An untraced painting by Caravaggio and its Early Christian Iconography

An untraced painting by Caravaggio and its Early Christian iconography

by RICCARDO GANDOLFI

ON 18 TH AUGUST 1611 the merchant Marcello Lopez dictated his last will.1 A few months later, in April 1612, a lengthy posthumous inventory was drawn up, a record of all the goods owned by the deceased, for the benefit of his heirs.2 The description of his house in the via dei Banchi in Rome provides a vivid testimony of how comfortably the Lopez family lived: among the objects listed there are jewels, silver, tooled leather and a good number of paintings. The Lopez family’s wealth was mostly based on income from investment funds and financial corporations, as well as debts to be collected from Marcello’s numerous clientele.

Most of the works of art mentioned in the notarial documents were housed ‘Nella Camera dove stava dicto q. Marcello’ (in the room occupied by the late Marcello), although the portraits of eminent people were displayed in rooms in which he received his clients. This suggests that Lopez may have managed a parallel business as a paintings dealer – a practice that was fairly widespread among the professional class, including a notably well-documented number of tailors.3 Moreover, evidence is beginning to emerge of the existence of a middle layer of society in contact with the most eminent artists, as in the case of the tailor Antonio Valentini, who owned a canvas by Caravaggio at a very early date.4 As regards iconography, the subjects of the paintings in Lopez’s collection were mostly religious, although it also included some secular works, such as ‘un ragazzo che suona il ciuffolo’ (a boy playing the whistle), and a portrait of the celebrated fifteenth-century Albanian patriot Scanderbeg, who also worked for the Venetian Republic and the Kingdom of Naples.

Although the paintings were not assessed for their monetary worth, certain clues allow us to guess at the value of the collection: after listing a ‘Nostro Signore alla Colonna’ (‘Our Lord at the Column’) and a ‘S. Francesco piccolo’ (‘small St Francis’), the anonymous writer notes ‘una cornice di noce grande in tela tutta intagliata di diverse figure senza quadro, quale ora sta in lite avanti a Monsignor A[uditor] C[amerae] con Donato Lopez’ (‘a large walnut frame for a canvas, entirely carved with divers figures, without

a painting, now a subject of dispute involving Donato Lopez, being heard before Monsignor A[uditor] C[amerae]’). Evidently the frame, or the painting it once contained, must have been of considerable value, enough to lead to a legal dispute between Marcello and his brother.5 Of all the paintings listed in the inventory only one is provided with the artist’s name: the first painting listed in the inventory in the main room of the house is described as ‘un quadro grande scorniciato di cornice negro con taffetà verde di N. Sig.re quando da gli documenti agli Apostoli di mano di Michelangelo di Caravaggio’ (a large picture in a black frame with green taffeta of Our Lord when he gives the documents to the Apostles by the hand of Michelangelo di Caravaggio). This inclusion of a work by the Lombard painter is not unique among the numerous Roman inventories of the seventeenth century, given the custom of attributing Caravaggesque paintings to the master himself.6 What prompts us to examine this reference more closely is a specific combination of elements. The list was compiled in 1612, only two years after Caravaggio’s death, and it gives a precise, if sibylline, description of a subject not found in his œuvre, thus leading us to exclude that the work might be a copy of one of his celebrated paintings.7 There is a further coincidence that, together with the early date of the inventory and the painting’s unusual subject, makes it very likely that the inventory indeed describes an autograph painting

by Caravaggio in the Lopez residence, all memory of which has been lost until now. The document’s reliability can be determined only by investigating Marcello Lopez and the network that closely links him with Caravaggio’s entourage.

Marcello, the son of Giovanni Lopez and a native of Squillace in Calabria, had a flourishing commercial enterprise in the via dei Banchi. Documents identify him as ‘sutor in Urbe’ (tailor in the City), a term used for tailors and shoemakers; but his business went far beyond the activity of an artisan. He must have been a significant businessman dealing in precious clothing, fabrics and leather, for he left his heirs a considerable fortune. Since 1598 this wealthy merchant had been a member of the Confraternita della Buona Morte,8 and was in touch with Marchese Fabio Gonzaga

I wish to thank Professor Alessandro Zuccari for his continuous support and valuable comments. I also thank Patrizia Cavazzini, Massimo Moretti, Michele Nicolaci, Frank Dabell, Federica Papi and Lothar Sickel for many useful discussions.

1 Archivio di Stato di Roma (hereafter cited as ASR), Notai A.C., vol. 4588, fols.739r–740v and 735.

2 ASR, Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 28, vol. 83, fols.764r–777r.

3 In her study of how the early seicento Roman art market was regulated, Patrizia Cavazzini published the 1634 inventory of the tailor Christiano Stringherlandt, rich in works destined for the art market; see P. Cavazzini: Painting as Business in Early Seventeenth-Century Rome, University Park PA 2008.

4 L. Sickel: ‘Der Schneider und die Maler. Giuseppe Cesari, Pulzone und Caravaggio im Vermächtnis des Antonio Valentini’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 41 (2014), pp.53–81; see also Cavazzini, op. cit. (note 3).

5 A similar case also involving a tailor and a valuable frame, is cited in idem: ‘A Painting by Michael Sweerts on the Roman Art Market’, Oud Holland 127, 2/3

(2014), pp.109–15.

6 On Caravaggio’s works cited in archival documents, see S. Macioce: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Documenti, fonti e inventari 1513–1875, Rome 2010; M. Marini: Caravaggio ‘pictor prestantissimus’, Rome 2005.

7 No painting of this subject is listed by A. Moir: Caravaggio and his Copyists, New York 1976; B. Nicolson: The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979; and idem: Caravaggism in Europe, Turin 1989.

8 Marcello Lopez is listed in the confraternity from 1598, Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma (hereafter cited as ASVR), Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, b.647; he attended meetings in 1600–05 (ASVR, Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, b.687, fols.58r, 63r, 65r, 74r and 75v). In 1604 he was named oratore for the feast of St Michael. A payment of 10 scudi to the confraternity appears in P. Anderson: ‘Francesco Nicolini, “falegname et intagliatore in legno”, and the Role of Carpenters in Cinquecento and Seicento Rome’, Pantheon 57 (1999), pp.90–103. the burlington magazine • clix • april

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2. Christ among the Apostles.

Late sixteenth century.

Ink and watercolour, 30 by 45 cm. From MS Vat. Lat. 5409, fol.36v.

(Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City).

(1546–1616?), major-domo to the Duke of Mantua and Governor of Monferrato, to whom he sent ‘un vestito fattogli cioè calze, casacca e feraiolo, guarniti tutti e foderato d’ermesino’ (a suit he had made for him, that is, stockings, tunic and cloak, all trimmed and lined with silk), valued at 50 scudi, in 1609.9 Marcello Lopez was married to Candelora Crocicchia,10 the sister of the tailor Girolamo, a native of Narni.11 The rapport between the two colleagues was close, and Girolamo became one of Lopez’s executors, managing his property (together with Marcello’s sister) pending his legitimate heirs reaching their majority.12 Early sources tell us that Girolamo Crocicchia was particularly close to Caravaggio, to the point that he had helped the painter in one of his skirmishes with the law. In July 1605 Caravaggio was detained at Tor di Nona for having damaged the door of the residence of Laura and Isabella della Vecchia.

The following day he was released on guarantee, backed by Cherubino Alberti, Prospero Orsi, the bookseller Ottaviano Gabrielli13 and Girolamo Crocicchia.14 The tailor was therefore one of Caravaggio’s guarantors, together with Prosperino delle Grottesche,15 Caravaggio’s friend and ‘turcimanno’ or promoter.

It is therefore likely that Marcello as well as his brother-in-law Girolamo was well acquainted with Caravaggio. Moreover, it

is worth mentioning Giovanni Pietro Bellori’s remark in his biography of Caravaggio: ‘he used noble drapes and velvets to dress up, but after wearing some clothes, never left them until they fell to pieces’.16 Bellori certainly intended to show Caravaggio in a bad light, but it is probable that there is some truth in this anecdote, the consequence, perhaps, of the close relationships that Caravaggio maintained, as did other artists of that period, with the most prominent Roman tailors.

Girolamo, whose coat of arms bore a tailor’s shears surmounted by a star, was a prominent figure in Rome at the time, holding the post of Papal tailor. This honorary appointment gave him a particular status – indeed it was the duty of the sarto pontificio to accompany the Pope during various official ceremonies.17 Together with his brother Marco Tullio, the merchant not only prepared clothing for the Roman Court but also created more exotic dress, such as ‘dua vestiti per dua turchi da battezzarsi alla santa sede’ (two suits for two Turks to be baptised at the Holy See),18 or ‘vestiti all’indiana per la famiglia dell’Ambasciatore del Re di Persia’ (Indian-style dress for the family of the Ambassador of the King of Persia).19 In 1613, as a sign of gratitude for their services, the Cardinal-nephew Scipione Borghese granted the Crocicchia brothers the status of familiari

9 B. Furlotti: Le collezioni Gonzaga. Il carteggio tra Roma e Mantova (1587–1612), Milan 2003, pp.529–30.

10 Candelora dictated her last will on 22nd March 1647 (ASR, Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 14, vol. 693, fol.260r); she left some paintings to her daughter Giovanna Battista, a nun at the convent of S. Margherita in Narni.

11 For the Crocicchia family in Narni in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see E. Martinori: Cronistoria narnese (1600 A.C.– 1926), Rome 1930.

12 It appears that the heirs were his children Giovanni, Domenico, Lucrezia, Geronima and Caterina.

13 Ottaviano Gabrielli also used the same notary’s office for drawing up administrative documents in 1606 (ASR; Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 28, vol. 68, fol.498r).

14 A. Cesarini: ‘I documenti’, in M. Di Sivo and O. Verdi, eds.: exh. cat. Caravaggio a Roma. Una vita dal vero, Rome (Archivio di Stato di Roma) 2011, p.262.

15 For Prospero Orsi, see R. Gandolfi: Prospero Orsi. Pittore di grottesche e ‘turcimanno’ del Caravaggio, forthcoming.

16 G.P. Bellori: Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, Rome 1672, ed. E. Borea, Turin 2009, p.232.

17 E. Rodocanachi: Les Corporations ouvrières à Rome depuis la chute de l’Empire romain, Paris 1894, II, p.116; see also A. Groppi: ‘Fili notarili e tracce corporative: la ricomposizione di un mosaico (Roma secc. XVII–XVIII)’, Mélanges de l’Ecole

française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 112, 1 (2000), pp.61–78; A. Guenzi, P. Massa and A. Moioli: Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna, Milan 1999.

18 M. Mozzati, ed.: Inventario delle fonti manoscritte relative alla storia dell’Africa del nord esistenti in Italia: Archivio di Stato di Roma, V, pp.206–07.

19 See M. Fagiolo and P. Portoghesi, eds.: exh. cat. Roma Barocca. Bernini, Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, Rome (Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo) 2006, p.285.

20 The privilegio on parchment, held in high esteem by the Crocicchia family, was copied in a deed by the notary Ercole Carnacchia of Narni. See Archivio di Stato di Terni (hereafter cited as AST), Fondo notarile di Narni, vol. 375, fols.273r–274r. The Terni archive has numerous documents on the Crocicchia family, recorded in Narni from the mid–1500s to the 1700s; these include the will of Marco Tullio Crocicchia (AST, Fondo notarile di Narni, 1634, vol. 538). Information on the family can also be found in the manuscript card index compiled by Bruno Enrico Subioli in the Terni Archives.

21 ASR, Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 28, vol. 85, fol.352v. Recorded together with Orsi is an unidentified ‘Adamo pittore’ (Elsheimer?). Giovanni Battista Tomassini, a business partner of Marcello, had married his daughter Elisabetta Lopez (strangely absent in the list of Lopez’s heirs). Later widowed, Elisabetta Lopez made her will on 13th May 1649 (ASR, Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 14, vol. 693, fols.809r–810v and 849r–850v).

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3. Christ among the Apostles. Engraving. From Antonio Bosio: Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p.221.

pontifici (members of the Papal household), with the numerous privileges and benefits that derived from the title.20 Prosperino delle Grottesche, the friend and associate of Caravaggio, was a client of Marcello Lopez, as is proved by the ‘nota dei debitori dei soci Marcello Lopez e G. B. Tomassini sartori’, the list of the tailors’ debtors compiled for the use of Marcello’s heirs after his death, which includes the name ‘Prospero pittore’.21 Another singular coincidence reveals Lopez’s multiple connections with artistic circles. In September 1602 he asked Antonio Paracigno to act on his behalf in various matters, and Paracigno’s name reappears some years later in documents regarding the engraver Luca Ciamberlano, who was very close to Guido Reni and the first owner of Caravaggio’s Denial of St Peter, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.22 The unusual subject of the painting in Lopez’s inventory demands investigation. The canvas is described as a ‘N[ostro] Sig[nor]e quando da gli documenti agli Apostoli’ (Our Lord when he gives the documents to the Apostles), which suggests that

Caravaggio had painted an extremely rare image, very similar to a Traditio legis, a subject that was widespread in the Early Christian and Early Medieval periods. The consignment of the law to the Apostles, in the form of scrolls or books, symbolised the divine authority of the Roman Church, but also Christ’s message of salvation to converts and neophytes.23 Caravaggio’s untraced painting can be considered in the context of the revival of Early Christian antiquities in Rome at the end of the 1500s.24 The evidence of early Christian practices dating back to the first centuries – hitherto of interest to erudite figures such as Pirro Ligorio25 – in the early seventeenth century were used to provide teaching and examples that could counter the recentes haeretici.26 One of the institutions in which this renewed interest was promoted was the Roman Oratory of St Philip Neri.27 Neri had a profound devotional interest in the catacombs,28 but we also know that Cesare Baronio’s scholarship provided useful starting-points for the formulation of new iconographic models.29

M. Nicolaci and R. Gandolfi: ‘Il Caravaggio di Guido Reni: la “Negazione di Pietro” tra relazioni artistiche e operazioni finanziarie’, Storia dell’arte 130 (2011), pp.41–64, 147–50, esp. p.63, note 71; see also P. Barbieri: ‘Caravaggio’s “Denial of St Peter” acquired by Guido Reni in 1613’, the burlington magazine 154 (2012), pp.487–89.

23 On the Early Christian iconography see F. Bisconti: ‘Variazioni sul tema della “Traditio legis”. Vecchie e nuove acquisizioni’, Vetera christianorum 40 (2003), pp.251–70; L. Spera: ‘Traditio legis et clavium’, in F. Bisconti, ed.: Temi di iconografia paleocristiana, Vatican City 2000, pp.288–93; P. Testini: ‘L’Apostolo Paolo nell’iconografia cristiana fino al VI secolo’, in P. Brezzi, P. Ciprotti, S. Garofalo and P. Testini: Studi paolini, Rome 1969, pp.61–93; M. Sotomayor: ‘Über die Herkunft der “Traditio legis”’, Römische Quartalschrift für Christliche altertumskunds und Kirchengeschichte 56, 3–4 (1961), pp.215–30; W.N. Schumacher: ‘Dominus legem dat’, ibid., 54, 1–2 (1959), pp.1–39.

24 A. Zuccari: ‘La politica culturale dell’Oratorio romano nella seconda metà del Cinquecento’, in idem: Caravaggio controluce, Milan 2011, pp.19–83.

25 C. Occhipinti: Pirro Ligorio e la storia cristiana di Roma da Costantino all’Umanesimo, Pisa 2007; idem: ‘L’iconografia del Buon Pastore secondo Pirro Ligorio: primi studi sulle catacombe romane’, in E. Carrara and S. Ginzburg, eds.: Testi, immagini e filologia nel XVI secolo, symposium proceedings (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 30 Settembre–1 Ottobre 2004), Pisa 2007, pp.247–77.

The Latin expression is used by Alfonso Chacón; see I. Herklotz: La Roma degli antiquari. Cultura e erudizione tra Cinquecento e Settecento, Rome 2012; see also M. Ghilardi: ‘Le catacombe di Roma dal Medioevo alla “Roma sotterranea” di Antonio Bosio’, Studi Romani 49 (2001), pp.27–56; G. Previtali: La fortuna dei primitivi, Turin 1989; G. Wataghin Cantino: ‘Roma sotterranea. Appunti sulle origini dell’archeologia cristiana’, Ricerche di Storia dell’arte 10 (1980), pp.5–14.

27 St Philip would spend long periods of meditation in the catacombs; see G. Incisa della Rocchetta and N. Vian, eds.: Il primo processo per San Filippo Neri nel Codice Vaticano Latino 3798 e in altri esemplari dell’archivio dell’Oratorio di Roma, Vatican City 1957–63, III, p.257; see also note 37, below.

28 M. Gosselin: ‘The Congregation of the Oratorians and the Origins of Christian Archeology: A Reappraisal’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 2, 104 (2009), pp.471–93; I. Herklotz: ‘Christliche und klassische Archäologie im sechzehnten Jahrhundert: Skizzen zur Genese einer Wissenschaft’, in D. Kuhn and H. Stahl: Die Gegenwart des Altertums. Formen und Funktionen des Altertumsbezugs in den Hochkulturen der Alten Welt, Heidelberg 2001, pp.291–307.

29 On Baronio’s influence on the arts, see A. Zuccari: ‘Il cardinale Baronio iconografo della controriforma’, Studi romani 1–4 (2009), pp.182–97; R. De Maio, A. Borromeo, L. Giulia, G. Lutz and A. Mazzacane, eds.: Baronio e l’arte, Atti del Convegno internazionale (Sora, 10–13 Ottobre 1984), Sora 1985.

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4. St Philip Neri in meditation. Engraving. From Paolo Aringhi: Roma subterranea, Rome 1651, I, p.277.

5. First room of the catacomb of San Callisto. Engraving. From Antonio Bosio: Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p.219.

At the end of the sixteenth century numerous examples of the Traditio legis, or of typologically similar images, were known; and apart from the many sarcophagi in Rome, it is interesting to note the presence of this iconography in catacombs. In 1578 the discovery of an ancient underground burial site on the via Anapo was identified with that of Priscilla;30 in it was a very fragmentary fresco with a figure of Christ seated on a globe handing scrolls to Peter and Paul.31 Simplified compositions derived from this subject appeared in other burial places, as documented in the celebrated manuscript (Vat. Lat. 5409) made for the Dominican scholar Alfonso Chacón (1540/42–1599) and housed in the Vatican Library, which contained reproductions of numerous Early Christian paintings. This volume has already been linked to the ecclesiastical historian Cardinal Cesare Baronio (1538–1607) and Caravaggio in an attempt to identify connections between Early Christian models and some of Caravaggio’s iconography.32 In particular, the manuscript has been related to Caravaggio’s Deposition (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City), given the similarity between Mary of Cleophas in the painting and the Orante in the catacomb of Priscilla. The posture and the lighting of the figures indeed do appear quite similar. Caravaggio seems to have been inspired by the Early Christian iconographic patterns, but reinterpreted them in an original manner.

The same manuscript includes a drawing of the young Jesus seated on a throne, dressed in Roman garb and surrounded by the Apostles, with a stylised basket of scrolls (capsa) beneath his throne (Fig.2).33 The inscription accompanying the drawing identifies it as coming from the cemetery of S. Zefirino.34 In publishing Chacón’s watercolour (Fig.3), Antonio Bosio connected it with the decoration of the catacomb of S. Callisto, within which (as Bosio argued in his Roma sotterranea35) the smaller catacomb of S. Zefirino must have been enclosed. The same Vatican drawing was republished by the Oratorian Paolo Aringhi in his Roma subterranea,36 with more space given (com-

pared with Roma sotterranea by Bosio) to the subject of Christ among the Apostles with the ‘volumes’, dedicating a chapter to the topic, ‘De Christo Domino volumina manu praeferente’.

Bosio and Aringhi add some hagiographic details about St Philip Neri, founder of the Congregation of the Oratory, dwelling on how the saint ‘for many years was wont to spend his nights in this catacomb [San Callisto] praying’.37 We learn that St Philip would retire to the catacomb of San Callisto (Fig.4) and meditate before the Early Christian frescos, including the prominently placed image in the first room (Fig.5) reproduced in the Vatican manuscript. Federico Borromeo was particularly attached to the catacomb of S. Zefirino, which he cites several times in his De pictura sacra.38 The iconography of Christ among the Apostles with the scrolls must therefore also have been familiar to the Milanese cardinal and his entourage. Apart from assiduously frequenting the catacomb, Borromeo could have seen in the chapel of S. Aquilino in Milan, attached to the Basilica of S. Lorenzo, the mosaic of Christ among the Apostles (Christo docens) with the capsa beneath the throne (Fig.6),39 an almost identical composition to the fresco reproduced for Chacón.

A similar subject also once decorated the apse of the ancient church of S. Agata dei Goti in Rome; the mosaic – mentioned in Baronio’s Annali – suddenly collapsed in 1589, the very year that Cardinal Borromeo was made the titular cardinal of that church.40 If Caravaggio had really been asked to study such early iconography as material for his composition of the Lopez painting, he probably would not have limited himself to replicating Early Christian prototypes. He would have drawn from them liberally, arriving – we may imagine – at a solution that combined the subject of the Traditio legis and the less rigidly defined one of Christ among the Apostles, although the latter had its own ancient roots: the writings of Chacón and Bosio were a mandatory source of such subjects for other artists too. A very interesting case is that of Nicolas Poussin,

On the rediscovery of the catacomb of Priscilla see I. Herklotz: ‘Chi era Priscilla? Baronio e le ricerche sulla Roma sotterranea’, in G. A. Guazzelli, R. Michetti and F. Scorza Barcellona, eds.: Cesare Baronio tra santità e scrittura storica, Rome 2012, pp.425–44, with full bibliography.

31 G. B. de Rossi: ‘Nuove scoperte nel cimitero di Priscilla per le escavazioni fatte nell’a. 1887’, Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, 4, 5 (1887), pp.7–35.

32 Zuccari, op. cit. (note 24).

33 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. Lat. 5409, fol.36v.

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‘In eodem coemeterio S. Zepherini papae’.

A. Bosio: Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p.186.

36 P. Aringhi: Roma subterranea, Rome 1651.

37 Bosio, op. cit. (note 35), p.176.

38 F. Borromeo: De pictura sacra, Milan 1624, ed. B. Agosti, Pisa 1994, p.42.

39 C. Cecchelli: ‘I mosaici e le pitture’, in A. Calderini, G. Chierici and C. Cecchelli: La basilica di S. Lorenzo Maggiore in Milano, Milan 1955, pp.201–02.

40 B. Agosti: Collezionismo e archeologia cristiana nel Seicento. Federico Borromeo e il 35

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6. Christ among the Apostles. Fourth or fifth century.

Mosaic. (Chapel of S. Aquilino, Basilica of S. Lorenzo, Milan).

who, three decades after Caravaggio, had to work out the iconography of Ordination for his Seven Sacraments series. Before arriving at his definitive composition, Poussin had considered representing Christ in the act of consigning the Law to Peter, taking his cue from the engravings in Roma sotterranea (Fig.7);41 and one of his preparatory sketches was a study of a capsa containing scrolls (Fig.8).

Apparently all trace of Caravaggio’s painting was lost after the inventory was drawn up. However, the absence of the painting in subsequent sources could be explained if we imagine that the subject was not recognised following the dispersal of Lopez’s property. It is evident from contemporary treatises that is was difficult to distinguish between the iconography of the Saviour among the Apostles with scrolls (or documents) of ancient origin, and that of Christ among the Doctors, given that Early Christian representations of Jesus as a young man among the disciples with books and scrolls were very similar to depictions of him disputing with the Elders in the Temple of Jerusalem.

In publishing the drawing taken from the Vatican codex (Figs.2 and 3), Bosio was the first to recognise the ambiguity of the iconography:

among the twelve Apostles, given that the figures who are around him are twelve: yet looking at the two seated and in discussion, and the others standing, and Christ painted as a boy, we are more inclined to believe this represents him in the Temple.42

Here represented [. . .] is either Christ our Lord when he was disputing in the Temple among the Doctors; or Christ

Bosio’s reading seems to come down on the side of Christ among the Doctors, although he concedes that some elements are characteristic of an Apostolic assembly. What confused him was the youthful figure of Christ, which is proper to the iconography of Jesus in the Temple, but which was used by early Christians with a certain licence, separating the image of the young Jesus from the depiction of the specific Gospel event. Once again, describing the two paintings discovered in the catacombs of S. Agnese and S. Priscilla, with a beardless Christ surrounded by male figures, Bosio writes ‘Christo nel Tempio trà Dottori; overo che ammaestra alcuno de’ suoi Apostoli’ (Christ in the Temple among the Doctors; or teaching some of his Apostles), 43 and later ‘Christo Signor trà i dodici apostoli, o tra i Dottori’ (Christ the Lord among the twelve Apostles, or among the Doctors).44 It is thus very likely that the Lopez family, the painting’s first owners, who must have received the painting from Caravaggio himself, would have been eager to record its precise iconography and would have informed the compiler of the inventory

medioevo artistico tra Roma e Milano, Milan 1996. For the mosaic in S. Agata dei Goti and the iconography of this subject, see C. Ihm: Die programme der Christlichen apsismalerei vom vierten Jahrhundert bis zur mitte des achten Jahrhunderts, Wiesbaden 1960.

41 T. Green: Nicolas Poussin Paints the ‘Seven Sacraments’ Twice, Watchet 2000, pp.294–300.

42 ‘Si rappresenta [. . .] Christo Signor nostro quando disputava nel Tempio fra li Dottori: overo l’istesso Christo tra li dodici Apostoli; già che le figure, che vi sono intorno, sono dodici:

però dal vedersi quei due à sedere in atto di disputare, e gli altri in piedi, e Christo dipinto in età fanciullesca, più tosto crediamo, che lo rappresenti nel Tempio’. Bosio, op. cit. (note 35), p.221. Later Bosio (p.622) describes the ancient custom of representing Christ with scrolls or volumes: ‘Si vede nelle mani di Nostro signore un Volume spiegato; come all’incontro nelle mani degli Apostoli, ò di Profeti si vedono volumi involti [. . .]. Si presentano poi li medesimi Volumi in alcuni cesti à piedi del Signore’.

43 Ibid., p.457.

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7. Traditio legis, copy from A. Bosio: Roma sotterranea, by Nicolas Poussin. 1644–46.

Pen and brown ink, 13.5 by 11 cm. (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg).

8. Funerary banquet and ‘capsa’, copy from A. Bosio: Roma sotterranea, by Nicolas Poussin. 1644–46. Pen and brown ink, 14 by 12 cm. (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg).

of its title. The compiler, who is very precise throughout the document, could easily have described it as a straightforward Christ among the Doctors. Once the painting left the Lopez house, however, the subject was forgotten.

If in creating the painting Caravaggio had drawn inspiration from Early Christian images, we could imagine a clearly structured composition with a beardless Christ surrounded by numerous figures. Michele Maccherini, in his essay on the correspondence between the connoisseur and physician Giulio Mancini and Mancini’s brother Deifebo, 45 suggested that the mysterious ‘Giudizio di Nostro Signore’ by Caravaggio, mentioned in Giulio Mancini’s letters, could in fact be a Christ among the Doctors.46 Rather than showing the judgment of Christ, the ‘Giudizio’ could have been an image of the Saviour sitting in judgment surrounded by Apostles. Furthermore, we should note how in his study of paintings in catacombs, Joseph Wilpert considered that the iconography of Christ among the Apostles was derived directly from the depiction of Christ among the Apostles judging a dead person, from which the only element that had been subtracted was the figure of the deceased.47 The painting mentioned by Mancini included ten figures.

He does not mention the owner by name, but says that this

individual purchased it for the very low price of 20 scudi.

Mancini also records that the same picture was sold for 200 scudi in 1617, a date that might fit well with the dispersal of the Lopez collection. Its large scale noted in the inventory (‘un quadro grande’) would also fit with the painting containing ten figures mentioned by Mancini. The papal tailor’s painting of an Apostolic assembly, with Christ enthroned with scrolls and parchments, could have led Mancini to describe it ambiguously as ‘un Giudizio di Nostro Signore’, but this identification would be fitting if we suppose that the iconography was based on Early Christian images. Indeed, recent scholarship has revealed Mancini’s interest in Early Christianity.48 In conclusion, it seems plausible that Caravaggio sold Marcello Lopez a painting that was steeped in Early Christian figurative culture, which was painted probably when the artist was particularly close to the Oratorians. It is impossible to establish if Lopez requested the subject himself, or – as is more likely – whether Caravaggio passed on to his friend a picture that had been commissioned by a more cultivated patron, one who had commissioned the artist to paint a large canvas of a subject whose iconography had been established in the early years of the Christian church in Rome.

M. Maccherini: ‘Caravaggio nel carteggio familiare di Giulio Mancini’, Prospettiva 86 (1997), pp.71–92.

46 A Christ among the Doctors by Caravaggio is mentioned in the Ludovisi collection. The picture appears for the first time in the inventory of 1623, but the attribution is given only in that of 1633; see C.H. Wood: ‘The Ludovisi collection of paintings in 1623’, the burlington magazine 134 (1992), pp.515–23; K. Garas:

‘The Ludovisi Collection of Pictures in 1633’, the burlington magazine 109 (1967), pp.287–89 and 339–48.

47 J. Wilpert: Roma sotterranea. Le pitture delle catacombe romane, Rome 1903, p.225.

48 M.C. Terzaghi: ‘Antonio Bosio e Giulio Mancini. Prolegomeni per un confronto’, Ricerche di storia dell’arte 110/111 (2013), pp.5–12.

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