Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [259]
25. See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, pp. 62–3: ‘Confessors thus became quite literally law enforcement officers, who were to use their privileged access to the soul to assist in the application of church law. Having dispensed with such matters, they turned to the confession proper. But they continued to wear their uniforms as agents of discipline, constantly weighing the need to deny absolution to those considered unwilling to mend their sinful ways … if obstinacy was undeniable, the refusal of absolution was to be no empty threat. The Milanese confessor was to display the same combination of holy zeal and legal spirit that was characteristic of his bishop.’
26. See Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes (London, 1930), vol. 19, p. 108.
27. See David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago and London, 1989), p. 179. Freedberg’s excellent account of traditions of visualization in Christian meditation gives passing mention to Borromeo (but not Caravaggio).
28. Ibid., p. 171.
29. Ibid., p. 168.
30. See Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford, 1972), p. 45: ‘The painter was a professional visualizer of the holy stories. What we now easily forget is that each of his pious public was liable to be an amateur in the same line, practised in spiritual exercises that demanded a high level of visualization of, at least, the central episodes of the lives of Christ and Mary.’
31. Cited in Roger Fry, ‘Flemish Art at Burlington House. I’, Burlington magazine 50, 287 (Feb. 1927), p. 68.
32. See Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, p. 46.
33. See David Gilmore, Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture (New Haven, 1987), p. 161.
34. See Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, p. 113.
35. Ibid., p. 114.
36. See M. Cinotti, I pittori bergamaschi (Bergamo, 1983), p. 235.
37. Ibid. Giovan Pietro, who is first mentioned in a document of 1578, died in childhood.
38. See Ann G. Carmichael, ‘The Last Past Plague: The Uses of Memory in Renaissance Epidemics’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 53, no. 2, (Apr.1998), p. 143.
39. Ibid., p. 137.
40. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano, qual principio nel mese d’agosto 1576 (Ancona and Bologna, 1577). The translation here is that of Ann G. Carmichael in ‘The Last Past Plague’.
41. See Ann G. Carmichael, ‘The Last Past Plague’, pp. 137, 141.
42. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano.
43. See Fra Paolo Bellintano, I due Bellintani da Salò et il dialogo della pesta di Fra Paolo, F. Odorici (ed.), in Francesco Colombo (ed.), Raccolta di cronisti e documenti storici lombardi inediti (Milan, 1857), vol. 2, p. 296.
44. See ibid.; the story is singled out in Ann G. Carmichael, ‘The Last Past Plague’.
45. See Paolo Bisciola, Relatione verissima del progresso della peste di Milano.
46. See M. Cinotti, , I pittori bergamaschi, p. 203.
47. For this document and the division of land, see ibid., pp. 235, 250, 206.
48. See Giacomo Berra, ‘Il Giovane Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’.
49. See The Age of Caravaggio, Royal Academy exhibition catalogue (London, 1985), p. 73.
50. The contract is quoted in M. Gregori, (ed.), Gli affreschi della Certosa di Garegnano (Turin, 1973), p. 10; I have used the translation offered in Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life (London, 1998), p. 24.
51. Ibid., p. 57.
52. See Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies (Princeton, 1955), p. 233.
53. See Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, pp. 89, 27.
54. The passage was first detected and deciphered by the art historian Maurizio Calvesi, author of a book aptly entitled Le realtà del Caravaggio (The Realities of Caravaggio) (Turin, 1990). I am grateful to him for sharing his insights with me.
PART TWO ROME, 1592–5
1. ‘Bugiaronaccia poltrona puttana de tio te voglio tirare