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By Root 1450 0

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

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

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

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

5. Ibid., p. 1,164.

6. Ibid., p. 1,172.

7. Ibid., p. 1,143.

8. Ibid., pp. 1,142, 1,150.

9. Ibid., p. 1,142.

10. Ibid., p. 1,150.

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

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

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 I am grateful to Opher Mansour for allowing me to read his unpublished doctoral dissertation for the Courtauld Institute in London, ‘Offensive Images: Censure and Censorship in Rome under Clement VIII 1592–1605’, from which this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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20. Ibid., p. 27.

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

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

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

24. Ibid., p. 226.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

32. Ibid., p. 49.

33. Ibid., p. 41.

34. It was painted on a light grey ground like a number of Caravaggio’s earliest works, whereas the National Gallery picture was painted on a warmish ground,