for all the observers of his scene, is death as illumination.”
For unknown reasons the Carmelites rejected this glorious painting. Baglione says it was because of the Virgin’s legs being “swollen and bare.” Bellori, who had not seen the picture, thought it was because he had painted the swollen body of a dead woman much too realistically. Mancini has a far more exciting explanation; Caravaggio had used as a model for the Virgin“some dirty whore from the Ortaccio,” a red-light district in the Campo Marzio. He suspected that the artist’s subsequent misfortunes were divine retribution for such a blasphemy. A later legend even claimed that the model was the body of a drowned prostitute, dredged out of the Tiber.
Laerzio Cherubini kept the rejected
Death of the Virgin
for some years. Early in 1607 it was bought by Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, on the advice of Peter Paul Rubens, who had seen it in Rome and reported that it was unquestionably one of Caravaggio’s finest works. Before it left Rome for the fabulous Gonzaga collection at Mantua, it was exhibited for a week and warmly admired by many of the city’s artists. Later, it was bought by King Charles I of England.
On 7 February 1602, Caravaggio signed a contract for another altarpiece,
The Inspiration of St. Matthew
, which would show the saint in the process of writing his Gospel. It was commissioned for the Contarelli Chapel by the Abbate Giacomo Crescenzi, who agreed to pay him 150 scudi. When he had finished, sometime during 1602, it was placed over the chapel’s altar. However, Bellori informs us, “it was taken down by the priests, who said that the figure had neither a saint’s dignity nor semblance, sitting with crossed legs and feet rudely exposed to the people.”
“Caravaggio was in despair,” writes Bellori. Already, he must have been despondent enough over the
Death of the Virgin’s
rejection. Fortunately, “the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani intervened on his behalf and helped him find a way out of this unpleasant situation; after negotiating with the priests, he bought the painting for himself while persuading him to paint another, which is still to be seen over the altar.” The new version, often known as
St. Matthew and the Angel
, amused Berenson by “the incongruity of the stately elder with one knee on a wooden stool, as if he had jumped out of bed to dash off a happy thought or phrase before it escaped him.” Even so, it is a magnificent image of divine inspiration.
In 1602, while working on the
Inspiration
, Caravaggio had signed a contract to paint an
Entombment of Christ
for the Vittrici family chapel in theOratorian church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. In Caravaggio’s day the building remained just as Filippo Neri had wanted it, plain, with whitewashed walls, which made the
Entombment
even more impressive for contemporaries. This time the Virgin was portrayed as a dignified mother superior in late middle age, wearing a nun’s coif, not as an attractive young woman; the artist was taking no chances after all the fuss over the model in the
Death of the Virgin
. Christ’s body is being lifted down from the Cross. Since the painting was hung over an altar where Mass was celebrated every day, when the priest said “This is my body” as he elevated the Host, it proclaimed the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, attacked with such fury by Protestants. Once again, Caravaggio’s carefully thought out composition was doing exactly what the Council of Trent asked, and, as always, his grasp of theology was impeccable. For a man of his time, it was still the most important of the sciences, a matter of eternal life, or eternal death.
He was probably much better educated than we realize. His friends were not uncultivated: two poets, the Cavaliere Marino and Aurelio Orsi; an architect, Onorio Longhi; and an unnamed bookseller. Paintings like
Narcissus
indicate at least a smattering of classical learning, and he seems to
For unknown reasons the Carmelites rejected this glorious painting. Baglione says it was because of the Virgin’s legs being “swollen and bare.” Bellori, who had not seen the picture, thought it was because he had painted the swollen body of a dead woman much too realistically. Mancini has a far more exciting explanation; Caravaggio had used as a model for the Virgin“some dirty whore from the Ortaccio,” a red-light district in the Campo Marzio. He suspected that the artist’s subsequent misfortunes were divine retribution for such a blasphemy. A later legend even claimed that the model was the body of a drowned prostitute, dredged out of the Tiber.
Laerzio Cherubini kept the rejected
Death of the Virgin
for some years. Early in 1607 it was bought by Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, on the advice of Peter Paul Rubens, who had seen it in Rome and reported that it was unquestionably one of Caravaggio’s finest works. Before it left Rome for the fabulous Gonzaga collection at Mantua, it was exhibited for a week and warmly admired by many of the city’s artists. Later, it was bought by King Charles I of England.
On 7 February 1602, Caravaggio signed a contract for another altarpiece,
The Inspiration of St. Matthew
, which would show the saint in the process of writing his Gospel. It was commissioned for the Contarelli Chapel by the Abbate Giacomo Crescenzi, who agreed to pay him 150 scudi. When he had finished, sometime during 1602, it was placed over the chapel’s altar. However, Bellori informs us, “it was taken down by the priests, who said that the figure had neither a saint’s dignity nor semblance, sitting with crossed legs and feet rudely exposed to the people.”
“Caravaggio was in despair,” writes Bellori. Already, he must have been despondent enough over the
Death of the Virgin’s
rejection. Fortunately, “the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani intervened on his behalf and helped him find a way out of this unpleasant situation; after negotiating with the priests, he bought the painting for himself while persuading him to paint another, which is still to be seen over the altar.” The new version, often known as
St. Matthew and the Angel
, amused Berenson by “the incongruity of the stately elder with one knee on a wooden stool, as if he had jumped out of bed to dash off a happy thought or phrase before it escaped him.” Even so, it is a magnificent image of divine inspiration.
In 1602, while working on the
Inspiration
, Caravaggio had signed a contract to paint an
Entombment of Christ
for the Vittrici family chapel in theOratorian church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. In Caravaggio’s day the building remained just as Filippo Neri had wanted it, plain, with whitewashed walls, which made the
Entombment
even more impressive for contemporaries. This time the Virgin was portrayed as a dignified mother superior in late middle age, wearing a nun’s coif, not as an attractive young woman; the artist was taking no chances after all the fuss over the model in the
Death of the Virgin
. Christ’s body is being lifted down from the Cross. Since the painting was hung over an altar where Mass was celebrated every day, when the priest said “This is my body” as he elevated the Host, it proclaimed the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, attacked with such fury by Protestants. Once again, Caravaggio’s carefully thought out composition was doing exactly what the Council of Trent asked, and, as always, his grasp of theology was impeccable. For a man of his time, it was still the most important of the sciences, a matter of eternal life, or eternal death.
He was probably much better educated than we realize. His friends were not uncultivated: two poets, the Cavaliere Marino and Aurelio Orsi; an architect, Onorio Longhi; and an unnamed bookseller. Paintings like
Narcissus
indicate at least a smattering of classical learning, and he seems to
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