suicide. In Dolce’s
Marianna
, the heroine is blinded, her heart torn out and fed to the dogs. Decio’s
Acripanda
of 1590 has more horrors than all the rest put together.
It is inconceivable that del Monte’s household did not hear regular readings from the
Aminta
and the
Gerusalemme Liberata
of Torquato Tasso, the most popular verse of the day. These two wonderfully elegant poems, one a pastoral and the other an epic, were perfectly attuned to court life, including that of a prince of the Church’s
famiglia
.
The earliest known description of Caravaggio dates from July 1597, when he was cited as a witness in an assault case. According to a picture dealer, Costantino Spata, whose shop was near Maître Valentin’s, he was small, with a half-grown black beard, bushy eyebrows, black eyes, and long black hair hanging over his forehead. He wore an untidy black suit and torn black stockings, carrying a sword in his capacity as a cardinal’s “servitor.”
Bellori says Caravaggio was “shown the most famous statues of Phidias and Glykon, so that he would be able to study them.” They were, of course, copies, but they could be seen only in the great private collections. The best were at the Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Medici, both of which also contained magnificent paintings. Even if Caravaggio soon discovered, as Bellori suggests, that he had not very much interest in Antique statuary, he must have appreciated the settings in which it was displayed, the enchanting galleries and gardens.
He could stroll in the gardens of the Villa d’Este, the Farnese on the Palatine, the Orsini on Monte Cavallo, the Pincio, and the Aventine, those of the Sforza near Monte Testaccio, those of Papa Giulio at the Vatican, and many more. Fifteen years before, writing of the villas of the great Roman princes, Montaigne had marveled how “all these beautiful arbors are free, open to anybody who wishes to go in, or even to spend the night there withsome dear companion, whenever the owners are away, and they are hardly ever in residence.” If ever the life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio, as he had begun to call himself, was free from shadow, it must have been during his first springs and summers at the Palazzo Madama. But who were the “dear companions” with whom he may, perhaps, have spent the night in the beautiful arbors?
XI
Homosexual or Heterosexual? 1596–1600
T oday, Caravaggio has become a homosexual icon, acclaimed as the greatest of gay painters, a view of him that owes a great deal to the late Derek Jarman’s immensely successful film
Caravaggio
. In 1986, in a book about his film, Jarman called the artist “the last sodomite of a dying tradition, parodying Michelangelo and stealing the dark from Leonardo.” Jarman was not, however, a historian. No less fancifully, in the film itself, he imagines one pope pawning the dome of St. Peter’s, and another arriving at an orgy “dressed as a hairy satyr, wearing the triple tiara.”
The historical proof of Caravaggio’s homosexuality, Jarman might no doubt have said, lies in his association with Cardinal del Monte, in the “homosexual pinups” he produced for the cardinal, and in never painting female nudes. Others have used these arguments. But del Monte’s alleged sexual tastes are demonstrably a myth, while Caravaggio produced at least two female nudes, now lost:
Susannah and the Elders
and a
Penitent Magdalen
. There is also evidence that he had mistresses. So the question has to be asked: Was he really homosexual, or was he in fact heterosexual?
Seventeenth-century ideas about sex were often very different from our own. “The elephant, not only the largest of animals, but the wisest, furnishesan admirable example for married couples,” François de Sales wrote in his widely read
Introduction de la Vie Dévote
of 1609. “It is faithful and loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year, and then for no more than five days.” Sexual
Marianna
, the heroine is blinded, her heart torn out and fed to the dogs. Decio’s
Acripanda
of 1590 has more horrors than all the rest put together.
It is inconceivable that del Monte’s household did not hear regular readings from the
Aminta
and the
Gerusalemme Liberata
of Torquato Tasso, the most popular verse of the day. These two wonderfully elegant poems, one a pastoral and the other an epic, were perfectly attuned to court life, including that of a prince of the Church’s
famiglia
.
The earliest known description of Caravaggio dates from July 1597, when he was cited as a witness in an assault case. According to a picture dealer, Costantino Spata, whose shop was near Maître Valentin’s, he was small, with a half-grown black beard, bushy eyebrows, black eyes, and long black hair hanging over his forehead. He wore an untidy black suit and torn black stockings, carrying a sword in his capacity as a cardinal’s “servitor.”
Bellori says Caravaggio was “shown the most famous statues of Phidias and Glykon, so that he would be able to study them.” They were, of course, copies, but they could be seen only in the great private collections. The best were at the Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Medici, both of which also contained magnificent paintings. Even if Caravaggio soon discovered, as Bellori suggests, that he had not very much interest in Antique statuary, he must have appreciated the settings in which it was displayed, the enchanting galleries and gardens.
He could stroll in the gardens of the Villa d’Este, the Farnese on the Palatine, the Orsini on Monte Cavallo, the Pincio, and the Aventine, those of the Sforza near Monte Testaccio, those of Papa Giulio at the Vatican, and many more. Fifteen years before, writing of the villas of the great Roman princes, Montaigne had marveled how “all these beautiful arbors are free, open to anybody who wishes to go in, or even to spend the night there withsome dear companion, whenever the owners are away, and they are hardly ever in residence.” If ever the life of Michelangelo da Caravaggio, as he had begun to call himself, was free from shadow, it must have been during his first springs and summers at the Palazzo Madama. But who were the “dear companions” with whom he may, perhaps, have spent the night in the beautiful arbors?
XI
Homosexual or Heterosexual? 1596–1600
T oday, Caravaggio has become a homosexual icon, acclaimed as the greatest of gay painters, a view of him that owes a great deal to the late Derek Jarman’s immensely successful film
Caravaggio
. In 1986, in a book about his film, Jarman called the artist “the last sodomite of a dying tradition, parodying Michelangelo and stealing the dark from Leonardo.” Jarman was not, however, a historian. No less fancifully, in the film itself, he imagines one pope pawning the dome of St. Peter’s, and another arriving at an orgy “dressed as a hairy satyr, wearing the triple tiara.”
The historical proof of Caravaggio’s homosexuality, Jarman might no doubt have said, lies in his association with Cardinal del Monte, in the “homosexual pinups” he produced for the cardinal, and in never painting female nudes. Others have used these arguments. But del Monte’s alleged sexual tastes are demonstrably a myth, while Caravaggio produced at least two female nudes, now lost:
Susannah and the Elders
and a
Penitent Magdalen
. There is also evidence that he had mistresses. So the question has to be asked: Was he really homosexual, or was he in fact heterosexual?
Seventeenth-century ideas about sex were often very different from our own. “The elephant, not only the largest of animals, but the wisest, furnishesan admirable example for married couples,” François de Sales wrote in his widely read
Introduction de la Vie Dévote
of 1609. “It is faithful and loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year, and then for no more than five days.” Sexual
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