories of sacred images, which included holy relics—such as Veronica’s Veil and the Shroud of Turin—as well as images manufactured by divine hands, and those

284 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo

20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

that served as vehicles or vessels for miracles. See Paleotti, Discourse, trans. McCuaig, bk. 1, chap. 16, “Which images are called sacred,” 99–102. For the original Italian text see Paleotti, Discorso, ed Prodi [hereinafter PD–Prodi], lib. 1, cap. 16, “Quali si chiamino Imagini Sacre,” 54r–57r. Although focused on the city of Florence, Megan Holmes’s study of miraculous images is also quite useful in understanding how the “miraculous” quality of images were constructed, amplified, and perceived in the Renaissance. See Megan Holmes, “Miraculous Images in Renaissance Florence,” Art History 34, no. 3 (2011): 432–65. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:336–37; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 226. Bascapè, Vita e opera di Carlo, 267; and Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:338; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 227. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 267; Giussano relates that in 1579, Borromeo had traveled to Rome and along the way stopped to visit several holy places. Among them was Mount La Verna, the holy site “where the glorious St. Francis received the stigmata from our Lord, giving himself there up to the contemplation of heavenly things, and meditation on the seraphic spirit of St. Francis, and the flame of love that burnt in his heart.” See Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:87; Giussano, Vite di S. Carlo Borromeo, 372. Francesco Adorno, Lettera della peregrinatione di mons. Ill.mo cardinale di s. Prassede arcivescovo di Milano per visitar la santa sindone di nostro Signore Gesù Cristo (Milan: Pacifico Pontio, 1578). Quoted in Andrew R. Casper, “Display and Devotion: Exhibiting Icons and Their Copies in Counter-­Reformation Italy,” in De Boer and Göttler, Religion and the Senses, 43–62, at 49–50. A later such annual display is documented in an engraving by Giovanni Testa (British Museum; reproduced in Casper, 50), which shows Borromeo, surrounded by other church officials on a special platform in Piazza Castello, holding the Shroud over the balcony rail for the faithful who flocked to bear witness to the relic. Casper, “Display and Devotion,” 49–50, n. 16. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:50; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 32. According to Giussano, Carlo was the one who convinced his uncle, Pope Pius IV, to build the church. Its construction was ordered by the pope in July 1561. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:340; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 228–29. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:341; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 229. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:342; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 229. Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers, 187. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 293; and Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:359; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 243. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 289. De Boer, Conquest of the Soul, 28. The Conventuals followed a more relaxed observance of Francis’s Rule. For Borromeo’s contribution to the reform of the Order, see Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:184–85; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 126. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 669: “Aveva una cura squisita di conservare in tutto il decoro ecclesiastico. Nelle stesse calze e nelle scarpe, in ogni parte del vestito, in ogni atto e gesto osservava sempre la sacra dignità cosí che non vi appariva nulla che mostrasse ricercata eleganza o leggerezza profana, nulla che contrastasse con la gravità e santità del suo grado.” English translation from Jones, “Court of Humility,” 169.

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34. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 669; and Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:388; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 590. 35. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:388–89. According to Giussano: “The bright influence of his humility was reflected upon all around him, in his dress, his house, and even his furniture. I say his dress, for although in his outer garments he wore what was proper to his dignity as Cardinal, he avoided everything like ornament and vain decoration, as he delighted in simplicity himself, and wore underneath garments such as the poorest would not wear.” See also Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 590. 36. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:457; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 636. 37. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:391; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 592. 38. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:340; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 558. 39. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:370; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 578. 40. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:338; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 557. 41. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:411; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 606. 42. It was in Milan that the l’oratione delle quarant’ore (Forty Hours’ Devotion) was introduced, in the church of Santo Sepolcro in 1527. The Quarant’ore required not only the display of the Eucharist for forty hours, between two Mass celebrations, but also its continued veneration, typically by members of confraternities. This was yet another form of meditation and prayer centered on visual apprehension. 43. Schofield, “Architecture and the Assertion,” 89. 44. Michael A. Mullett, Historical Dictionary of the Reformation and Counter-­Reformation, Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements, no. 100 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010), 192. 45. Nils Holger Petersen, “The Quarant’Ore: Early Modern Ritual and Performativity,” in Performativity and Performance in Baroque Rome, ed. Peter Gillgren and Mårten Snickare (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 115–33, at 116. In 1550, Neri also introduced to Rome the Forty Hours’ Devotion. Father Bacci recounts that the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini would participate in the devotion on the first Sunday of every month and during Holy Week, where Neri would remain present “during the whole time the devotion lasted.” See Bacci, Life of Saint Philip Neri, 1:36. 46. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano [Ancona and Bologna: per Alessandro Benacci, 1577]; Progetto Manuzio, http://www.liberliber.it/mediateca/libri/b/bisciola/relatione_verissima_del_progresso_etc/pdf/relati_p.pdf (accessed 31 July 2013), 7. English translation from Graham-­Dixon, Life Sacred and Profane, 50–51. 47. Bisciola, Relatione verissima, 7; Graham-­Dixon, Life Sacred and Profane, 51. 48. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:247; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 488. 49. Jones, “San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery,” 85. 50. Ibid. Bellintani (1534–1611), a missionary preacher and worker, late in life wrote a Historia Capuchina. 51. Ibid. 52. Thomas of Celano, First and Second Life of St. Francis, 3. 53. Ibid., 88. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 3.

286 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

Ibid., 94. Ibid. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:318; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 545. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:318; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 545. Thomas of Celano, First and Second Life of St. Francis, 42–43. Ibid., 43. Ibid. Ibid. Quoted in Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence,” 176; for original Latin text, see Borromeo, Instructiones, lib. 1, cap. 17. 65. Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence,” 177. 66. Achillis Ratti, Acta ecclesiae Mediolanensis: Ab eius initiis usque ad nostram aetatem, 3 vols. (Mediolani [Milan]: Pontificia Sancti Ioseph, 1890–92), 2:col. 37–38. 67. Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence,” 177. 68. Borromeo, Instructiones, lib. 1, cap. 11. 69. Ibid., lib. 1, cap. 17. 70. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:291; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 528. 71. Valerio Guazzoni, “Aspetti del tema sacro nella pittura dei Campi,” Paragone 38, no. 453 (1987): 22–42, at 23–24. Recall too that Niccolò’s brother Paolo was a member of Borromeo’s Accademia. 72. Bram de Klerck, The Brothers Campi: Image and Devotion—Religious Painting in Sixteenth-­ Century Lombardy, trans. Andrew McCormick (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999), 25. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid., 34. 75. Guazzoni, “Aspetti del tema sacro,” 27–28. 76. Ibid., 28. English translation mine. 77. Ibid., 27. English translation from De Klerck, Brothers Campi, 89. 78. Bartolomeo Scalvo is mentioned in Giussano’s biography of Borromeo, as a recipient of Borromeo’s saintly gifts. “God was pleased to encourage His servant by a miraculous cure in the person of Signor Bartolomeo Scalvi, who was raised from his bed and a dangerous illness after receiving a visit from the saint, as we read in documents of the ecclesiastical tribunal of Cremona, in the process concerning the miracles of the saint.” See Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:350; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 235. 79. Guazzoni, “Aspetti del temo sacro,” 29. English translation is my own. 80. Ibid. 81. Bartolomeo Scalvo, Meditationi infiammatorie: Dell’anima Christiana all’amore di Christo Crocefisso (Venice: Appresso Gio. Varisco & Compagni, 1581). 82. Guazzoni, “Aspetti del temo sacro,” 30. 83. Ibid. English translation is my own. 84. Ibid. “Prostrato poi l’innocentissimo Giesu sopra quel pretiosissimo legno della santa croce, à quella fu dagli arrabbiati cani…” 85. Gilio, Degli errori, 40: “afflitto, sanguinoso, pieno di sputi, depelato, piagato, difformato, livido e brutto.” Translation mine.

notes 8 6. 87. 88. 89. 90.

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Guazzoni, “Aspetti del temo sacro,” 34. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:318; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 545–46. De Klerck, Brothers Campi, 90. Guazzoni, “Aspetti del temo sacro,” 34. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 44, “A few guidelines for representing images of the vices and virtues,” 284–89, at 286; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 44, “Alcuni avvertimenti per rappresentare le imagini delle virtù e vitii,” 248v. 91. Carlo Borromeo, Sermoni familiari di S. Carlo Borromeo,… fatti alle monache dette Angeliche dell’insigne monastero di S. Paolo (Padua: G. Comino, 1720), 40. English translation is mine. 92. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 625; and Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:248; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 488. 93. De Klerck, Brothers Campi, 117. 94. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:248; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 488. 95. Stoppa, “I quattro pellegrinaggi di San Carlo.” 96. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 613, 615, and 617. Translated and cited in Hood, “Sacro Monte of Varallo,” 302–3, and also quoted in Véronique Plesch, “A Pilgrim’s Progress: Guidebooks to the New Jerusalem in Varallo,” Art on Paper 6, no. 2 (2001): 50–57, at 53–54. 97. Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 615. 98. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:237, 318; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 545. 99. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:239; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 483. According to Giussano, Carlo’s two favorite chapels at the Sacro Monte di Varallo were those of the Prayer in the Garden and the Holy Sepulchre. Bascapè does not identify his favorite chapels, but merely indicates that the meditation on the death of Christ and his burial brought Borromeo comfort, particularly when looking at and contemplating the reproduction of Christ’s sepulchre. See Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 617. 100. Giulio Procaccini’s San Carlo Borromeo and the “Dead Christ” at Varallo (1613, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) is another moving example of the subject. 101. De Klerck, Brothers Campi, 90. 102. Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green, eds., Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century [Paris, Bibliotèque Nationale, Ms. Ital. 115], trans. Isa Ragusa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). Other meditational texts, although not Franciscan in origin, are clearly Franciscan-­inspired. See Ludolphus de Saxonia, Praying the Life of Christ, ed. and trans. Sister Mary Immaculate Bodenstedt, S.N.D., Analecta Cartusiana, 15 (Salzburg: Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, Universität Salzburg, James Hogg, 1973); and Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J. (New York: Vintage Books, 1998). 103. Francis of Assisi, The Little Flowers of the Glorious Messer St. Francis and of His Friars [Vicenza, 1476], trans. W. Heywood (Florence: G. Fattorusso, 1949), 196. 104. Quotation from Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins (NJ: Paulist Press, 1978), 32. Later spiritual and meditational texts and guides address “darkness” similarly. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises relates

288 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo the beginning stage of meditation to darkness, or purgation. See Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (New York: Vintage Books, 2000). The Spanish Saint John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz; 1542–91) explained in his Dark Night of the Soul (ca. 1582) that it was the path through darkness that leads to spiritual enlightenment and union with God. “[A]lthough this happy night brings darkness to the spirit, it does so only to give it light in everything…. This dark night of loving fire, as it purges in the darkness, so also in the darkness enkindles the soul…. The very wisdom of God which purges these souls and illumines them purges the angels from their ignorances, giving them knowledge…. [S]o immense is the spiritual light of God,… that the nearer we approach it, the more it blinds and darkens us.” See Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, ed. and trans. E. Allison Peers (New York: Image Books, Doubleday, 1990), 119, 136, 137, and 156. (This Dark Night of the Soul, ca. 1582, was his theological commentary on his poem of the same name, ca. 1578.) The relationship between darkness and purgation also reappear in devotional tracts by Cardinal Federico Borromeo. See Federico Borromeo, I tre libri delle laudi divine [Milan: 1632], in “I tre libri delle laudi divine” di Federico Borromeo: Ricerca storico-­stilistica, ed. Alessandro Martini, Miscellanea Erudita, 26 (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1975). See also Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth Century Milan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 36, 65–68. In a recent, illuminating essay, Meredith J. Gill, has pointed to the significance of darkness in Augustine’s writings where “divine light and worldly darkness, incorporeal and corporeal, are in mortal contest.” See Meredith J. Gill, “Until Shadows Disperse: Augustine’s Twilight,” in Hall and Cooper, Sensuous in the Counter-­Reformation, 252–72, at 264. 105. See Muraoka, “Il fine della pittura,” chapter 3. 106. John Shearman, “Leonardo’s Colour and Chiaroscuro,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 25, no. 1 (1962): 13–47; and Alexander Nagel, “Leonardo and Sfumato,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 24 (1993): 7–20. 107. Quoted in the preface written by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning for Giussano, Life of St. Carlo Borromeo, 1:xvii–xviii. 108. Sybille Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio: The Artist and His Work (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012), 34. 109. Giovanni Testori, “L’immagine di S. Carlo nel tempo,” in San Carlo e il suo tempo, Atti del Convegno Internazionale nel IV centenario della morte (Milan, 21–26 May 1984) (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 1986), 23–34, at 23. 110. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 39. 111. Casper, “Display and Devotion,” 45. 112. See Muraoka, “Il fine della pittura,” chapter 3. 113. Giulio Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” trans. of “Di Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” from Considerazioni sulla pittura [ca. 1617–21], ed. Adriana Marucchi, 2 vols (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1956–57); in Hibbard, Caravaggio, 346–51, at 347. 114. Ibid. 115. Giovanni Baglione, “The Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Painter,” trans. of “Vita di Michelagnolo da Caravaggio, pittore,” from Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti… [Rome,

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1642], Studi e testi, 367 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1995); in Hibbard, Caravaggio, 351–56, at 352. 116. Ibid., 354–55. 117. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” trans. of “Vita di Michelangelo Merigi da Caravaggio, pittore,” from Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni [Rome, 1672], ed. Evelina Borea (Turin: Einaudi, 1976); in Hibbard, Caravaggio, 360–74, at 361. 118. Ibid. 119. Ibid. 120. Ibid., 373. 121. Jones, “San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery,” 65. 122. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:256; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 494. 123. Saint Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis of Assisi [1263], ed. The Archbishop of Westminster (London: R. Washbourne, 1868), 163. 124. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:236; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 480–81. 125. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:243; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 485. 126. Thomas of Celano, First and Second Life of St. Francis, 59; and Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:251; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 490. 127. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:252; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 490–91. 128. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:253; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 491. 129. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:254–55; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 492–93. 130. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:255; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 493. 131. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:267–68; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 504–5. 132. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:255; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 493. 133. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:258; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 496. 134. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:491–517; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 651–56. 135. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:518–39; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 673–82. Giussano records fifteen miracles via images of Carlo Borromeo in Italy, seven in Poland. 136. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:540–54; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 687–98. 137. Hood, “Sacro Monte of Varallo,” 303.

Chapter 3 1. Lodovico Dolce, Dialogo della pittura di M. Lodovico Dolce, intitolato L’Aretino [Venice: Gabriel Giolito, 1557], in Dolce’s “Aretino” and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento, ed. and trans. Mark S. Roskill (New York: New York University Press, for the College Art Association of America, 1968), 163–67; Pietro Aretino, one of the interlocutors in Dolce’s dialogue, was especially relentless on the subject of the decorum of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. Aretino took offense with various aspects of Michelangelo’s fresco, in particular,

290 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo the quantity of nudes, deeming it “unworthy of this place [Sistine Chapel] of great sanctity” and the profundities of meaning. 2. In the “Life of Fra Angelico,” for instance, Vasari, having just emphasized the piousness of Angelico, asserted that painters who execute religious subjects should be “religious and holy men.” Vasari continues, in the same biography, with the assertion that “persons of little faith, who have little esteem for religion… often arouse in men’s minds evil appetites and licentious desires.” It is clear that Vasari’s words were instigated by the Council of Trent’s decree (1563), for these comments do not appear in the 1550 edition of his Lives. See Vasari, Lives, 1:408–9; and Vasari–BR, 1:344–50. 3. Vasari, Lives, 1:408–9. 4. Between 1564 and 1592, four Counter-­Reformatory treatises dealing particularly with sacred painting were published in Italy, three by ecclesiastics and one by a layman. Three of the four treatises have been translated into English: Paleotti, as Discourse, trans. McCuaig; Borghini, as Raffaello Borghini’s “Il Riposo,” ed. and trans. Lloyd H. Ellis Jr. (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2007); and Comanini, as “The Figino; or On the Purpose of Painting”: Art Theory in the Late Renaissance, trans. Ann Doyle-­Anderson and Giancarlo Maiorino (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2001). The fourth treatise, Gilio’s Degli errori, is not available in English; I rely on the Barocchi Italian edition, and any translations are my own. I discuss only two of the most relevant and treatises in this chapter (Degli errori and the Discourse). See Muraoka, “Il fine della pittura,” chapter 7 for a full discussion of the treatises published after Paleotti’s Discourse. 5. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 216. 6. See Bernardine Barnes, Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”: The Renaissance Response (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), 124–33. 7. The dialogue’s interlocutors included three doctors of the law (Vincenso Peterlino, Troilo Mattioli, Silvio Gilio), one doctor of medicine (Pulidoro Saraceni), and one canon of the church (Ruggiero Coradini). See Vincenzo Caputo, “Gli ‘abusi’ dei pittori e la ‘norma’ dei trattatisti: Giovanni Andrea Gilio e Gabriele Paleotti,” Studi rinascimentali 6 (2008): 99–110, at 100. 8. Gilio, Degli errori, 4. 9. Ibid., 10: “Qual pittore mai potrebbe ricavarli tanto del naturale, che rassimigliassero ai veri?” 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 55: “E mi pare che i pittori che furono avanti Michelagnolo più a la verità et a la devozione attendessero, che a la pompa.” 12. This is particularly evident in Vasari’s discussion of Michelangelo in the “Preface to the Third Part.” See Vasari, Lives, 1:617–23, at 621–22. 13. Vasari, Lives, 1:97. 14. E. H. Gombrich, “The Style all’antica: Imitation and Assimilation,” in Gombrich on the Renaissance, vol. 1: Norm and Form (London: Phaidon, 1993), 122–28, at 123. 15. Cited and translated by Gombrich, “Style all’antica,” 122. 16. Jan Bialostocki, “The Renaissance Concept of Nature and Antiquity,” in Studies in Western Art: Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, vol. 2: The Renaissance and Mannerism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 19–41, at 20–30.

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17. Ibid., 20. 18. Ibid., 26. 19. Philip Sohm, Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 96. 20. See Vasari, Lives, “Preface to the Third Part.” 21. Stephen J. Campbell, “Fare una cosa morta parer viva”: Michelangelo, Rosso, and the (Un) Divinity of Art,” Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 596. 22. Ibid. 23. Federico Zucarro, Idea de’ pittori, scultori et architetti (Turin: per Agostino Disserolio, 1607). 24. Ibid., bk. 1, chap. 7. 25. Gilio, Degli errori, 39–40. 26. Ibid., 25. 27. Ibid., 41: “Se l’arte è scimia de la natura, perché non deve in questo imitarla?” 28. Ibid., 49: “l’arte imita la natura, e non la natura l’arte.” 29. Ibid., 40: “afflitto, sanguinoso, pieno di sputi, depelato, piagato, difformato, livido e brutto.” 30. Ibid., 15; see also Charles Dempsey, “Mythic Inventions in Counter-­ Reformation Painting,” in Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, ed. P. A. Ramsey, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 18 (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), 55–75. 31. Gilio, Degli errori, 25. 32. Ibid., 26–27. 33. Ibid., 111. 34. Ibid., 110. 35. Ibid., 111: “vile, goffo, plebeo, antico, umile, senza ingegno et arte.” 36. Ibid., 55. 37. Belting, Likeness and Presence, addresses this particular issue in chap. 20, “Religion and Art: The Crisis of the Image at the Beginning of the Modern Age,” 458–90, at 470–74. 38. Ibid. See also Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, which further investigates the idea of presence, and in particular the significance of frontality or prosopopeia in imbuing authenticity and piety in sacred images. (Gilio’s regolata mescolanza is on 14–15.) 39. Gilio, Degli errori, 87. 40. Ibid., 40. This is expressed by Gilio’s Troilo in response to painting scenes of Christ’s Passion. “Molto più mostrerebbe il pittore la forza de l’arte in farlo afflitto, sanguinoso, pieno di sputi, depelato, piagato, difformato, livido e brutto, di maniera che non avesse forma d’uomo. Questo sarebbe l’ingegno, questa la forza e la virtù de l’arte, questo il decoro, questa la perfezzion de l’artefice.” 41. Vasari, Lives, 1:618. 42. Ibid., 621. 43. Gilio, Degli errori, 29. 44. Giuseppe Scavizzi, Arte e architettura sacra: Cronache e documenti sulla controversia tra riformati e cattolici (1500–1550) (Reggio Calabria and Rome: Casa del Libro, 1981), 132. 45. Pope Gregory the Great, cited in David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 163–64.

292 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 46. See O’Malley, “Trent, Sacred Images,” in Hall and Cooper, Sensuous in the Counter-­ Reformation, 37–38. According to O’Malley, Pope Pius IV created a deputation of cardinals shortly after the closing of the council, charged with the implementation of the Tridentine decrees in Rome. Among the members were Carlo Borromeo and Gabriele Paleotti. The final meeting of the deputation (21 January) included a discussion of covering up obscene and false pictures. O’Malley points out that while this has often erroneously been seen as a reference to Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, there is no evidence to support this connection. However, he does consider it plausible that Michelangelo’s fresco was discussed as an example of lascivia. 47. Vasari, Lives, “Preface,” 1:13–25. 48. Paleotti, Discourse; PD–Prodi. There have been numerous important studies on Paleotti and his Discorso, and I provide only a select bibliography here. Prodi, “Ricerche sulla teorica”; Paolo Prodi, Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti (1522–1597), 2 vols., Uomini e dottrine, 7, 12 (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 1959, 1967); Boschloo, Annibale Carracci in Bologna; Scavizzi, Controversy on Images; Jones, “Art Theory as Ideology”; Bianchi, La politica delle immagini; Muraoka, “Il fine della pittura”; Brenda Deen Schildgen, “Cardinal Paleotti and the Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane,” in Sacred Possessions: Collecting Italian Religious Art, 1500–1900, ed. Gail Feigenbaum and Sybille Ebert-­Schifferer (Los Angeles: Getty Publication, 2011), 8–16; and Noyes, “‘Aut numquid post annos,’” 239–61. 49. Bianchi, La politica delle immagini, 37. 50. Ibid., 22. 51. Ibid. 52. Johannes Molanus, De picturis et imaginibus sacris: Tractans de vitandis circa eas abusibus et de earundum significationibus (Louvain: Hieronymus Wellaeus, 1570). 53. Prodi, “Ricerche sulla teorica,” 143. 54. Giussano, Life of Charles Borromeo, 1:8, note 1. As noted in Chapter 2, Borromeo’s father sent him to the University of Pavia at fourteen to study civil and canon law. He was there 1552–59 (Bascapè, Vita e opere di Carlo, 966), and Bonomini, later bishop of Vercelli, was a fellow student. 55. Bianchi, La politica delle immagini, 55–56. 56. Ratti, Acta ecclesiae Mediolanensis, 2:col. 37–38. 57. Prodi, “Ricerche sulla teorica,” 143. Father Palmio was also in Bologna. 58. Ibid., 144. 59. Ibid., 144–45. 60. Ibid., 143–45. 61. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:51; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 33. According to Giussano, Carlo’s uncle, Pope Pius IV, would not grant his request to take up residence in his diocese, as he was deemed instrumental to the welfare of the church in Rome. 62. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:51–52; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 33–34. 63. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:52; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 34. Giussano mentions two advisors, Paleotti and Agostino Valier; the latter would write one of several biographies of Borromeo shortly after the latter’s death in 1584. 64. Prodi, Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti, 2:570–71.

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6 5. Ibid., 2:570–71, n. 18. 66. Ibid., 2:568 (esp. n. 12); the portrait appears as a frontispiece, just before the preface, in Gabriele Paleotti, De bono senectutis (Rome: Aloysij Zannetti, 1595). Scholarship on San Filippo Neri, both past and present, emphasizes the close relationship between Neri and Paleotti. See especially Louis Ponnelle and Louis Bordet, San Filippo Neri e la società romana del suo tempo (1515–1595), trans. Tito Casini (Florence: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina Depositaria, 1931); and Lorenzo Abbamondi, “L’apostolato di un riformatore cattolico nella Roma del Cinquecento, S. Filippo Neri, fiorentino,” in Messer Filippo Neri, Santo: L’apostolo di Roma, ed. Barbara Tellini Santoni and Alberto Manodori, exh. cat., Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome, 24 May–30 September 1995 (Rome: De Luca, 1995), 129–42, at 139. Abbamondi, in fact, describes Neri as the spiritual father of Paleotti. 67. Saint Simplician had served as the theological teacher and spiritual father of the archbishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose, one of the four original doctors of the church and the patron saint of Milan. Simplician had succeeded Ambrose as archbishop at his death in 397. 68. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:163; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 428–29. 69. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:169–70; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 434. 70. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:374. Paleotti continues, “O Milan, I know not what to say of thee, for when I consider thy holy works and thy devotion, I seem to behold another Jerusalem, thanks to the toils and labours of thy good Pastor.” Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 581. 71. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:170; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 434. 72. Göttler, “Temptation of the Senses,” 437. See also Longo, “Il Sacro Monte di Varallo,” 85. 73. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:171; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 435. 74. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:172; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 436. 75. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:273–74; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 510. 76. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:170; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 434. 77. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:170; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 434. 78. Paleotti, Discourse, “Proem,” 47, and “A Few Remarks to Readers of the Present Discourse,” 50; PD–Prodi, “Proemio,” and “Alcuni Avvertimenti a chi leggerà il presente discorso,” 1v: “Ricordiamo ancora che questo trattato per ordine di Monsignore Illustris[simo] nostro Vescovo è stato composto per uso del popolo della città, e diocese sua….” 79. This is established primarily through letters between Paleotti and the advisors he consulted who read early drafts of the Discorso. See the opening of the present chapter, and Prodi, “Ricerche sulla teorica,” 143–45. 80. Paolo Prodi, “Introduction,” in Paleotti, Discourse, 16. According to Prodi, the title page of all the existing copies of the first edition of the Discorso includes this annotation by Paleotti: “Should any reader of the present discourse happen to note anything, would they be kind enough to forward it directly to the person who gave them the book and keep it confidential, since it is not printed at this time for publication but to supply copies for revision.” 81. Noyes, “‘Aut numquid post annos,’” 239–61. Noyes considers Paleotti’s Discorso to be a failure, based upon publication data. Though these data do in fact show a decrease in the printing of treatises on sacred art from 1601 through the first decade of the seicento, they

294 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo

82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87.

88.

89.

do not reflect the authority of the Discorso within the circle of Paleotti, which included Carlo Borromeo and Caravaggio. See Gilio’s dedication to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in Gilio, Degli errori, 3–4; also the title page and “Proemio” to the Discorso. Paleotti, Discourse, “Few Remarks,” 51; PD–Prodi, “Alcuni Avvertimenti,” 2r. Paleotti, Discourse, “Proem,” 40; and PD–Prodi, “Proemio.” Ibid. Paleotti, Discourse, “Few Remarks,” 50; and for the original Italian text see PD–Prodi, “Alcuni Avvertimenti,” 1r: “Desiderandosi di provedere quanto si può a gli abusi delle imagini, secondo il decreto del Sacro Concilio Tridentino, et considerandosi ciò essere non tanto errore degli artefici, che le formano, quanto de’ patroni, che le commandano, o più tosto che tralasciano di coma[n]darle come si doverebbe; essendo essi come i principali agenti, & gli artefici essecutori della loro volontà….” Paleotti, Discourse, “Proem,” 49: “From these pages, painters and sculptors could begin to learn how they could assist Christian souls to a more than mediocre extent with their art”; PD–Prodi, “Proemio”: “Di qui cominciarebbono ad imparare i pittori, & scoltori come potessero con l’arte loro giovare più che mediocremente all’anime Christiane.” Paleotti, Discourse, “Proem,” 49: “There would be the added benefit that every man or woman could easily determine which images are fitting and which are unseemly in Christian homes”; PD–Prodi, “Proemio”: “Vi saria di più, che ciascun huomo, ò donna commodamente potria conoscere quali imagini convengano, & quali siano disdicevoli alle Christiane case.” Paleotti, Discourse, “Proem,” 48: “of painting, which adapts, like a book for the people, to any topic in heaven or on earth, including animals, plants, and human actions of every sort, and therefore would seem to demand of the painter, whose task it is to represent these things, that, if not a master of erudition, he should at least be moderately instructed, or not entirely ignorant, about each…. Nevertheless, with most of those who profess this art today, we see that the opposite is the case: with the exception of the praiseworthy few, the rest of the painters, either out of the necessity to earn a living, which causes them to overlook the principles and ornaments necessary to their art, or because of the great and virtually universal incoherence of all the things of this world, which are not done methodically but haphazardly, are entirely uncultivated and unversed in knowledge of the other disciplines”; PD–Prodi, “Proemio”: “perché si come degli Oratori è stato scritto, che per riuscire grandi, & eccellenti, debbono essere versati in ogni facoltà, & scienza, poi che di tutte le cose può occorrere loro di dover ragionare, & persuadere il popolo; cosi pareva si potesse dire della pittura, la qual’essendo come un libro popolare capace d’ogni materia, sia di cielo, ò di terra, di animali, ò di piante, ò d’attioni humane di qualunque sorte; richiedesse insieme, che il pittore, alquale appartiene il rappresentare queste cose, fosse di ciascuna, se non compitamente erudito, al meno mediocremente instrutto…. Si vede nondimeno hoggi per lo più avvenir il contrario ne’ professori di quest’arte; poi che riservata la laude dovuta in ciò ad alcuni; gl’altri ò per la necessità del vivere, che li fà trascurare i principij & ornamenti necessarij à l’arte; ò per lo sconcerto grande, & quali universale di tutte le cose del mondo che non si fanno co[n] methodi suoi, ma come à caso, restano i pittori nella cognitione dell’altre discipline affatto rozzi, & inesperti.”

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90. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 24, “Other reasons proving the helpfulness of Christian images in instructing the people,” 118; and PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 24, “Altre ragioni per dimostrare il giovamento, che si cava dalle christiane Imagini per istruttione del popolo,” 75r–75v. Paleotti not only addressed many of the criticisms lodged by the Protestants, particularly the issue of idolatry, but even went as far as to name these so-­called heretics— John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and John Calvin: “quelle delle heresiarchi, come di Vuicleffo, di Martino, di Melanctone, di Calvino & altri, ma solo servano la rabbia & furore contro quelle del sommo Iddio, & de suoi santi, perché sono approvate dalla santa chiesa catholica & apostolica.” 91. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 7, “When exercised in a Christian way, the art of forming images is of the utmost nobility,” 76; and PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 7, “Che l’arte del formare le Imagini, christianamente essercitata, riesce nobilissima,” 28v–29r: “la religione christiana altrimente misura le cose di quello che facciano l’altre leggi, imperoche non si contenta della forma loro esteriore, nè anco della qualità intrinseca, ò d’altre circonstantie, con che siano state fatte, se non sono state accompagnate da pura intentione di servire a Dio, & che a lui siano state offerte come sacrificio delle mani nostre, perché quando a questo fine sono dirizzate, egli subito le adorna, & le imprime il carattere della celeste nobilità, come supremo artefice; che dà perfettione a tutte le cose indirizzate a lui.” 92. In this chapter, Paleotti emphasized that the materials of an artist have already been supplied (e.g., wood, earth, stones, metals) and that an image represents something that has already been produced by nature. See Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 3, “Elements to be considered in every image,” 60–62; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 3, “Delle cose, che in ciascuna Imagine concorrono da considerarsi,” 11v–13v. 93. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 6, “Whether the art of forming images ranks with the noble or ignoble arts,” 71: “the true nobility of these arts of forming images depends neither on the material, nor the place, nor the colors, nor any circumstances of that kind, but principally on the representation of resemblance”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 6, “Se l’arte di formare le imagini, si hà numerare tra le nobili, ò ignobili,” 23v: “non dipendendo la vera nobiltà di queste arti del formare le imagini, nè dalla materia, nè dal luogo, nè da i colori, nè d’altra simile circostanza, ma principalmente dalla somiglianza rappresentata….” 94. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 19, “On the proper and particular end of Christian images,” 107; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 19, “Del fine proprio & particolare delle Imagini Christiane,” 63r–63v: “Il fine della pittura serà l’assomigliare la cosa rappresentata, che alcuni chiamano l’anima della pittura, perché tutte l’altre cose, come la vaghezza, varietà de’colori, & altri ornamenti, sono accessorie ad essa; onde disse Aristotele nella poetica, che di due pitture, quella che serà piena di bei colori, ma non assomiglierà, serà stimata inferiore a quella, che serà formata di semplici linee, & assomiglierà; & la ragione è, perché quella contiene uno accidente della pittura: & questa abbraccia quello, che è il fondamento, & nervo di essa, che consiste nella esprimere bene quello che vogliamo imitare.” 95. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 26, “On nonverisimilar pictures,” 224: “The nonverisimilar might derive from a person’s entire body, like a painting of a woman with the body of Hercules or Samson, which would be wrong for the female sex. It might derive from some quality of the person, as when our Lord is shown on the cross the way painters usually show him, with a soft white body and no sign of bruising or whipping. Who cannot see

296 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo immediately that this is not verisimilar, when shortly before he was most cruelly beaten and exhausted?” For original Italian text see PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 26, “Delle pitture non verisimili,” 179r: “Imperò che potria primamente derivare il non verisimile da tutto il corpo della persona, come formandosi una donna di fattezza di corpo simile ad Hercole, ò Sansone, il che non conviene a quel sesso. Overo da qualche qualità della persona, come quando si figura il corpo di N. Sig. in croce morbido & bianco, si come communemente sogliono fare i pittori senza alcun segno di livore, ò de flagelli: chi non s’accorgerà subito ciò essere non verisimile, essendo stato poco prima fierissimamente battuto & consumato?” 96. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 28, “On disproportionate pictures,” 230; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 28, “Delle pitture sproportionate,” 185v–186r. 97. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 28, 231; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 28, 187r–187v. 98. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 28, 230; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 28, 186r. 99. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 3, “On sacred pictures that sin in matters of faith, and first on what are called rash pictures,” 161–62: “There is leeway when that which is narrated or depicted has a high degree of probability and is also apt to move hearts and excite devotion. We have all observed that contemplative persons and preachers customarily relate many things about the passion of our Lord that have not been written down in the gospels: the wailing of the Madonna, the long prayers made by our Lord in the supplication in the garden, the harshness of the flogging, the insulting words directed at him by the Jews, and other things of the kind that they recount to move the emotions more strongly and cause hearts to melt”; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 3, “Delle pitture sacre che peccano in materia di fede, & prima, delle pitture dette temerarie,” 109r: “perché ciò non hà luogo quando quello che si narra ò dipinge, è accompagnato da molta probabilità, & insieme è atto a movere il cuore, & eccitare divotione; si come veggiamo che sogliono le persone contemplative, & predicatori nella passione di N. Signore narrare molte cose, che non si trovano scritte negli Evangelij, come de i lamenti della Madonna, de i prieghi lunghi fatti da N. S. nella oratione nell’horto, della acerbità de’flagelli, delle parole obbrobriose usateli da’ Giudei, & simili altre cose che raccontano, per muovere più l’affetto & intenerire il cuore.” 100. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 9, “On apocryphal pictures,” 171; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 9, “Delle pitture apocrife,” 120r–120v. 101. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 9, 171; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 9, 120v. 102. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 9, 172; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 9, 120v. 103. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 52, “Conclusion on what we judge most necessary so that the things depicted will be commended by all,” 310–11: “we would be of the view that they would come to embrace four grades or professions of persons: painters, the learned, the illiterate, and the spiritual…. Paintings that satisfied all these could be said in a certain way to have the universal consensus of the people”; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 52, “Conclusione di quello che principalmente si giudica necessario, affine che le cose che si dipingono, siano da tutti commendate,” 275v–276r: “che si venessero ad abbracciare quattro gradi o professioni di persone, che sono i pittori, i letterati, gl’idioti, e gli spirituali… a’ quali quando le pitture sodisfacessero, si potria dire che havessero insieme in certo modo il consenso universale del popolo.” In Paleotti’s text, the general populace (popolo) is made up of the ignorant (idioti, indotti, etc.), so the two were interchangeable. He also utilized popolo christiano (Christian populace), popolo fedele (faithful populace), huomini (men), and spettatore

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(spectator); but when the context in which they are placed is taken into consideration, even these designations refer to the general populace. Popolari (popular) also appears, but infrequently, in Paleotti’s text. This term also references the general populace, as it is framed within the parameters of general comprehensibility; sometimes it is utilized in the context of an image as libro popolare (popular book). Of all the terms, however, the most frequent is popolo. 104. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 52, 312: “The third sort of persons who must necessarily be satisfied are the illiterates, the majority of the population, for whose service sacred paintings were principally introduced”; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 52, 277v: “La terza sorte di persone a chi necessariamente si hà da sodisfare, sono gl’idioti, che è la maggior parte del popolo, per servitio de’ quali principalmente furono introdotte le pitture sacre….” 105. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 23, “Christian images are of great service for teaching the people to live rightly,” 115: “a language common to persons of every sort”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 23, “Che le Imagini christiane servono grandemente per ammaestrare il popolo al ben vivere,” 71v: “linguaggio commune a tutte le sorti di persone….” Cf. Paolo Prodi, “Introduction,” in Paleotti, Discourse, 19: “common language of all peoples and all social classes…” 106. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 216. 107. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 5, “Whether the introduction of images preceded that of books, and the extent to which they go together,” 68: “pictures can express what books contain, for the reason that books are read only by the intelligent, who are a minority, whereas pictures speak universally to persons of every sort”; and bk. 2, chap. 51, “A few general warnings set down by authors to be observed in every picture so that it may satisfy everyone,” 308: “it seems to us that paintings, being books for the people that have to serve men, women, nobles, non-­nobles, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, and everyone to some extent, ought also to be formed in such a way that, in proportion, everyone’s taste is satisfied”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 5, “Se la introduttione delle imagini sia stata anteriore ai libri, & che convenienza habbia conessi,” 19v: “le pitture possono esprimere quello che i libri contengono; perciò che i libri sono letti solo da gl’intelligenti, che sono pochi, ma le pitture abbracciano universalmente tutte le sorti di persone”; and lib. 2, cap. 51, “Di alcuni avertimenti generali posti dagli autori, da osservarsi in ciascuna pittura, perché sodisfaccia universalmente,” 272v: “pareria à noi, che la pittura, la quale hà da servire ad huomini, donne, nobili, ignobili, ricchi, poveri, dotti, indotti, & ad ogn’uno in qualche parte, essendo ella il libro popolare….” 108. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 4, “On the origin of all images,” 63: “Therefore, to satisfy more widely the common desire and necessity of signifying one’s concepts to someone else, the art of forming images was invented. When seen, they are immediately recognized by everyone and serve as the common tongue of all nations”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 4, “Della origine delle Imagini in universale,” 14r: “Dunque per sodisfare più universalmente a questo desiderio & necessità commune di significare a ciascuno i concetti altrui, fù ritrovata l’arte del formare le imagini, che vedute subito si riconoscono indifferentemente & servono per favella commune a tutte le nationi.” 109. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 4, 64: “we state that images were originally discovered so that we would be able to represent likenesses of things and thus overcome the constraint of

298 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo distance.” In the same passage, Paleotti quotes the words of Constantine the Great’s advisor, the early Christian writer Lactantius (ca. 240–ca. 320): “‘Now generally speaking, the method of shaping likenesses was invented by men so that the memory could be retained of those who had died or were absent…. For a man’s image, superfluous when he is present, is seen as necessary in his absence.’” Paleotti continues by adding: “After all, is there anyone so painstaking that he would willingly pore over written accounts of our dear Christ or the blessed Virgin or the apostles, or gaze at paintings of them, if he were able to look upon their actual visages or their marvelous deeds at will? But that is an impossibility that nature does not allow, so we fall back on the remedy of images to meet this necessity”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 4, 15r–15v: “dichiamo l’origine dell’imagini essersi trovata a fine che potessimo rappresentare la similitudine delle cose; & con essa supplire al difetto della lontananza…. Il che da Lattantio fu in parte significato con queste parole Nam omnino fingendarum similitudinum ratio idcirco ab hominibus inventa est, ut posset eorum memoria retineri, qui vel morte subtracti, vel absentia fuerant separati… etenim hominis Imago necessaria tum videtur, cum procul abest, supervacua futura cum praesto est. Dicasi di gratia, chi è tanto curioso che se potesse con gli occhi propri veder a sua posta la faccia vera di Christo benedetto, della beata Vergine, ò de gli Apostoli, ò le meravigliose loro attioni, volentieri faticasse in leggerle scritte, ò in mirarle dipinte? Ma perché quello non si può, & la natura non lo concede, però ci vagliamo di questo rimedio delle Imagini per supplire a tale necessità.” 110. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, “On the delight that Christian images bring,” 113; PD– Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, “Della dilettatione, che apportano le Imagini christiane,” 69v–70r: “Et questa imitatione che nella pittura si scorge cosi evidentemente, tanto maggiormente suole recare diletto, quanto pare che subito renda le cose presenti a gli huomini, se bene sono lontane, & a guisa della omnipotente mano di Dio, & della natura sua ministra, pare che in un momento faccia nascere, & produca huomini, animali, piante, fiumi, palazzi, chiese, & tutte l’istesse opere, che si veggono in questa gran machina del mondo: overo che le medesime cose gia create da Dio, & distribuite in varij luoghi, & disperse in tutti i lati della terra, ella con meravigliosa maniera in un mome[n]to, le apporta dinanzi a gli occhi, quasi avantaggiando, & soprafacendo all natura, che havendoli determinata la sua sede propria, & i suoi confini certi, in questa ò in quella parte, con la pittura si mutano le loro stanze, & di lontane si fanno presenti….” 111. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 4, 63: “Images… facilitate the desire to know that is naturally imprinted on all men. Our cognition originates in the senses, and since these can only apprehend things by availing themselves of present objects, our cognitive faculty would have been left very restricted and feeble. So it pleased divine wisdom to make mankind capable of this discipline, by means of which he could represent, before the gaze of all, any material thing, natural or artificial, and not just present ones but distant ones as well, and even ones that have already vanished or been extinguished”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 4, 14v–15r: “L’altra causa principale dicono essere stata per aiutare con questo mezo il desiderio di sapere, naturalmente impresso a tutti gli huomini. Imperò che havendo la cognitione nostra origine da i sensi, nè potendo questi per apprendere le cose valersi se non de gli oggetti presenti, veniva a restare la facoltà del conoscere molto ristretta, & debole; & però piacque all divina sapienza di fare l’huomo capace di questa disciplina, co’l mezo della quale potesse rappresentare davanti a gli occhi di ciascuno tutte le cose materiali,

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cosi naturali, come artificiate, non dico le presenti, ma le lontane ancora, & quelle che già sono passate, ò spe[n]te.” 112. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 5, 68: “the means used by books to persuade. About this, we say that the art of rhetoric customarily identifies three main ones, which are delight, instruction, and the stirring of the emotions, and there is no doubt that the same three apply remarkably well to pictures…. to the extent that pictures can be learned by everyone, without distinction, they are that much more suited to employ and make use of each of these means, which is not true of books”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 5, 20v: “ch’usano i libri al persuadere; intorno à che dicemo, che solendosi nell’arte oratoria assignare tre principali, che sono il dilettare, l’insegnare, & il commovere; non è dubbio, che i medesimi cadono ancor notabilmente nella pittura… le pitture tanto più sono atte ad essercitare, & servirsi di ciascuno di questi mezi, quanto che possono essere da tutti apprese indifferentemente, il che non aviene cosi de’ libri.” 113. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 113; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69v: “Quanto al senso, è cosa manifestissima a tutti, che essendo il senso del vedere più nobile degli altri, riceve dalle pitture per la varietà de’ colori, per l’ombre, per le figure, per gli ornamenti, & per le cose diverse che si rappresentano, come monti, fiumi, giardini, città, paesi & altre cose, meraviglioso piacere, e ricreatione.” 114. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 112; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 68r. 115. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 113; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69v: “Del diletto rationale, dicemo che oltre il particolare gusto, che può ciascuno pigliare dalla qualità delle cose figurate, una ve ne è, che universalmente serve a tutte quelle, che co’l disegno si rappresentano, che è l’imitatione: essendo detto de’ savij, che si come l’huomo fra tutti gli altri animali nasce attissimo ad imitare così egli per naturale instinto sente grandissimo diletto, e gusto della imitatione.” 116. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 114; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 70v: “Et se bene, come dicono i filosofi, niuna arte si trova, la quale non imiti la natura: imitatrici non di meno chiamiamo quelle per eccellenza, le quali non solo con la proportione imitano, ma con la somiglianza ancora, fra le quali sono numerate la poesia, & la pittura, che hanno però tra di loro grandissima conformità, & chi scrisse dei precetti del poetare, gli andò illustrando quasi tutti con gli essempi tolti dal dipingere. La onde Platone disse, che la imitatione propriamente si adattava solo al senso del vedere & del udito, intendendo per il vedere la pittura e scultura, & per l’odire la poesia; & la ragione è, perché amendue attendono prencipalmente ad imitare: onde quelle pitture, che più imitano il vive & vero, per modo che ingannano gli animali, e tal volta gli huomini, come racconta Plinio di Zeusi, & Parasio, tanto più sempre sono state degne di commendatione, & maggiormente ha[n]no dilettato i riguardanti.” According to Pliny’s account, a contest was waged between Zeuxis and his contemporary Parrhasius to determine the most superior artist. When Zeuxis revealed his painting of grapes, they appeared so realistic that birds flew down to peck at them. However, when Parrhasius presented his painting, Zeuxis asked him to pull aside the curtain covering it, which turned out to be an illusionistic painted curtain. One deceived birds, the other deceived a human—Zeuxis. Parrhasius was therefore declared the winner. 117. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 114: “There remains the third delight, which springs from spiritual cognition, about which it is not in doubt that, just as it has the most desirable

300 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo of objects and is caused by a virtue more outstanding and durable and farthest removed from alteration and travail, it brings greater and more perfect delight… just as the delight of the intellect exceeds that of the mere senses, spiritual delight is superior to all the rest”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 70v–71r: “Resta la terza dilettatione, che nasce dalla cognitione spirituale, la quale non è dubbio, che si come ha oggetto più desiderabile, & è causata da virtù più prestante & durevole, & che più è rimossa dall’alteratione & travaglio, tanto maggiore, e più perfetta dilettatione apporta… & però si come la dilettatione dell’intelletto, eccede quella del puro senso, cosi quelle dello spirito sono superiori a tutte le altre.” 118. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 114: “So we are in no doubt that anyone who gazes upon Christian pictures with a purged eye will participate in all these delights”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 71r: “Però chi con occhio purgato guarderà le christiane pitture, non dubitiamo che non sia per participare di tutte queste dilettationi.” 119. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 26, “On the various remarkable effects produced by pious and devout images,” 121; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 26, “De i varij effetti notabili causati dalle Imagini pie, & divote,” 78r: “non è dubbio non ci essere istrumento più forte, ò più efficace a ciò, delle imagini fatte al vivo, che quasi violentano i sensi incauti.” 120. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 112: “by means of these created things [nature]… [the artist may] offer mankind a ladder leading up to eternal things and cause men to desire the goods of heaven”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69r: “per mezo di queste cose create fare scala a gli huomini per penetrare le eterne, & eccitarli desiderio dei beni celesti.” 121. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 30, “On vain and otiose pictures,” 237; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 30, “Delle pitture vane & otiose,” 193v–194r: “Noi donque seguendo il medesimo, non siamo però cosi indiscreti & rigorosi, che vogliamo escludere dal christiano la dilettatione del senso, che si piglia dalle cose: ma diciamo che deve insieme & dilettarci, & con ragione inviarci alla virtù, che è il fine di tutte le attioni; essendo quella vera & christiana ricreatione, che serve all’uno & l’altro, & dilettando giova & giovando diletta.” 122. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 12, “On the reasons profane images were introduced,” 87: “Nature itself urged them on and prompted them, forming images of all created things in lustrous bodies and representing them to our gaze in all their colors and movements in mirrors and crystals and aqueous surfaces, without any human input. The infinite delight and entertainment their aspect imparts to us gives us warrant to believe that those who first began to make drawings in imitation of this or that thing must have done so under the spell and example and invitation of reflected images”; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 12, “Delle cause perché s’introducessero le Imagini profane,” 41v: “massimamente invitandoli a ciò, & ammaestrandoli la natura stessa, che senza aiuta alcuno degli huomini forma da per se le imagini di tutte le cose create nei corpi lucidi, & le rappresenta a gli occhi nostri con tutti i loro colori, & movimenti come si vede nelli specchi, ne’ christalli, & nell’acque; il che porgendo all’aspetto nostro infinito diletto, & trattenimento ci dà a credere che di questo invaghiti & incaminati, ò invitati gli huomini, cominciassero con l’arte del dissegno ad imitare hor questa, hor quella cosa.” 123. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 25, “Christian images have great power to move the feelings of persons,” 119; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 25, “Che le Imagini christiane servono molto a movere gli affetti delle persone,” 76v: “Il sentire narrare il martirio d’un santo, il zelo, & costanza d’una vergine; la passione dello stesso Christo, sono cose che toccano dentro di

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vero: ma l’esserci con vivi colori quà posto sotto gli occhi il santo martirizato, colà vergine combattuta, & nell’altro lato Christo inchiodato; egli è pur vero che tanto accresce la divotione, & compunge le viscere….” 124. On the traditional paragone between painting and sculpture, which inflected Paleotti’s writing here, see Robert Klein and Henri Zerner, Italian Art 1500–1600: Sources and Documents (1966; reprint, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001), 4–16. 125. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 111–14; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 68r–71r. See also Jones, “Art Theory as Ideology.” 126. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 112; PD-­Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69r. 127. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 111–14; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 68r–71r. 128. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 3, 62; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 3, 13v. 129. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 19, “On the proper and particular end of Christian images,” 108; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 19, “Del fine proprio, & particolare delle Imagini Christiane,” 63v–64r: “quando parliamo del pittore christiano, come proprio è l’intentione nostra: all’hora è molto più differente il fine del pittore, dal fine della pittura. Quanto al fine del pittore, egli può christianamente havere due oggetti, ò fini: l’uno principale, l’altro secondario, ò vogliamo dire in consequenza, questo fine in consequenza serà di essercitare l’arte sua per ritrarne guadagno, ò per acquistarne honore… quando però siano tutte regolate con le debite circonstanze, della persona, del luogo, del tempo, del modo, e del resto, che si richiede: talche da niun lato si possa dire, che egli biasimevolmente esserciti questa arte, & in niun modo s’adopri contra il fine supremo. Il fine principale serà co’l mezo della fatica, & arte sua acquistarsi la gratia divina; imperoche il christiano nato a cose sublimi, non si contenta nelle operationi sue havere mira cosi bassa, & riguardare solamente alla mercè de gli huomini, & commodi temporali; ma levando gli occhi in alto, si propone un’altro fine molto maggiore, e più eccellente che sta riposto nelle cose eterne.” 130. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 19, 108; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 19, 63v–64r. 131. See Luigi Scorrano, “Gabriele Paleotti e il ‘catechismo’ dei pittori «teologi mutoli»,” Studi rinascimentali 3 (2005): 113–27. 132. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 113; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69r–69v. 133. In this chapter, Paleotti expresses that all the sciences, arts, and human operation may serve true wisdom and should not be rejected by a Christian. See Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 12, “Abuses in profane pictures and whether they are admissible from a Christian perspective,” 178–79; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 12, “Abusi delle pitture profane, & se elle christianamente debbono essere admesse,” 128v–129r. 134. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 14, “On the images of pagan emperors, tyrants, and other persecutors of the Christian name,” 184; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 14, “Delle Imagini de Imperatori gentili, ò tiranni, ò altri persecutori del nome Christiano,” 135r. 135. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 23, “On portraits of saints,” 212. Paleotti provides numerous examples of portraits of saints “to make it known how much men of piety have striven to have the most lifelike images of them they could possibly could in order to spur themselves more effectively with such images to imitate the road leading to heaven that those saints, while alive, had shown them.” PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 23, “De i ritratti de’ Santi,” 166r: “Si che di essi hora noi ricorderemo alcuni essempi, acciò si conosca, quanto gli huomini di pietà hanno cercato d’haverli più che puotero simili al vivo, per destare più

302 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo efficacemente se stessi con tali imagini ad imitare la strada che essi vivendo gli haveano mostrata di caminare al cielo.” 136. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 31, “On ridiculous pictures,” 241; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 31, “Delle pitture ridicole,” 197v. 137. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 7, 77, and chap. 21, “On the similarity between the office and end of the Christian painter and those of the author,” 111; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 7, 30r–30v, and cap. 21, “Dell’officio & fine del pittore christiano, a similitudine de gli oratori,” 67v. 138. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 7, 77; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 7, 30r–30v: “la imbecillità nostra ordinariamente non comporta, che possiamo salire alla contemplatione delle cose sublimi senza l’appoggio di queste inferiori, però è commendata questa arte come mezo, & istrumento per ascendere più alto.” 139. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 111–14; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 8r–71r. 140. Paleotti does concede somewhat on collecting profane art if its visibility is restricted by conserving it in private rooms or locations distant to the eyes of others—but even then he was dissuasive. See Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 15, “Replies to various objections in the matter of possessing images of pagan emperors and others like them,” 188; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 15, “Riposte a varie obiettioni intorno al tenere le Imagini degli imperadori gentili, & d’altri simili,” 137v. 141. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 12, “Abuses in profane pictures and whether they are admissible from a Christian perspective,”180: “We argue that the reasoning adopted vis-­à-­vis the literature of the pagans applies to profane pictures, which may be of use to us in various ways and should not be rejected out of hand but carefully assessed on sound criteria so that, like bees gathering honey from diverse flowers, we may avail ourselves of them for purposes of piety. The fact is, grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, and nature does not abhor grace but receives it”; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 12, “Abusi delle pitture profane, & se elle christianamente debbono essere admesse,” 129v–130r: “Da queste cose adunque dette de i libri dei gentili, noi per le medesime ragioni argomentiamo che le pitture profane, potendo apportare a noi varij giovamenti, non devono essere subito ributtate, ma misurate bene con sano giudicio, accioche, a guisa de api che da varij fiori colgono il mele, sappiamo valerci di queste pitture ad uso di pietà, essendo che la gratia non distrugge, ma fa perfetta la natura, & la natura non aborrisce la gratia, ma la riceve.” 142. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 12, 179; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 12, 129r. 143. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 12, 178–79: “the fallacious reasoning that in ancient times drove the enemies of our religion to prohibit Christians from studying the liberal arts, and it serves our purposes here because of the parallel between books and pictures. The ecclesiastical histories contain more than one account of a public edict issued by the emperor Julian the Apostate barring Christians from undertaking the study of the liberal arts…. This practice has been revived by the heretics of our time as they try in this way to destroy the public academies and extinguish cognition of all of the sciences that offer us a ladder to divine things”; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 12, 128v–129r: “alle ragioni fallaci, che anticamente mostero i nemici della religione nostra, a prohibire a christiani lo studio delle arti liberali; che torna a proposito nostro per la convenienza, c’hanno i libri con le pitture, imperoche si legge in varij luoghi nelle historie ecclesiastiche di Giuliano imperatore detto Apostata, che con publico editto interdisse a i christiani, che non dessero opera a simili

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studij… il che parimente da gli heretici de’ nostri tempi è stato suscitato, cercando essi con questo mezo di distruggere l’academie publiche, & d’estinguere la cognitione di tutte le scienze, che ci fanno scala alle cose divine.” 144. Ibid. 145. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 12, 87; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 12, 41r. 146. Peter Lukehart’s extensive research is particularly noteworthy in regards to the early history of the Accademia di San Luca, Rome. Lukehart has noted that the documents on the foundation of the Accademia not only underscored that the academy was intended to instruct painters in sacred image making, but also that these painters should direct their skills into painting “images that inspired piety and devotion as intended by the holy fathers who founded them.” See Peter Lukehart, “Painting Virtuously: The Counter-­Reform and the Reform of Artists’ Education in Rome between Guild and Academy,” in Hall and Cooper, Sensuous in the Counter-­Reformation, 161–86, at 169. See also Lukehart, ed., “The History of the Accademia di San Luca, c. 1590–1635: Documents from the Archivio di Stato di Roma,” National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, www.nga.gov/casva/accademia. 147. Prodi, “Introduction,” in Paleotti, Discourse, 24. The Latin edition of the Discorso, as in the first vernacular edition of 1582, includes only the first two volumes, with a chapter list of the proposed additional three. 148. Ibid., 25. 149. Ibid.

Chapter 4 1. Lothar Sickel, “Gli esordi di Caravaggio a Roma: Una ricostruzione del suo ambiente sociale nel primo periodo romano,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 39 (2009– 10): 1–73. 2. It has been proposed that Caravaggio may have accompanied his uncle during one of his many visits to Rome. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 44. 3. Sickel, “Gli esordi di Caravaggio a Roma,” 16. 4. Ibid., 11. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 13–14. 7. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 347. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 352. 11. Sickel, “Gli esordi di Caravaggio a Roma,” 35–43. 12. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 51. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 347; Baglione,“Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 352; Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 361–62; and Joachim von

304 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo Sandrart, excerpts from [Teutsche] Academie der [Edlen]Bau-­, Bild-­und Mahlerey-­Künste [Nuremberg, 1675], ed. A. R. Pelzer (Munich: G. Hirths Verlag, 1925), trans. Hibbard, Caravaggio, 375–80, at 376–77. 16. Sickel, “Gli esordi di Caravaggio a Roma,” 37. 17. Pope Clement VIII’s concern and investment in the state of sacred art is seen immediately after his elevation to the papacy. He immediately proclaimed a general visitation of all the churches, religious orders, and pious institutes, and organized a commission of cardinals and bishops to undertake the laborious task. For Pope Clement VIII’s Visitations (1592–96) see ASV, Misc. Armadio VII, 3, Visitationis Clementis VIII dal 1592 al 1596. 18. Walter Friedlaender provides excerpts from the libel trial in the original and in English translation. See Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), 270–79. 19. See Enggass and Brown, Italian and Spanish Art 1600–1750, 5–16. 20. Carel van Mander, excerpts from Het Schilder-­Boeck [Haarlem, 1604], facs. ed. (Utrecht: Davaco, 1969), trans. Hibbard, Caravaggio, 344–45, at 344. 21. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 350. 22. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 355. 23. Francesco Scannelli, excerpts from Il microcosmo della pittura, overo trattato diviso in due libri [Cesena: per Il Neri, 1657], trans. Hibbard, Caravaggio, 356–60, at 357. 24. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 361. 25. See John T. Spike (with Michèle K. Spike), Caravaggio,“CD-­ROM Catalogue” [hereinafter cat.] (New York: Abbeville, 2001). This catalogue provides a useful list of copies made after Caravaggio’s work, both autograph and nonautograph. For instance, the most well known examples of autograph copies by Caravaggio’s hand include: The Capitoline Fortune Teller (ca. 1593; later purchased by Cardinal Del Monte) and the Louvre Fortune Teller (ca. 1595; acquired by Girolamo Vittrice). 26. Luigi Spezzaferro, “The Documentary Findings: Ottavio Costa as a Patron of Caravaggio,” Burlington Magazine 116, no. 859 (1974): 570, 579–86, 591, at 579–580. Reprinted in Luigi Spezzaferro, Caravaggio, edited by Paulo Coen (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 2010), 61–72. 27. Spezzaferro, “Documentary Findings,” 580. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., translation is mine. See also Christoph Luipold Frommel, “Caravaggios Frühwerk und der Kardinal Francesco Maria del Monte,” Storia dell’arte 9–10 (1971): 5–52, esp. 34. The author of the copy in the Museo Civico e le Gallerie d’Arte Antica e Modena is unknown. 30. Spezzaferro, “Documentary Findings,” 580; and Spear, Caravaggio and His Followers, 75–76. 31. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 64. 32. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 353; Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 361–62. 33. Spezzaferro, “Documentary Findings,” 579. The dating of the painting is per Treffers, “Il Francesco Hartford del Caravaggio,” 165. 34. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 85. 35. Pupillo, La SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, 29: “Most Holy Triinty with some nice whim.” (Translation mine.); for Costa and Tritonio, 54–55.

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36. Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers, 79. 37. Sergio Rossi, “Peccato e redenzione negli autoritratti del Caravaggio,” in Stefania Macioce, ed., Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: La vita e le opere attraverso i documenti, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Rome, 5–6 October 1995 (Rome: Logart, 1996), 316–30. 38. Halina Waga, Vita nota e ignota dei virtuosi al Pantheon: Contributi alla storia della Pontificia Accademia artistica dei Virtuosi al Pantheon (Rome: Arte della Stampa, 1992), Appendix 1. 39. Rossella Vodret, Caravaggio: The Complete Works (Milan: Silvana, 2010), 17. 40. Pamela Askew, “The Angelic Consolation of St. Francis of Assisi in Post-­Tridentine Italian Painting,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 32 (1969): 280–306; Treffers, “Il Francesco Hartford del Caravaggio”; and Treffers, “I piedi dell’affetto.” 41. Thomas of Celano, First and Second Life of St. Francis, 49–51. 42. Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis of Assisi, 164. 43. Askew indicates that Caravaggio originally intended to depict the nail on Saint Francis’s right hand. She refers to the later copy in the Museo Civico, Udine, which clearly shows the wound; moreover, examination of the hand in the original through ultraviolet light has revealed a reddish spot beneath the flesh color in the center of his right hand. See Askew, “Angelic Consolation,” 286. Bert Treffers, however, has soundly denounced this interpretation. See Treffers, “Il Francesco Hartford del Caravaggio,” 148. 44. Askew, “Angelic Consolation,” 285–86. 45. Treffers, “Il Francesco Hartford del Caravaggio,” 150–54. 46. Thomas of Celano, First and Second Life of St. Francis, 49–51. 47. Ibid.; quote at 50. 48. Ibid. 49. Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, 164. 50. Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, 278–79. The reference to the Capuchin habit appears in Orazio’s deposition in Baglione’s libel trial against Caravaggio. 51. Susan  C. Karant-­Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 47. 52. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:282; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 521. According to Giussano, Borromeo began to shave his beard only at the age of thirty-­eight, merely six years before his death. 53. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:58–62; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 353. As noted earlier in this chapter, the Poor Clares were the Second Order of Saint Francis, founded by him in collaboration with Saint Clare of Assisi in 1212. 54. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:174; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 437. 55. Only twenty chapels were completed. 56. “Sacro Monte di Orta,” accessed 12 February 2012, http://www.orta.net/Inglese/sacromonte.htm. 57. The 1639 inventory of Ottavio Costa appears in the appendix of Spezzaferro’s 1975 article on Costa. See Luigi Spezzaferro, “Ottavio Costa e Caravaggio: Certezze e problemi,” in Novità sul Caravaggio: Saggi e contributi, ed. Mia Cinotti (Milan: Regione Lombardia, 1975), 103–18, at 118. 58. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 354.

306 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 59. Vodret, “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” in Caravaggio, ed. Claudio M. Strinati, trans. Anna Carruthers et al., exh. cat., Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 20 February–13 June 2010 (Milan: Skira, 2010), 96–105, at 97. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., 101. 62. Saint Francis of Assisi, “A Prayer before a crucifix,” The Franciscan Archive, accessed 20 July 2014, https://franciscan-­archive.org/franciscana/prayers.html#Oratio. 63. Bonaventure: Soul’s Journey into God, 32. 64. Girolamo Vittrice was the nephew of Pietro Vittrice, who would later acquire a chapel in Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova), for which Caravaggio would paint the altarpiece of the Entombment. Girolamo and Orinzia lived in a palace owned by his rich uncle, Pietro. See Wolfgang Lotz, “Gli 883 cocchi della Roma del 1594,” in Studi offerti a Giovanni Incisa della Rocchetta, Miscellanea della Società romana di storia patria, 23 (Rome: Presso la Società alla Biblioteca Vallicelliana, 1973), 259; Lothar Sickel, “Remarks on the Patronage of Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ,” Burlington Magazine 143, no. 1180 (2001): 426–29, at 428; Sickel, Caravaggios Rom: Annäherungen an ein dissonantes Milieu (Berlin: Imorde, 2003), 50–88; and Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 64. 65. Sickel, “Remarks on the Patronage,” 428. 66. Ibid. 67. Laura Testa, “La collezione del cardinale Pietro Aldobrandini: Modalità di acquisizione e direttive culturali,” in I cardinali di santa romana chiesa: Collezionisti e mecenati, ed. Marco Gallo, 5 vols (Rome: Associazione Culturale Shakespeare & Company 2, 2001), vol. 1: “Quasi oculi et aures ac nobilissimae sacri capitis partes,” 38–60, at 53, n. 12. 68. Vodret, “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” 96–105, at 97. 69. Sickel, Caravaggios Rom, 50–88; Patrick Hunt, “Irony and Realism in the Iconography of Caravaggio’s Penitent Magdalene,” in Mary Magdalene: Iconographic Studies from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, ed. Michelle A. Erhardt and Amy M. Morris (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), 161–86, at 173. Mancini erroneously lists the Penitent Magdalen as among three other works by Caravaggio (Fortune Teller, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, and a John the Evangelist) painted during the period he lived with Monsignor Fantino Petrignani. See Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 347. 70. Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, “The Chapel of the Courtesan and the Quarrel of the Magdalens,” Art Bulletin 84, no. 2 (2002): 273–92, at 279. 71. Ibid. 72. Scannelli, excerpts from Il microcosmo della pittura, 360. 73. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 362. 74. Hunt, “Irony and Realism,” 176–77. 75. Ibid., 177. 76. Ibid., 171. 77. Ebert-­Schifferer has recently suggested that the rough fringes of hair framing the right side of her face suggest that she has begun to cut her long tresses. See Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 65. 78. Witcombe, “Chapel of the Courtesan,” 279.

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79. Ibid. According to Christopher Witcombe, “The image of Mary Magdalen as a penitent prostitute fully emerges in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the founding of the two great mendicant orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Canon 21 promulgated by the Fourth Lateran Council was a reformulation of the sacrament of penance. Canon 10 officially sanctioned popular preaching by the mendicant orders. Both decrees were to have an immediate impact on Mary Magdalen’s role. Both the Franciscans and the Dominicans made the preaching of penance central to their sermons, and from the outset Mary Magdalen was adopted as the model penitent saint, the paradigm of penance.” 80. P. F. Mulhern, “Francesco Panigarola,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2003), 10:822. 81. Ibid. 82. Francesco Panigarola, Cento ragionamenti sopra la passione di Nostro Signore (Venice: Rampazetto, 1585). See Bert Treffers, “Immagine e predicazione nel Caravaggio,” in Macioce, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 270–87, at 274. 83. Sivigliano Alloisi, “Panigarola e Caravaggio: Temi predicatori e pittura religiosa,” Caravaggio: Nuove riflessioni, ed. Dante Bernini, 15–46, Quaderni di Palazzo Venezia, 6. (Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1989), 25. In 1587 Panigarola became bishop of Asti. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid., 17. 86. Ibid., 25. See also Treffers, “Immagine e predicazione nel Caravaggio,” in which Treffers interprets three of Caravaggio’s paintings (including the Penitent Magdalen) through sixteenth-­century homiletics. 87. Bernard Aikema, “Titian’s Mary Magdalen in the Palazzo Pitti: An Ambiguous Painting and Its Critics,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 57 (1994): 48–59, at 57–58; Alloisi, “Panigarola e Caravaggio”; Treffers, “Immagine e predicazione nel Caravaggio,” 272–75; and Hunt, “Irony and Realism,” 174–75. 88. Treffers, “Immagine e predicazione nel Caravaggio,” 273. 89. Alloisi, “Panigarola e Caravaggio,” 17. 90. English translation of Panigarola’s sermon is from Aikema, “Titian’s Mary Magdalen,” 57–58. Although Aikema’s study primarily focuses on Titian’s Penitent Magdalen in the Pitti Palace, he mentions Caravaggio’s Penitent Magdalen as an example of a Counter-­ Reformation image of the saint. He notes that Caravaggio’s painting perfectly conforms to the description of contritio (contrition) as described by Panigarola. 91. Aikema, “Titian’s Mary Magdalen,” 58–59; Hunt, “Irony and Realism,” 175. 92. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 362–63. 93. See Paul Barolsky, “The Biblical Poetry of Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 10, no. 1 (1990): 20–21. 94. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 32, “On pictures that bring novelty and are unusual,” 248; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 32, “Delle pitture che apportano novità, & sono insolite,” 206v: “Overo quando si figura il misterio della Madonna al’hora che fuggì in Egitto, che con un vaso in mano piglia l’acqua del fiume per darne al figliuolo, & s. Gioseffo che piglia anch’egli un ramo carico de frutti da un arbore, & lo porge al figliuolo….”

308 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 95. In describing these problematic novelties in the scenes of the Rest, Paleotti notes: “the alert painter must be careful not to let himself get carried away by curiosity or by the desire to satisfy the particular wishes of anyone, but stand firmly in the gravity and antiquity of the holy fathers and our ancestors. In this there is all the more danger of stumbling, in that there are some matters by their nature unknowable or vaguely narrated in scripture, in which many believe they have greater liberty on that account to be able to represent them however their whim dictates.” See Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 32, 248–49; PD– Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 32, 206v–207r: “ne’ quali l’accorto pittore dovrà havere cura di non lasciarsi trapportare dalla curiosità, ne dal desiderio di sodisfare all’appetito di ogn’huomo, ma star saldo nella gravità, & antichità de’ santi padri &maggiori nostri, nel che tanto è più pericoloso alle volte d’inciampare, quanto che sono alcune materie di sua natura non conosciute, & poco distintamente narrate nelle Scritture, nelle quali pare à molti d’havere per ciò largo campo da poterle rappresentare a modo & cappriccio suo.” 96. Franca Trinchieri Camiz and Agostino Ziino, “Caravaggio: Aspetti musicali e committenza,” Studi musicali 12 (1983): 67–90, especially 76–83. 97. On the facade of the Oratorian church Santa Maria in Vallicella we can read another line from the Song of Songs: “Toto pulchra es amica mea et macula non est in te” (“Thou art all fair, O my love, there is not a spot in thee”; Song of Solomon 4:7). Calvesi, “Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 35–40, at 39. 98. Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999), 125. 99. Treffers, “Il Francesco Hartford del Caravaggio,” 147–48. 100. Ragusa and Green, Meditations on the Life of Christ, 67. 101. Sandra Johnson Jordan, “The Iconography of Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight to Egypt,” Storia dell’arte 61 (1987): 225–27, at 226. 102. Ibid.; and Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, 125. Langdon also mentions that the donkey’s back is marked by the sign of the cross, but the present writer does not see it. 103. Jordan relates these symbolic devices of Christ’s Passion specifically to the teachings of Neri, who, like Loyola, similarly encouraged the meditator to imagine the subject under contemplation in concrete, realistic, and tangible terms (e.g., the closely observed details of the plants in this painting). See Jordan, “Iconography of Caravaggio’s Rest.” Cardinal Federico Borromeo’s De’ piaceri della mente Cristiana (Milan: 1625) praised the beauty of the descriptions of nature in the Song of Songs, and recommended it as an aid to contemplation. For the importance of Federico Borromeo’s position on nature in his writings see, especially, Pamela M. Jones, “Federico Borromeo as a Patron of Landscape and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy ca. 1600,” Art Bulletin 70, no. 2 (1988): 261–72. 104. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 77. 105. Ibid. 106. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 367. 107. Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, “Caravaggio Documents from the Barberini Archive,” Burlington Magazine 109, no. 773 (1967): 470, 473. 108. Conrad Rudolph and Steven F. Ostrow, “Isaac Laughing: Caravaggio, Non-­Traditional Imagery and Traditional Identification,” Art History 24, no. 5 (2001): 646–81, at 656.

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109. Sandra Richards, “Caravaggio’s Roman Collectors,” in Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome, ed. David Franklin and Sebastian Schütze (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2011), 48–71, at 59. 110. Zygmunt Waz´  bin´   ski, Il cardinale Francesco Maria del Monte 1549–1626, 2 vols. (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1994), 1:67. Del Monte, in fact, received his ordination in the Oratorian church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. BAV, Urb. Lat. 1057, c. 209 [12 April 1589]: “Domenica matina il Card[ina]le Dal Monte prese l’ordine presbiteriale nella chiesa della Vallicella p[er] mano del Card[ina]le Gonzaga giovane.” He is also mentioned as a participant in the spiritual activities at the Vallicella. BAV, Urb. Lat. 1061, c. 9v [6 January 1593]: “Domenica la sera Mons[igno]r Pietro Aldobrand[in]o Nepote di N[ost] S[igno]re diede da cena nell’Ospitio de Padri della Chiesa Nuova alli Card[ina]li Monti et Montalto dopo certe ricreazioni spirituali.” 111. Cesare Baronio (1538–1607) was promoted to the cardinalate by Pope Clement VIII (5 June 1596) and was a close disciple of Neri. Baronio had met Carlo Borromeo during his sojourn in Rome and according to Giussano “entertained a great veneration for St. Charles.” This admiration is documented in an episode in which Baronio obtained the shoes that Borromeo had worn during the Jubilee of 1575, and kept them as a treasured miraculous relic. See Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:342–43 and 2:274; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 230 and 510. Francesco Maria Tarugi (1525–1608) was an Oratorian, and like Baronio, he was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope Clement VIII (5 June 1596). Borromeo too held great admiration for Tarugi, wanting to bring him back with him to Milan to assist in the spiritual reform of his diocese. See Giovannangiola Tarugi, “S. Carlo Borromeo e S. Filippo Neri a Roma durante il giubileo del 1575,” Studi romani 23 (1975): 462–72, at 469–70. 112. Sandro Corradini and Maurizio Marini, “The Earliest Account of Caravaggio in Rome,” Burlington Magazine 140, no. 1138 (1998): 25–28. 113. Ibid., 25. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid. 117. Ibid., 26. 118. Ibid. 119. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 352. 120. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 363. 121. According to Creighton Gilbert, the cardinal spent more for his paintings of Saint Catherine. Besides Caravaggio’s painting, Cardinal del Monte owned four other paintings of Saint Catherine: one by Padovanino, one by Annibale Carracci, another by Garofalo, and finally a painting of the saint by Guido Reni. Saint Catherine was also the patron saint of philosophy and “seekers of knowledge,” a fact that corresponds to Del Monte’s intellectual pursuits. See Creighton Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 127. 122. Frommel, “Caravaggios Frühwerk,” 34; trans. in Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 20. 123. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 363.

310 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 124. Josephine von Henneberg, “Cardinal Caesar Baronius, the Arts, and the Early Christian Martyrs,” in Mormando, Saints and Sinners, 136–50. 125. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 106. 126. Ibid., 161. Fillide Melandroni (1581–1618) is the proposed model for not only Caravaggio’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria, but also for Mary Magdalene in the artist’s Mary and Martha, and Judith in Judith Beheading Holofernes (see pp. 137–39). Caravaggio also painted a portrait of Fillide for Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. Ebert-­Schifferer, however, has noted the lack of evidence regarding the relationship between Fillide and artist. Moreover, she correctly points out that the portrait of Fillide bears little resemblance to the above female subjects, suggesting that “Caravaggio transformed the real face into a type.” See Ebert-­ Schifferer, Caravaggio, 161. 127. Maurizio Calvesi, “Basket of Fruit,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 83–88, at 87. 128. Ibid. 129. Borromeo, Museum, ed. Rothwell, 193: “[A]nother painting that fully deserves glory; it is of a wicker basket—that is, the Basket of Fruit—with flowers gleaming from it. It was painted by Michelangelo da Caravaggio, who gained quite a reputation in Rome. I had wanted to get a second basket like it, but because none could match the beauty and incomparable excellence of this one, it has been displayed alone”; Borromeo, Musaeum[1625], “Il museo” del cardinale Federico Borromeo arcivescovo di Milano: Riprodotto dall’edizione originale con traduzione e note riccorendo il terzo centenario della Biblioteca Ambrosiana, ed. Luca Beltrami, trans. Luigi Grasselli (Milan: Tipografia Umberto Allegretti, 1909), 70: “Nè di poco pregio è un canestro, che gli sta presso, con dei fiori a tinte vivaci. Lo fece Michelangelo da Caravaggio che si acquistò gran nome in Roma. Io avrei volute porgli accanto un altro canestro simile, ma non avendo potuto nessun raggiungere la bellezza ed eccellenza incomparabile di questo, rimase solo.” It has been often noted that Borromeo erroneously described Caravaggio’s canvas as a basket of flowers, rather than a basket of fruit, thus proving Borromeo’s lack of interest in Caravaggio’s style and work. The line of thinking, however, discounts the significant fact that Caravaggio’s canvas was mentioned at all. In his Musaeum, Borromeo selectively chose to describe only key works out of the large Ambrosiana collection, and only the works and artists he particularly admired, including Leonardo, Bernardino Luini, and Jan Brueghel the Elder. 130. Calvesi, “Basket of Fruit,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 87. 131. Borromeo, Museum, ed. Rothwell, 193; Borromeo, Musaeum, 70: “bellezza ed eccellenza incomparabile.” 132. Calvesi, “Basket of Fruit,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 87. 133. Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, 99. 134. Silvia Danesi Squarzina, “The Collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani: Part I,” Burlington Magazine 139, no. 1136 (1997): 766–91; Squarzina, “The Collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani: Part II,” Burlington Magazine 140, no. 1139 (1998): 102–18; and Squarzina, ed., Caravaggio e i Giustiniani: Toccar con mano una collezione del seicento, exh. cat., Palazzo Giustiniani, Rome, 26 January–15 May 2001 (Milan: Electa, 2001).

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135. Enggass and Brown, Italian and Spanish Art 1600–1750, 19; and M. Gio.[Giovanni Gaetano] Bottari and Stefano Ticozzi, eds., Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura, scritte da’ più celebri personaggi dei secoli XV, XVI e XVII, vol. 6, Della Biblioteca Scelta, 112 (Milan: Giovanni Silvestri, 1822), 127: “Duodecimo modo, è il più perfetto di tutti; perchè è più difficile, l’unire il modo decimo con l’undecimo già detti, cioè dipignere di maniera, e con l’esempio avanti del naturale, che così dipinsero gli eccellenti pittori della prima classe, noti al mondo; ed ai nostri dì il Caravaggio, i Caracci, e Guido Reni, ed altri, tra i quali taluno ha premute più nel naturale che nella maniera, e taluno più nella maniera che nel naturale, senza però discostarsi dall’uno nè dall’altro modo di dipignere, premendo nel buon disegno, e vero colorito, e con dare i lumi propri e veri.” 136. Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, 102. 137. Desmond Seward, Caravaggio: A Passionate Life (New York: William Morrow, 1998), 69. 138. Costanza Barbieri, Sofia Barchiesi, and Daniele Ferrara, Santa Maria in Vallicella: Chiesa Nuova (Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1995), 64. 139. Ibid., 62. 140. Ibid., 64. 141. Francesca Profili, “Francesco Vanni e il Cardinal Sfondrato,” in Francesca Cappelletti, ed., Decorazione e collezionismo a Roma nel Seicento: Vicende di artisti, committenti, mercanti (Rome: Gangemi, 2003), 65–74, at 65; and Gaetano Moroni, “Sfondrati, Paolo Emilio, Cardinale,” in Dizionario di erudizione storico-­ecclesiastica, vol. 65 (Venice: Tipografia Emiliana, 1854), 83–84. According to Moroni, the seventeen-­year-­old Sfondrati lived at Santa Maria in Vallicella.

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4.

Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 353. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 364–65. The contract is translated and abridged in Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, 294–95. Although the reasons are unknown, it appears nothing was begun even by the date of Muziano’s death in 1592. 5. Ibid., 295–96. Jacob Cornelisz Cobaert (ca. 1535–1615) was known in Italy (and to Baglione) as Cope Fiammingo. 6. Herwarth Röttgen, Il Caravaggio: Ricerche e interpretazione (Rome: Bulzoni, 1974), 20–21, trans. in Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 22. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 365. 13. Thomas, “Augustinian Interpretation,” 160.

312 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 14. Nicholas DeMarco, “Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew,” Iris: Notes in the History of Art 1 (1982): 5–7. 15. Ibid., 6. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 25, “Abuses common to sacred and profane pictures; On lying and false pictures first,” 221; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 25, “Abusi communi alle pitture sacre & alle profane & prima delle pitture bugiarde & false,” 176r. 19. Angela Hass, “Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew Reconsidered,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 51 (1988): 245–50, at 247. 20. DeMarco, “Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew,” 6–7. Notwithstanding, most scholars have held fast to the identification of the bearded man as Saint Matthew. Peter J. Burgard, however, takes a middle course and suggests that Caravaggio purposefully made the identity of Saint Matthew ambiguous. Burgard asserts that this is entirely appropriate for this event, “when he is still a sinner but has already been called to the apostolate, and a representation of the moment when a decision has to be made but has not yet been reached.” See Peter J. Burgard, “The Art of Dissimulation: Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew,” Pantheon 56 (1998): 95–102, at 95. More recently, Marcia B. Hall has suggested that this ambiguity was purposeful for it defines the mystery of the calling: “The painter has left room here for the viewer to identify himself with the well-­dressed, intelligent man, but also for the humble sinner who sees himself in the worldly youth who doesn’t even know it when he is called.” See Hall, Sacred Image in the Age of Art, 256. 21. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 113; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69v. 22. “Verity” here is in reference to the function of Caravaggio’s pictorial light in rendering a convincing imitation of light and color in nature. Janice C. Bell has observed that Caravaggio achieves an “illusion of color constancy.” See Janice C. Bell, “Light and Color in Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus,” Artibus et Historiae 16, no. 31 (1995): 139–70; and Janice C. Bell, “Some Seventeenth-­Century Appraisals of Caravaggio’s Coloring,” Artibus et Historiae 14, no. 27 (1993): 103–29. 23. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 114; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 70v. 24. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 22. 25. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 365–66. 26. Giovanni Urbani, “Il restauro delle tele del Caravaggio in S. Luigi dei Francesi,” Bolletino dell’Istituto Centrale del Restauro 17 (1966): 36–76, at 56. 27. Maurizio Marini, Io Michelangelo da Caravaggio, 2nd ed. (Rome: Bestetti & Bozzi, 1974), 29. 28. Hibbard, Caravaggio, 106. 29. Franca Trinchieri Camiz, “Death and Rebirth in Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St. Matthew,” Artibus et Historiae 11, no. 22 (1990): 89–105. 30. Ibid., 95. Camiz provides the English Standard Version/Revised Standard Version of the biblical text. The passage from Matthew here, however, is taken from the Latin Vulgate. 31. Ibid., 95–96. 32. Ibid., 96. 33. Ibid., 96–97.

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34. English translation is from Voelker. See Voelker, “Charles Borromeo’s ‘Instructiones,” 250– 51; Borromeo, Instructiones, ed. Barocchi, lib. 1, cap. 19, http://www.memofonte.it/home/ files/pdf/scritti_borromeo.pdf. 35. Camiz, “Death and Rebirth,” 97. Camiz also converts “eleven cubits” as 4.80 m and “seven cubits and sixteen runes” as 3.34 m. 36. “Oration 40: The Oration on Holy Baptism,” in ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, Nicene and Post-­Nicene Fathers, vol. 7 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894), http://www.newadvent.org/ fathers/310240.htm. 37. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:152; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 93. 38. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:152; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 93. 39. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 27. 40. Maurizio Marini, Caravaggio: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio “pictor praestantissimus”: La tragica esistenza, la raffinata cultura, 2nd ed. (Rome: Newton & Compton, 1989), 436. English translation is from Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 27. 41. Hass, “Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew Reconsidered,” 249. 42. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 365. 43. For divergent iconographical interpretations of the two versions of the altarpiece, see Irving Lavin, “Divine Inspiration in Caravaggio’s Two St. Matthews,” Art Bulletin 56, no. 1, (1974): 59–81; and Thomas, “Expressive Aspects.” 44. Calvesi, Le realtà del Caravaggio, 50–51. 45. Borromeo, Sacred Painting, 97; Federico Borromeo, De pictura sacra [1624], ed Barbara Agosti, Quaderni deil Seminario di Storia della Critica d’Arte, 4 (Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 1994), 50. 46. Thomas of Celano, First and Second Life of St. Francis, 12–14. 47. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints [Legenda aurea, ca. 1260], 2 vols., trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 2:186–87. 48. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 24. 49. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 217. 50. Hall, Sacred Image in the Age of Art, 128. 51. Alessandro Zuccari, Arte e Committenza nella Roma di Caravaggio (Turin: RAI–ERI, 1984), 16: “Comandando di più alli pittori conforme al Sacro Concilio di Trento sotto le stesse pene che prima di cominciare pitture, et quadri per uso di Chiesa, et Cappelle esibiscano il cartone, o sbozzo in disegno dell’historia, o fatto con le figure.” 52. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 354. Giacomo Sannesio was elevated to cardinal in 1604—well before Baglione’s biography, but three years after the Cerasi Chapel laterals were executed. 53. The libel testimonies are reproduced and translated in Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, 270–79. 54. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. nos. 24.1 and 24.2. 55. Ibid., cat. no. 23. 56. Leo Steinberg, “Observations in the Cerasi Chapel,” Art Bulletin 41, no. 2 (1959): 183–90.

314 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 57. Timothy Verdon, “Caravaggio e la preghiera,” in Antonio Paolucci and Timothy Verdon, Caravaggio e l’avventura della fede (Città del Vaticano: Musei Vaticani, 2011), 44. English translation is mine. 58. Ibid., 55. English translation is mine. 59. Ibid. The Epistle to the Galatians is a letter from Saint Paul to the Christians in the Roman province of Galatia. 60. Steinberg, “Observations in the Cerasi Chapel.” 61. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 35, “On fierce, horrendous pictures,” 257; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 35, “Delle pitture fiere, & horrende,” 216v: “come insegne heroiche della patienza, della magnanimità de’ santi martiri, & trofei della invitta fede & gloria loro… perché anco considerandosi quanto incomparabilmente sono stati maggiori i dolori, & l’afflittioni de i martiri, che quegli che noi sentiamo nelle infirmità & miserie di questa vita, impariamo di sopportare & sprezzare virilmente ciò che ci suole perturbare, crescendoci la fidutia in Dio, & desiderio della gloria sua.” 62. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 366. 63. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 25, 119; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 25, 76v. 64. This painting has not been identified. 65. Sickel, “Remarks on the Patronage.” 66. Ibid., 427. 67. Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, 304. 68. Ibid. 69. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 354: “In the Chiesa Nuova, on the right side in the second chapel, is his oil painting of the Dead Christ who is about to buried, with other figures; and this work is said to be his best”; Scannelli, excerpts from Il microcosmo della pittura, 358: “extraordinary beauty can also be found in the panel in the Chiesa Nuova that depicts the Entombment of the dead Christ; and these are surely his best pictures among those displayed in public”; Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 366: “People correctly hold in great esteem the Deposition of Christ in the Chiesa Nuova of the Oratorians, one of the finest works of Michele’s brush.” 70. Wright is the first scholar to mention the parallels between Pontormo’s and Caravaggio’s altarpieces, particularly in their proposed shared relationship to the Mass. See Georgia Wright, “Caravaggio’s Entombment Considered in Situ,” Art Bulletin 60, no. 1 (1978): 35–42. 71. Copies made after Caravaggio’s Entombment suggest there may have been a large doorway on the left and some plants, but they are nearly invisible to the naked eye today. For discussions on the significance of the stone slab see Mary Ann Graeve, “The Stone of Unction in Caravaggio’s Painting for the Chiesa Nuova,” Art Bulletin 40, no. 3 (1958): 223–38; Wright, “Caravaggio’s Entombment.” 72. Marcia B. Hall, After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 279. 73. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 28, 230: “But there is another disproportion among disjoined things that pertains to discourse and the intellect, which immediately probes to assess whether what is depicted maintains due reason with the other accompanying things. This disproportion is of many kinds, one of which is called relational by some; this is when, of two things related to each other, one is older than the other, like father and son,

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but nonetheless the older one is represented with the younger face, as happens when the blessed Virgin is depicted holding her most sacred son, already dead, in her arms, and the face of the mother is rendered with the youthful features of a woman scarcely twenty-­five years old, at a time when her son was already thirty-­three”; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 28, 186r: “Ci è un’altra sproportione pur di cose disgiunte, che più tosto appartiene al discorso & intelletto, il quale subito penetra a considerare, se quello che è figurato, ha la sua debita ragione con l’altre cose accompagnate. Et di questa sproportione sone più specie, tra le quali una si chiama da alcuni di relatione, & è quando di due cose che si riferiscono l’una all’altra, & una è più antica dell’altra, come padre & figliuolo, si rappresenta nondimeno quello che è più vecchio, con faccia di più giovine, come aviene quando si dipinge la beata Vergine, che tiene in braccio il sacratissimo suo figlio già morto, & si figura la faccia della madre di aspetto giovenile a penna di 25 anni, & nondimeno il figlio già n’havea 33.” 74. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 366: “People correctly hold in great esteem the Deposition of Christ in the Chiesa Nuova of the Oratorians, one of the finest works of Michele’s brush. The figures are located on a slab at the opening of the sepulchre. In the middle we see the holy body. The standing Nicodemus holds it under the knees; in lowering the hips the legs jut out. On the other side St. John holds one arm under the Redeemer’s shoulder, whose face is turned up and his chest deadly pale as one arm hangs down with the sheet: the nude parts are portrayed with the force of the most exacting naturalism. Behind Nicodemus we see the mourning Marys; one has her arms raised, another has a veil over her eyes, and the third looks at the Lord.” 75. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 347, 351; Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 354; Scannelli, excerpts from Il microcosmo della pittura, 358–59; Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 366. 76. Treffers, “In agris itinerans.” For studies on the sources for Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto see William Gavin, “Caravaggio’s Madonna of Loreto Reconsidered,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 6, no. 1 (1986): 20–23; John Varriano, “Observations on Caravaggio and Girolamo Muziano in Situ,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 19, no. 4 (2000): 29–35; and Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers, chap. 2. 77. Pupillo, La SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, 64. 78. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 170. 79. Alessandro Zuccari, “Caravaggio, sus comitentes y el culto lauretano,” in Claudio Strinati e Rossella Vodret, eds., Caravaggio, exh. cat., Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado and Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, September 1990–January 2000 (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 1999), 63–73, at 66. 80. Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers, 100. 81. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 354. 82. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 372. 83. Scannelli, excerpts from Il microcosmo della pittura, 358–59. 84. Marco Pupillo, “La Madonna di Loreto di Caravaggio: Gli scenari di una committenza,” in Caravaggio nel IV Centenario della Cappella Contarelli, ed. Caterina Volpi, Convegno Internazionale di Studi Roma, 24–26 May 2001 (Città di Castello: Petruzzi, 2002), 105– 21, at 112; and Zuccari, “Caravaggio, sus comitentes,” 64–66. 85. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:88; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 373.

316 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 86. 87. 88. 89.

Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:88; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 373. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:88; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 373. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 216. Recall that the archbishop had been a frequent visitor to the confraternity, and granted it a monthly income. Pupillo, La SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, 70. 90. Laerzio Cherubini was also a neighbor of Cardinal del Monte and lived across the street from the Palazzo Giustiniani. 91. N. Randolph Parks, “On Caravaggio’s Dormition of the Virgin and Its Setting,” Burlington Magazine 127, no. 988 (1985): 438–48, at 441. 92. For the relationship between Caravaggio and the Mattei, and for the Mattei family collections, see Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals; Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi: Le collezioni secentesche di quadri nei Palazzi Mattei di Roma (Rome: Àrgos, 1994); Rossella Vodret, ed., Caravaggio e la Collezione Mattei, exh. cat., Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini, Rome, 4 April–30 May 1995 (Milan: Electa, 1995). 93. For discussions on the iconography of the painting see Parks, “On Caravaggio’s Dormition of the Virgin”; Pamela Askew, Caravaggio’s “Death of the Virgin” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Richard E. Spear, review of Caravaggio’s “Death of the Virgin,” by Pamela Askew,” Renaissance Quarterly 45, no. 1 (1992): 166–70; and Todd P. Olson, “Caravaggio’s Coroner: Forensic Medicine in Giulio Mancini’s Art Criticism,” Oxford Art Journal 28, no. 1 (2005): 83–98. 94. The presence of Mary Magdalene has been proposed by Pamela Askew as a symbol of the “good works” of the Casa Pia, a charitable organization closely tied with Santa Maria della Scala. See Askew, Caravaggio’s “Death of the Virgin,” 84–183. 95. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 349. 96. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 45. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 99. The Annales Ecclesiastici (1588–1607) was a twelve-­volume history of the church, written as a corrective to the antagonistic Lutheran Historia Ecclesiae Christi (1559–74) at the behest of, and under the direction of, Filippo Neri. 100. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 48. 101. Schroeder, Canon and Decrees, Canon XXIII. 102. James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art (1974; reprint, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 170; Michelle A. Erhardt, “The Immaculate Kiss Beneath the Golden Gate: The Influence of John Duns Scotus on Florentine Painting of the 14th Century,” Franciscan Studies 66 (2008): 269–80, at 271. 103. Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 354. 104 Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 372. 105. Translated in David Freedberg, “Johannes Molanus on Provocative Paintings: De Historia Sanctarum Imaginum et Picturarum, Book II, Chapter 42,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34 (1971): 229–45, at 239. 106. Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), esp. 119–35, 147–49. 107. Waz´  bin´   ski, Del Monte, 1:290.

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1 08. Ibid., 1:274. 109. Ibid., 1:275. 110. Carmen C. Bambach, “Cat. no. 28, Modello for the Votive Procession of Pope Saint Gregory against the Plague, ca. 1580,” in An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo, ed. Linda Wolk-­Simon and Carmen C. Bambach, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 12 May–15 August 2010 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010), 101.

Chapter 6 1. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 52–55. 2. John Varriano, “Caravaggio and Violence,” Storia dell’arte 97 (1999): 317–32, at 320. 3. Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, 228. 4. Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, 101. 5. Ibid. 6. Puglisi, Caravaggio, 209. 7. Cappelletti and Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi. 8. Ibid., 139–40. 9. Parks, “On Caravaggio’s Dormition of the Virgin,” 441: “Die 14 mensis Junij 1601. D. Michelangelus q. fermi Marisij de Caravaggio Pictor in Urbe commorans in Palatio Ill. et R.mi D. Cardinalis Matthei.” 10. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 140–41. 11. Most recently, Graham-­Dixon has suggested that Caravaggio remained in the Mattei household until at least 1603, while Ebert-­Schifferer claims that Caravaggio returned to Del Monte’s household after a short stay with the Mattei. Puglisi, on the other hand, proposes that Del Monte’s palazzo was his permanent residence and the artist would on occasion stay with the Mattei. See Graham-­Dixon, Life Sacred and Profane, 220; Ebert-­ Schifferer, Caravaggio, 140–41; and Puglisi, Caravaggio, 208. 12. Cappelletti and Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi, 104–5. 13. Ibid., 139. 14. Scannelli, excerpts from Il microcosmo della pittura, 359. 15. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 372. 16. On the narrative construction of the painting see Lorenzo Pericolo, “Visualizing Appearance and Disappearance: On Caravaggio’s London Supper at Emmaus,” Art Bulletin 89, no. 3 (2007): 519–39; and Pericolo, Caravaggio and Pictorial Narrative: Dislocating the “Istoria” in Early Modern Painting (London: Harvey Miller, 2011). For discussions on the iconography of the painting see Charles Scribner III, “In alia effigie: Caravaggio’s London Supper at Emmaus,” Art Bulletin 59, no. 3 (1977): 375–82; John Varriano, “Caravaggio and the Decorative Arts in the Two Suppers at Emmaus,” Art Bulletin 68, no. 2 (1986): 218–24; Susanne J. Warma, “Christ, First Fruits, and the Resurrection: Observations on the Fruit Basket in Caravaggio’s London Supper at Emmaus,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 53, no. 4 (1990): 583–86. 17. Bell, “Light and Color,” 151.

318 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 18. See ibid., 139–70, for a comprehensive discussion of the function of Caravaggio’s light and color in the Mattei Supper at Emmaus. 19. Warma, “Christ, First Fruits, and the Resurrection.” 20. Ibid., 585. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., 586. 23. Cappelletti and Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi, 101. English translation is mine. 24. Ibid. English translation is mine. 25. For the story behind the rediscovery of Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ see Jonathan Harr, The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece (New York: Random House, 2005); and Sergio Benedetti, “Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ: A Masterpiece Rediscovered,” Burlington Magazine 135, no. 1088 (1993): 731–41. 26. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 366–67. 27. Anthony Apesos, “The Painter as Evangelist in Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ,” Aurora 11 (2010): 21–56. 28. Quoted in ibid., 25. 29. Roberto Longhi, “Un originale del Caravaggio a Rouen e il problema delle copie caravaggesche,” Paragone 11, no. 121 (1960): 23–36. 30. Apesos, “Painter as Evangelist,” 37. 31. Spike, Caravaggio, 131. 32. The only exception is Lodovico Carracci’s Taking of Christ (ca. 1589–90, Princeton University Art Museum), but here the lantern, while clearly of the hand-­held type, is not of the rectilinear variety, but rather spherical. 33. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:237: “During the first days of his Retreat he passed seven hours out of the twenty-­four in meditation, and visited the little chapels every night with a small lantern in his hand.” For original Italian text, see Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 481. 34. Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, 99; and Squarzina, “Collections: I,” 767. 35. Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, 101. 36. Cappelletti and Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi, 13. 37. According to the second deposition of Domenico Giordani (a Roman priest) dated Friday, 24 November 1595: “et si communicavano quasi tutti quelli che andavano alle Sette Chiese: che, alle volte, mille, alle volte, doi milla, et quando più, et quando manco; et quando si sapeva che l’ p. Filippo andava alle Chiese, tutti correvano. Di poi si faceva un sermone, lì in S. Sebastiano, et in tutte le altre chiese delle Sette Chiese, da varii religiosi…. Et, in questa andata alle Sette Chiese, si convertivano molte gente et si faceva un gran frutto per le anime. La refettione si faceva in vari luoghi, alla vigna de Matthei, a S. Stefano rotondo, a S. Croce, et altri luoghi….” See Giovanni Incisa della Rocchetta and Nello Vian, eds., Il primo processo per San Filippo Neri: Nel Codice Vaticano Latino 3798 e in altri esemplari dell’archivio dell’Oratorio di Roma (4 vols.), vol. 1: Testimonianze dell’inchiesta romana: 1595, Studi e Testi no. 191 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1957), 385. 38. Cappelletti and Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi, 36, 144. The account registry of Ciriaco Mattei indicates that a payment of 15 scudi was made to Prospero Orsi on 3 February 1614:

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“Adi 3 febraro di 1614 e pui deve havere schudi quindici di monita p. tanti pagati a ms Prospero Orsi p. il prezzo di un San Carlo ed Beato Filippo compro da lui sc. 15.” 39. Ibid., 36. 40. Romano Alberti, Origine, et progresso dell’Academia del Dissegno: De pittori, scultori, & architetti di Roma (Pavia: Pietro Bartoli, 1604), unnumbered final page [86]. 41. Luigi Salerno, “The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani II: The Inventory, Part I,” Burlington Magazine 102, no. 684 (1960): 92–105; Luigi Salerno, “The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani III: The Inventory, Part II,” Burlington Magazine 102, no. 685 (1960): 135–48; Squarzina, “Collections: I” and “Collections: II”; and Squarzina, Caravaggio e i Giustiniani. 42. Salerno, “Picture Gallery III,” 135, no. 1. As noted in Chapter 5, both Baglione and Bellori mentioned that the “rejected” altarpiece was acquired by Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. See Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 353; and Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 365. 43. Squarzina, “Collections: I,” 773. 44. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 38. 45. Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, 180. 46. Squarzina, “The Collection: I,” 770. Squarzina notes that the painting depicts Carlo Borromeo being crowned with a wreath of flowers by angels. Giovanni Lanfranco (1582– 1647), born in Parma, had worked with the Carracci. 47. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 148. 48. Ibid., 149. The copy is now at the Museo Diocesano, Albenga. 49. Marco Pupillo, “John the Baptist,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 152–56, at 153. 50. Francesca Cappelletti, “‘Beauty from Nature’ and Devotion: The Caravaggisti’s New Images of the Saints,” in Franklin and Schütze, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome, 212–55, at 214. 51. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 48. After the rejection of the altarpiece, it was acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese as indicated in a document of 16 June 1606. 52. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 49. Listed in the 7 April 1693 inventory of Palazzo Borghese, in Campo Marzio: “No. 43 Above the door under the large cornice a large painting on canvas with St. Jerome writing with a skull, n. 316, gilt frame by Caravaggi.” Bellori mentioned a Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio that was painted for Cardinal Borghese. See Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 367: “For the same cardinal [Borghese] Caravaggio painted St. Jerome, who is shown writing attentively and extending his hand to dip his pen into an inkwell.” 53. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 367. 54. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 198. 55. Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, 162–63.

Chapter 7 1. Borromeo, Instructiones, lib. 1, cap. 17. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid.

320 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 4. Ibid. 5. Costanza Barbieri, “To Be in Heaven: St. Philip Neri Between Aesthetic Emotion and Mystical Ecstasy,” in Hall and Cooper, Sensuous in the Counter-­Reformation, 207–9. 6. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 22, 113; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 22, 69v–70r. 7. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 2, chap. 25, 221; PD–Prodi, lib. 2, cap. 25, 176r. 8. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 16, 99; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 16, 54v. 9. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 16, 99–100; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 16, 54v–56v. 10. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 11, “Which images are called profane,” 84–85; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 11, “Quali si chiamino imagini profane,” 38r–39r. 11. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 11, 85; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 11, 38r: “L’uno a differenza delle cose sacre, perché piaque anticamente alli santi padri nostri, affinche nel popolo christiano fosse riconosciuto meglio l’ufficio di ciascuno, dividerlo tutto, come in due schiere: l’una chiamorno de’ laici, cioè popolari, percioche ritenevano la conditione conceduta da principio a ciascuno del popolo… l’altra de chierici, che scelti dal popolo erano particolarmente ascritti al culto divino…. ” 12. Paleotti, Discourse, bk. 1, chap. 12, 86; PD–Prodi, lib. 1, cap. 12, 39v–41r: “La necessità si mostra perché essendo l’huomo di natura come dicono conversevole, & che per la debolezza sua hà bisogno continuame[n]te di vari aiuti, si trova essere forzato a significare i bisogni suoi ad altri. Onde non potendo ciò fare con le parole sole, perché non possono essere intese, se non da chi l’ode, & da quegli che hanno cognitione della medesima favella; perciò fù necessario, che si provedesse di qualche istrumento, che supplisse all’uno, & all’altro diffetto, che fù il formare le imagini profane delle cose create, hora d’animali, hora di piante, hora d’artificii, & tal hora di varie parti del corpo humano…. La seconda causa dello introdurre le imagini profane, che s’attribuisse alla utilità, chiaramente si può comprendre da ciascuno…. Ma che diremo noi della dilettatione, la quale habbiamo posta per terza causa? Anzi che non diremo noi, potendosi dire di essa cose infinite?” 13. Quoted in Graham-­Dixon, Life Sacred and Profane, 152. 14. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 191. 15. Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, 314. Friedlaender provides the original and English translation of the avvisi on Caravaggio’s death. See Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, 292–93. 16. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 348; Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 368; Baglione, “Life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 355. 17. “The Colonna Family,” Galleria Colonna, accessed 28 April 2013, http://www.galleriacolonna.it/en/i-­colonna/. 18. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 197; and Sandrina Bandera, “The Supper at Emmaus,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 185. 19. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 348; Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 368. 20. Mancini, “On Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” 348. 21. Spike, Caravaggio, cat. no. 50. 22. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 201. 23. Ibid., 201. 24. Ibid.

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25. Ibid., 202. Ebert Schifferer further suggests that the inclusion of the Madonna and Child was likely a nod to Neapolitan tradition. “Neapolitan painting had a long tradition of linking the depiction of the souls in Purgatory with that of the Madonna and Child, on whose command angels would descend and lift the tormented souls heavenward.” 26. Voragine, Golden Legend, 1:18. 27. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 208. 28. Ann Tzeutschler Lurie and Denis Mahon, “Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Andrew from Valladolid,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 1 (1977): 2–24, at 10. 29. Franz Merke, Geschichte und Ikonographie des endemischen Kropfes und Kretinismus (Bern: Huber, 1971), 321–22. 30. Lurie and Mahon, “Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Andrew,” 18. 31. Ibid. 32. F. G. Vescia and L. Basso, “Goiters in the Renaissance,” Vesalius 3, no. 1 (1997): 23–32, at 26–27. 33. Graham-­Dixon, Life Sacred and Profane, 348. 34. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 368. 35. Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 215. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 216. 39. The Raising of Lazarus and The Adoration of the Shepherds is recorded by early writers as having sold for 1,000 scudi. In regards to the Raising, Susinno states, “When some wealthy members of the house of Lazzaro wished to build a new chapel for the high altar of the church of the Padri Crociferi, they commissioned Caravaggio to paint a large canvas and agreed to pay the sum of 1000 scudi.” See Francesco Susinno, excerpts re Caravaggio [1724; from Le vite de’ pittori e di altri che fiorirono in Messina], ed. Valentino Martinelli (Florence: Le Monnier, 1969); in Hibbard, Caravaggio, 380–87, at 382. The reference to the price of the Adoration was recorded in a footnote in Filippo Hackert’s 1792 Memorie de’ pittori messinesi: “Ei fu dal Senato di Messina immediatamente impiegato a dipingere la tela della Natività nella Chiesa de’ Cappuccini, che è una delle migliori sue opere, avendone riportato il compenso si mille scudi.” See Filippo Hackert, Memorie de’ pittori messinesi (Naples: Stamperia regale, 1792), 46, n. 1. 40. Niels Krogh Rasmussen, O.P., “Iconography and Liturgy at the Canonization of Carlo Borromeo,” Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 15 (1986): 119–50, at 121. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid., 123. 43. Pope Paul V also beatified four mystics during his pontificate: Ignatius of Loyola (27 July 1609); Filippo Neri (11 May 1615); Teresa of Avila (24 April 1614); Frances Xavier (25 October 1619). 44. Marco Aurelio Grattarola, Successi maravigliosi della veneratione di S. Carlo cardinale di S. Prassede, & Arcivescovo di Milano (Milan: Pacifico Pontio & Gio. Battista Piccaglia, 1614); Grattarola also was enlisted by then Archbishop of Milan Federico Borromeo as the supervisor for the building of the Sacro Monte di Arona, a sacred mountain dedicated to the new saint. The pilgrimage site, which was to include fifteen chapels, was never

322 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo

45. 4 6. 47. 48.

49.

5 0. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

completed due to various vicissitudes (particularly war and plague). Three chapels, the church and seminary, and a statue of the saint, however, were successfully completed. The statue of San Carlo Borromeo is monumental, rising to a height of seventy-­five feet; it was executed after a design by il Cerano sometime between 1614 and 1697. It was Federico who financially supported this venture, and he had also played a pivotal role in the application for the canonization of Carlo. Grattarola, Successi maravigliosi, 7–8. The Congregazione degli Oblati di Sant’Ambrogio had been founded by Carlo Borromeo on 15 August 1578. Ibid., 8, 10. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:480; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 651. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:271–72: “Clement VIII would have canonized him twenty years after his death, referring his cause to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, in his Brief of April 24, 1604, and in a rescript of his own hand, in answer to the instance of the city of Milan, he directed the cardinal of Como ‘to proceed with all diligence and caution in the case, as warranted by its importance and the dignity of the person of the Cardinal Charles, so eminent in the Church of God, that there is no part of the world which has not been reached by the report of his sanctity.’” See also Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 508. The high estimation of Carlo Borromeo is recorded in more than thirty-­one volumes of letters addressed to the archbishop from all over Europe. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:269; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 506. For modern studies on the iconography of Carlo Borromeo’s canonization see Marco Rosci, I quadroni di San Carlo del Duomo di Milano (Milan: Ceschina, 1965); Keith David Grasby, “The Showing of Sanctity: The Quadroni of the Duomo, Milan and the Canonisation of Carlo Borromeo,” PhD diss., University of East Anglia, 2009; Rasmussen, “Iconography and Liturgy,” 119–50; Jones, “San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery”; San Carlo Borromeo: La casa costruita sulla roccia, exh. cat., Rimini Fiera, Rimini, opening 25 August 2011 (Bari: Pagina, 2011). Grasby, “Showing of Sanctity,” 48. Ibid., 87–88, 98. Paolo Camillo Landriani(1560–1618), called Il Duchino, was born in Ponte in Valtellina, Lombardy. The Varese Carlo Buzzi (ca. 1585–1658) was an architect in the Veneranda Fabbrica. Domenico Pellegrini was a seventeenth-­century painter in Milan. He also painted a series of frescoes (1602–04) in the Cappella di San Carlo in the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan illustrating scenes from the life of Carlo Borromeo. Grattarola, Successi maravigliosi, 36. Grasby, “Showing of Sanctity,” 88. Ibid., 88–89. Giovanni Battista (1560/61–1627) and his brother Giovanni Mauro (1575–1640), though born in Milan, were each called il Fiammenghino (“the little Fleming”) because their father, Riccardo, was from Antwerp. Rasmussen, “Iconography and Liturgy,” 131–32. These paintings are lost, but indeed seem to have been intended as ephemeral decoration. Ibid., 140. Grattarola, Successi maravigliosi, 241. As noted in Chapters 4–6, several of Caravaggio’s major patrons in Rome were involved with the Confraternity of the SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, founded by San Filippo Neri,

notes

60. 6 1. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66.

67.

6 8. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

7 4. 75.

76.

77.

323

with whom Borromeo had been particularly attached: Ottavio Costa, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Cardinal Francesco Contarelli, Tiberio Cerasi, Marchese Vincenzo Giustinianti, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, Ciriaco Mattei, Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, and Ermete Cavalletti, among others. Pupillo, “Pauperismo e iconografia francescana,” 55–56. Giovanna dell’Orto, “Caravaggio: Self-­Portraits as Exploration of Living Reality,” Gazette des Beaux-­Arts 138, no. 1595 (2001): 225–32, at 228. Varriano, “Caravaggio and Violence.” Ebert-­Schifferer, Caravaggio, 221. Ibid. Ibid., 233. The first notices that record Caravaggio’s presence in Naples (for the second time) appear in October and November of 1609. On 24 October, a message from Rome to Urbino reported that the artist had been killed or disfigured in Naples, and on 4 November, Giulio Mancini informs his brother in letter that Caravaggio had been attacked by four men and received a sfregio (gash). Paola della Pergola, Galleria Borghese: I dipinti, vol. 2: Catalogo (Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1959), 79. Silvia Cassani and Mario Sapio, eds., Caravaggio: The Final Years, exh. cat., National Gallery, London, 23 February–22 May 2005 (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2005), cat. no. 16, 137. Jacopo Manilli, Villa Borghese fuori di Porta Pinciana descritta da Iacomo Manilli romano guardaroba di detta villa (Rome: per Ludovico Grignani, 1650), 67: “in quella testa volle ritrarre se stesso, e nel David ritrasse il suo Caravaggino.” English translation mine. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 367. Röttgen, Il Caravaggio, 206–9; Sergio Rossi, “Un doppio autoritratto del Caravaggio,” in Bernini, Caravaggio: Nuove riflessioni, 149–55, at 152–55. Michael Fried, The Moment of Caravaggio (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 63. Hugo Wagner, Michelangelo da Caravaggio (Bern: Eicher, 1958). Desmond Macrae, “Observations on the Sword in Caravaggio,” Burlington Magazine 106, no. 738 (1964): 412–16, at 415; Mina Gregori, “David with the Head of Goliath,” in Age of Caravaggio, cat. no. 97, 338–41, at 338. Maurizio Marini, Caravaggio “pictor praestantissimus”: L’iter artistico completo di uno dei massimi rivoluzionari dell’arte di tutti i tempi (3rd ed. of Caravaggio: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio “pictor praestantissimus”)(Rome: Newton & Compton, 2001), 100. Jones, “Court of Humility”; Jones, “Bare Feet, Humility,” 321–36. Bartolomeo Gavanti, Oratione in lode della humiltà del B. Carlo Borromeo Cardinale, Arcivescovo di Milano: Composta e recitata dal R. Padre Don Bartolomeo Gavanti Chierico Regolare della Congregatione di S. Paolo alli 4. di novemb. 1607 nel Duomo di Milano (Milan: Agostino Tradate, 1607), 6–7. Quoted in translation in Jones, “Court of Humility,” 167. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:265; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 502. Cardinal Sirleto (1514–85) had taught Greek and Hebrew, and was one of the recipients of the manuscript for Paleotti’s Discorso (see Chapter 3). Della Pergola, Galleria Borghese: I dipinti, 2:79.

324 the path of humility: caravaggio and carlo borromeo 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

88.

Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, 292. Bellori, “Michelangelo da Caravaggio,” 370. Stefania Macioce, “Biography of Caravaggio,” in Strinati, Caravaggio, 236–39, at 239. Ibid. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:318; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 545. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:210; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 142. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:293, 2:88; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 202, 373. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 1:348, 2:155; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 233, 423. Giussano, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, 2:237; Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo, 481. Quoted from Borromeo’s address to the Second Provincial Council of Milan (1569) in the preface written by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning for Giussano, Life of St. Carlo Borromeo, 1:xvii–xviii. See also Chapter 2, where a fuller passage is excerpted. Ibid.

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index

A

B

Accademia di San Luca, 2, 6, 101, 125, 129, 132, 156, 170, 223 Adorno, Francesco, 54, 72, 84 Alberti, Leon Battista, 14 istoria, 14, 16–17 perspective, 20, 25, 30 on expression and passions, 14, 28 Alberti, Romano, 223 Andachtsbild, 18–19 Angeliche (Angelic Sisters of Saint Paul), 64–65, 67 Angelico, Fra, 183 Descent from the Cross, 14, 37 Antonello da Messina Christ at the Column, 19, 40 Aratori, Lucia, 76

Baglione, Giovanni, 79, 129, 132 biography of Caravaggio, 79, 128–31, 137, 153, 168, 173, 178, 182, 192, 195, 199–200, 244 Barberini, Maffeo, 6, 130, 140, 150, 160, 255 Barocci, Federico, 35, 135, 240 Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 147, 165 Baronio, Cesare, 152, 155, 159, 254 Annales ecclesiastici, 196, 221 Martyrologium Romanum, 248 Bascapè, Carlo, 4, 54, 136 see also Borromeo, San Carlo—biography by Carlo Bascapè Bellini, Giovanni Resurrection of Christ, 15, 38

350 index Bellori, Giovanni Pietro, 79, 129, 143, 145–46, 195 Accademia di San Luca, 129 biography of Caravaggio, 79–80, 128, 130–31, 138–39, 141, 146, 150, 153–54, 168, 170–71, 175, 178, 186, 190–92, 199–200, 217, 219–21, 227, 244, 250, 252, 259, 262 Berlinghieri, Bonaventura Saint Francis Altarpiece, 13, 36 Bisciola, Paolo, 59 Bonaventure, Saint, 60, 65, 74–75 Borghese, Scipione, 6, 199–201, 227–28, 252, 259, 262 Borromeo, San Carlo, 2–7, 12, 28–29, 32, 34–35, 49–85, 95, 106, 108–11, 113–14, 118, 126–28, 132, 136, 139, 144–45, 149, 157–60, 177, 179–80, 193, 200, 202, 215, 221–23, 225, 227, 230, 239–40, 243–44, 249, 252–56, 260–63 Accademia delle Notti Vaticane, 51–52, 54, 159, beatification, 83, 243, 253–54 biography by Carlo Bascapè, 4, 54, 56, 70, 72–73, 222 biography by Giovanni Pietro Giussano, 4, 52, 56–57, 59, 61, 63, 67, 70–73, 81–84, 109-11, 135–36, 177, 193, 222, 253–54 canonization, 3, 6, 83–84, 225–26, 252–56, 263 emulation of Saint Francis of Assisi, 4, 50, 52–63, 72–73, 81–82, 84–85, 132, 135–36, 149, 167, 230, 239 Franciscan humility, 3–4, 6–7, 54–57, 61, 68, 73, 81, 84–85, 135, 167, 180, 190, 202, 239–40, 261, 263 Franciscan spirituality, 4, 6–7, 35, 50–51, 53, 55–56, 65, 74–75, 81, 84–85, 135, 139, 144–45, 149, 167, 239–40 Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 4, 62–63, 107, 115, 176, 240

Sacro Monte di Varallo, 3, 32, 50, 72–73, 75, 81–82, 118, 174, 186, 222, 230, 263 spiritual exercises, 3, 54, 61, 66, 263 Borromeo, Federico, 6, 29, 50, 63, 71, 106, 125, 128, 130, 140, 145, 152, 156–60, 201, 219, 223, 227, 255 Accademia di San Luca, 125, 156 De pictura sacra, 179 Musaeum, 157 Botticelli, Sandro Dead Christ Mourned, 20–21, 42

C Calvin, John, 119, 144 Campi, Antonio, 34–35, 63–64, 66–67, 73, 75, 77–78, 240 San Paolo Converso Adoration of the Shepherds, 68 Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 68–69 Handing of the Keys to Saint Peter, 68 Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, 69–70, 89 Scenes from the Passion, 64–67, 88 Campi, Giulio, 34, 63–64, 66, 73, 75, 77–78, 240 Agony in the Garden, 70–72 Campi, Vincenzo, 34, 63–64, 66, 73, 75, 77–78, 240 Christ Nailed to the Cross, 70 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, 1–7, 11–12, 49–51, 239–41, 243, 255–56 Accademia di San Luca, 132 criminal activity, 79–80, 129, 182, 216, 252, 257, 260 final years (post-exile), 243–52, 256–63 in Milan (and Lombardy), 2–4, 32, 34, 49–50, 76–85 in Rome, 127–239 merging of devotional and narrative, 11, 26–27, 135, 137, 144, 146, 173–74,



index 351

184–86, 188–90, 192, 195, 215, 239–43, 248 self-portraits, 180–81, 221–22, 256–63 tenebrism, 68, 73, 75, 84, 139, 142, 154, 172–74, 183, 185, 198, 218–19, 224, 245 Works: Adoration of the Shepherds, 252 Agony in the Garden, 224 Altar of Saint Anne Madonna dei Palafrenieri, 6, 78, 197–202, 227, 262, 213 Amor Vincit Omnia or Amor Victorious, 224–25 Annunciation, 250 Bacchino malato (Sick Bacchus), 262 Bacchus, 154 Basket of Fruit, 157–58, 160, 219 Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 250, 257–58, 266, 267 Boy Bitten by a Lizard, 128 Boy with a Basket of Fruit, 128, 262 Burial of Saint Lucy, 252 The Cardsharps, 153 Cavelletti Chapel, 6, 190–91 Madonna di Loreto, 11, 190–93, 199, 211 Cerasi Chapel, 6, 181–82, 190, 201, 215, 217, 225 Conversion of Saint Paul, 181–85, 189, 241, 208 Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 181–82, 185–86, 209 Cherubini Chapel, 6, 194 Death of the Virgin, 189, 194–97, 201, 217, 212 Contarelli Chapel, 6, 168–69, 201–2, 215, 217, 225, 230, 241 Calling of Saint Matthew, 169–75, 178, 180–81, 218, 241, 203 Inspiration of Saint Matthew, 179–80, 241, 206 Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, 174–77, 179–81, 221, 241, 256–57, 204, 207

Saint Matthew and the Angel, 177–80, 201, 224–25, 205 Crowning with Thorns, 224–25, 234 Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, 246, 248–50 David with the Head of Goliath, 7, 252, 259–63, 270 Flagellation of Christ, 245 The Fortune Teller (Pinacoteca Capitolina), 153 The Fortune Teller (Louvre), 140 Incredulity of Saint Thomas, 224–25, 233 Jove, Neptune, and Pluto, 154 Judith Beheading Holofernes, 137–39, 172, 226, 260, 162 The Lute Player (Hermitage), 158, 225 The Lute Player (Private collection), 154 Madonna of the Rosary, 245 Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, 252, 258–59, 269 Mary and Martha, 130, 137, 226 Medusa (Galleria degli Uffizi), 154, 168 The Musicians, 154 Nativity with Saints Lawrence and Francis, 252 Penitent Magdalen, 140–46, 150, 154, 159, 172, 189, 228, 163 Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page, 250 Portrait of Fillide Melandroni, 158, 225 Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli, 250 Raising of Lazarus, 252, 258–59, 268 Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 140, 145–50, 159, 164 Sacrifice of Isaac, 150–51, 166 Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 138, 154–56 Saint Francis in Meditation, 230, 238 Saint Francis in Prayer, 136, 228–29, 237 Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, 7, 130–36, 143, 146, 148, 150, 226, 228–30, 161 Saint Jerome Writing (Galleria Borghese), 227–28, 251, 262, 236 Saint Jerome Writing (Museum of Saint John’s Co-Cathedral), 250–51

352 index Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, 226–28, 235 Salome Receiving the Head of John the Baptist (National Gallery, London), 245 Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (Prado), 252 Seven Acts of Mercy, 245–47, 265 Supper at Emmaus (Brera), 244–45, 264 Supper at Emmaus (London), 216–20, 244–45, 231 Taking of Christ, 216, 220–22, 256–57, 232 Vittrice Chapel, 6, 186–87 Entombment, 186–90, 241, 210 Cariani, Giovanni, 32–33 Cavalletti, Ermete, 51, 132, 190–92 Cerasi, Tiberio, 181 Cherubini, Laerzio, 194, 217 Clement VIII, pope, 5, 84, 106, 125, 129, 140, 142, 156, 168, 181, 223, 227, 243, 252, 254–55 Cobaert, Jacob Saint Matthew and the Angel, 168, 177–78 Colonna, Costanza, 76, 223, 244, 250, 262 Congregazione della Fabbrica di San Pietro, 169 Contarelli, Matteo (Matthieu Cointrel), 168 Costa, Ottavio, 5–6, 51, 130–34, 136–37, 140, 148, 159, 223, 226–28, 244, 250, 260 Counter-Reformation, 1–3, 28, 34–35, 50, 60, 78, 105, 140, 142–43, 177, 198–99, 242 Council of Trent, 1, 3–4, 11–12, 28, 30, 34–35, 49, 52–54, 62–63, 69, 71–72, 78, 84, 95–97, 101, 106–7, 110, 112–15, 121, 125–26, 133, 181, 193, 198–200, 216, 221, 227, 240 Crescenzi, Giacomo, 169 Crescenzi, Virgilio, 168–69 Crespi, Giovanni Battista (il Cerano), 254

San Carlo Borromeo Consoles Plague Victims, 87 San Carlo in Glory, 271 San Carlo Praying before the “Dead Christ” at Varallo, 72–73, 90

D D’Arpino, Cavaliere (Giuseppe Cesari), 129, 131–32, 168–70, 174, 177, 216, 262 Del Monte, Francesco Maria Bourbon, 2, 6, 130–31, 137–38, 140, 145, 152–60, 168, 194, 201, 216–17, 223, 255 Accademia di San Luca, 125

E Emser, Hieronymus, 22–23

F Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 31 Chapel of the Crucifixion, 32, 249, 46 Dead Christ, 73 Figino, Ambrogio, 78, 200 Forty Hours’ Devotion (Quarant’ore), 57–58, 118, 132, 263 Francis of Assisi, Saint, 4, 54, 56–57, 59–63, 72–74, 81–82, 84, 132–36, 139–40, 148–49, 179, 228–30, 239 biography by Saint Bonaventure, 60, 133–34, 229 biography by Tommaso da Celano, 60–62, 133–34, 179 Franciscans, 50, 55–56, 60, 81–82, 131–32, 136, 198–99, 229, 239–40 Capuchins, 136, 229 meditation and darkness, 74–75 spirituality, 7, 31, 35, 50, 53, 65, 74–75, 84, 133–36, 139, 144–45, 148–49, 174



index 353

G

L

Gentileschi, Orazio, 129, 132, 136 Gilio, Giovanni Andrea, 30, 96 Degli errori, 4–5, 66, 96–107, 111–15, 118, 123–24 Giotto, 13–14, 98 Giussano, Giovanni Pietro, 4, 67, 84 see also Borromeo, San Carlo—biography by Giovanni Pietro Giussano Giustiniani, Benedetto, 6, 130, 140, 158–59, 201, 222–25 Giustiniani, Vincenzo, 6, 51, 130, 132, 158–59, 178–81, 194, 201, 223–25 Grattarola, Marco Aurelio, 253–55 Gregory XIII, pope, 54, 140, 187, 201–2 Gregory the Great, pope, 103, 141–42, 201–2

Leonardo da Vinci, 11, 26, 28, 32, 35, 77, 249 Adoration of the Magi, 16 La Belle Ferronnière, 29 Head and Shoulders of Christ, 33, 48 Lady with an Ermine, 29, 45 Last Supper, 29, 34, 171 nature and naturalism, 29–33 on expression and passions, 28–29, 33 on shadows, 29–31 Virgin of the Rocks, 29 Lomazzo, Giovanni Paolo, 28, 77 Libro de sogni, 34 Trattato dell’arte della pittura, 28–29, 32 Luther, Martin, 22–23, 144 Ninety-Five Theses, 22

I

M

icons, 3–4, 7, 11–12, 14–27, 30, 66, 69–71, 97, 103–4, 114, 118, 122–23, 126, 135, 154–55, 173, 189, 192, 195–96, 199, 215, 248 Byzantine icons, 12–13, 18 iconoclasm Byzantine, 105 Protestant, 22, 105, 113 Ignatius of Loyola Spiritual Exercises, 2, 49 Innocent III, pope, 60

Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, 34 Mancini, Giulio, 79 biography of Caravaggio, 79, 128, 130, 173, 195–96, 244 Mantegna, Andrea Dead Christ, 99 Presentation in the Temple, 19–20, 41 Mattei, Asdrubale, 194, 216–17, 223 Mattei, Ciriaco, 6, 51, 132, 194, 216–17, 220, 223 Mattei, Girolamo, 6, 51, 132, 140, 159, 194, 216, 222 Melandroni, Fillide, 155, 158, 224–25 Merisi, Fermo, 76 Merisi, Giovanni Battista, 76, 84 Merisi, Ludovico, 76, 127–28 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 98–99, 183 David, 260 Entombment, 21–22, 24, 43 Last Judgment, 95–98, 102–3, 106–7, 112, 218 Pauline Chapel, 185

J Jesuits, 2, 49, 54–55, 59, 72, 76, 108, 150, 227, 255

K Karlstadt, Andreas, 22–23

354 index Pietà (San Pietro in Vaticano), 24, 116, 188 Molanus, Johannes De picturis et imaginibus sacris, 107–8, 112, 200

N narrative, 3–4, 7, 11–27, 33, 66, 69, 77, 97, 102–5, 116, 130, 135, 137–38, 146, 154, 172, 175, 185–86, 188–90, 192, 194, 215, 249 Neri, San Filippo, 6, 51–52, 61, 63, 109, 122, 132, 152, 157–59, 184, 223, 240, 243

O Oratorians, 2, 6, 49, 51–52, 61, 109, 136, 142, 145, 152, 155, 157–60, 181, 186–88, 215, 221, 223, 225, 227, 230, 239, 243 Orsi, Prospero, 131–32, 140, 150, 152–53, 159, 223, 255,

P Paleotti, Gabriele, 2–3, 6, 30, 84–85, 106–11, 133, 145, 152, 200, 223, 239–40, 254 Accademia di San Luca, 2, 125, 156 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, 2, 5–7, 29, 63, 67, 106–26, 141, 147, 167, 171–73, 186, 189, 198, 224–25, 241–42, 263, Panigarola, Francesco, 56, 72, 144–45 Paul III, pope, 34, 51, 58, 64, 97, 107, 185 Paul V, pope, 201, 227, 244, 250, 252–53, 262–63 Peterzano, Simone, 34–35, 76–77 , 79–80, 82, 200 Entombment, 77–78, 91

Pius IV, pope, 50–52, 109, 254 Pontormo, Jacopo da Capponi Chapel, 23–26, 44 Protestant Reformation, 3, 49, 53, 60, 96, 188, 197–98, 246–47 on images and exterior modes of devotion, 22–23, 26, 34, 53, 57–58, 95–96, 105, 107, 113, 156, 193

R Raphael Sanzio, 23, 102 Entombment, 16–17, 77, 39 Romanino, Girolamo, 78 Christ Carrying the Cross, 33, 188, 47 Rovere, Giovanni Battista della (il Fiammenghino) San Carlo in Procession with the Sacred Nail, 254, 86 San Carlo Preparing for Death at the Sacro Monte di Varallo, 222, 92 Rovere, Giovanni Mauro della, 254

S sacri monti, 72, 81–82 Sacro Monte di Orta, 136 Sacro Monte di Varallo, 3, 11, 26, 31–33, 35, 50, 72–73, 75, 81, 84–85, 118, 136, 174, 186, 222, 230, 263 Sannesio, Giacomo, 182, 201 Savoldo, Giovanni Girolamo, 78 Savonarola, Girolamo, 20–22, 26 Scalvo, Bartolomeo, 65–67, 74 Sfondrati, Niccolò, 63–64, 76, 84, 159 Sixtus IV, pope, 198 Sixtus V, pope, 84, 128, 131, 152, 222–23, 253 SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini, 5–6, 51, 132, 136, 142, 152, 159–60, 191, 193, 230



T Titian, 17–18, 27, 77 Tommasoni, Ranuccio, 216, 244, 252, 257

V Valier, Agostino, 4, 57, 227 van Mander, Carel, 130 Vasari, Giorgio, 13 Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, 13, 15, 26–31, 34, 95, 98–100, 104–6 Vittrice, Girolamo, 5, 130, 140, 142, 144–45, 148, 159, 187, 228 Vittrice, Pietro, 159, 187

Z Zuccaro, Federico, 132, 201–202 Accademia di San Luca, 101 Idea de’ pittori, scultori et architetti, 101

index 355

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