a tossed salad of an inventory, jumbled and confused, and utterly untrustworthy.
Before long, Francesca and Laura discovered how this had happened. In the archive, they came across a guidebook called
An Instructive Itinerary of Rome,
published seven years before the 1793 inventory. Written by one Giuseppe Vasi, it was replete with errors, the same sorts of errors that later infected the inventory, among them the attribution of
The Taking of Christ
to Honthorst. The family was in decline. The inventorist they hired was either incompetent or lazy. He had clearly relied on Vasi’s guidebook alone, perpetuating one confusion after another.
Another guidebook of that era, by a German named Von Ramdohr, took note of the mistaken attribution to Honthorst. Von Ramdohr had no doubts about who had painted the picture. “Judas betrays Christ with his kiss, by Caravaggio,” wrote Von Ramdohr, adding, “Others say it is by Honthorst, which is less likely.”
So Longhi’s intuition appeared to have been correct. The Scotsman Hamilton Nisbet had bought Caravaggio’s
Taking of Christ,
believing it was by Honthorst. But what had happened to the copy, which had disappeared from the records? In an inventory so confused, could the original have been mistaken for the copy? There was simply no way to tell.
Francesca and Laura spent another full day in the archives, wading through more inventories and account books. Each noticed that the other had dark circles under her eyes from the poor light and eyestrain. Their hands felt cramped from hours of copying entries into their notebooks, their backs ached from bending over the old volumes.
They left Recanati on the afternoon of the fourth day, their notebooks full. In Rome the next evening, they went together to see Correale. He had a new task for them. The exhibition catalogue would contain several essays on the history, iconography, and technical investigations of the two
St. John
paintings. Correale had planned at first to incorporate their findings into the essay by Rosalia Varoli-Piazza on the paintings’ histories. But now, with the smile of someone bestowing an award, he told them that they should write a separate essay on the archive and their findings.
This pleased Francesca and Laura. They had made the discoveries, and they deserved the credit for them, not just a footnote in someone else’s article. But they had already made a commitment to write a short article for
Art e Dossier
. They had not yet told Correale about that.
14
T HE REST OF THE SUMMER PASSED QUICKLY. F RANCESCA ATTENDED her friend’s wedding and saw the young man she knew at the reception. They smiled and flirted, which was all she had wanted. She and Laura divided up the task of writing the essay for Correale. Each worked on her own. They saw each other infrequently, meeting only a few times at the library to coordinate their efforts and review what each other had written. It was a good time to work, the season of tourists, the time of year when most Romans made plans to leave the city, when shops and restaurants shuttered their doors in the August heat.
Francesca was also busy planning for another trip to London in September. She had won a second research grant, this time for a year, to the Warburg Institute, part of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.
The Warburg was familiar ground to her. Luciano had convinced her to come the previous year. He’d described the libraries at the universities in England, open until late at night and on weekends, where you could wander from floor to floor and take down whatever books interested you. He told her about how he’d spent the entire night in a library at Oxford, eating in the cafeteria and studying and writing until the sun rose. They were both accustomed to the national library in Rome, always crowded, closed on weekends, where you could request only two books at a time and then had to wait, sometimes for hours, for a bored civil servant to
Before long, Francesca and Laura discovered how this had happened. In the archive, they came across a guidebook called
An Instructive Itinerary of Rome,
published seven years before the 1793 inventory. Written by one Giuseppe Vasi, it was replete with errors, the same sorts of errors that later infected the inventory, among them the attribution of
The Taking of Christ
to Honthorst. The family was in decline. The inventorist they hired was either incompetent or lazy. He had clearly relied on Vasi’s guidebook alone, perpetuating one confusion after another.
Another guidebook of that era, by a German named Von Ramdohr, took note of the mistaken attribution to Honthorst. Von Ramdohr had no doubts about who had painted the picture. “Judas betrays Christ with his kiss, by Caravaggio,” wrote Von Ramdohr, adding, “Others say it is by Honthorst, which is less likely.”
So Longhi’s intuition appeared to have been correct. The Scotsman Hamilton Nisbet had bought Caravaggio’s
Taking of Christ,
believing it was by Honthorst. But what had happened to the copy, which had disappeared from the records? In an inventory so confused, could the original have been mistaken for the copy? There was simply no way to tell.
Francesca and Laura spent another full day in the archives, wading through more inventories and account books. Each noticed that the other had dark circles under her eyes from the poor light and eyestrain. Their hands felt cramped from hours of copying entries into their notebooks, their backs ached from bending over the old volumes.
They left Recanati on the afternoon of the fourth day, their notebooks full. In Rome the next evening, they went together to see Correale. He had a new task for them. The exhibition catalogue would contain several essays on the history, iconography, and technical investigations of the two
St. John
paintings. Correale had planned at first to incorporate their findings into the essay by Rosalia Varoli-Piazza on the paintings’ histories. But now, with the smile of someone bestowing an award, he told them that they should write a separate essay on the archive and their findings.
This pleased Francesca and Laura. They had made the discoveries, and they deserved the credit for them, not just a footnote in someone else’s article. But they had already made a commitment to write a short article for
Art e Dossier
. They had not yet told Correale about that.
14
T HE REST OF THE SUMMER PASSED QUICKLY. F RANCESCA ATTENDED her friend’s wedding and saw the young man she knew at the reception. They smiled and flirted, which was all she had wanted. She and Laura divided up the task of writing the essay for Correale. Each worked on her own. They saw each other infrequently, meeting only a few times at the library to coordinate their efforts and review what each other had written. It was a good time to work, the season of tourists, the time of year when most Romans made plans to leave the city, when shops and restaurants shuttered their doors in the August heat.
Francesca was also busy planning for another trip to London in September. She had won a second research grant, this time for a year, to the Warburg Institute, part of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.
The Warburg was familiar ground to her. Luciano had convinced her to come the previous year. He’d described the libraries at the universities in England, open until late at night and on weekends, where you could wander from floor to floor and take down whatever books interested you. He told her about how he’d spent the entire night in a library at Oxford, eating in the cafeteria and studying and writing until the sun rose. They were both accustomed to the national library in Rome, always crowded, closed on weekends, where you could request only two books at a time and then had to wait, sometimes for hours, for a bored civil servant to
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