deprivation was a good thing. At the same time, affections that today would be thought homosexual were considered unremarkable, provided they did not involve sexual activity. Lack of documentary evidence makes Caravaggio’s orientation even harder to identify. All we know is what we see in his pictures.
Among his first paintings for del Monte was the
Concert of Youths
, four half-naked young men communicating a secret message. The lutenist is sometimes said to be the artist’s friend Mario Minniti, but no proper likeness of him survives, while the horn player may be a self-portrait. One youth has wings, which, with Caravaggio’s attempts at classical drapery, shows it is an allegory. Many historians think that the picture represents some aspect of homosexual love. We know from an inventory that the cardinal hung the
Concert
in his gallery, and it has been suggested that Caravaggio was catering for del Monte’s homosexual love nest. Yet Baglione, who knew Caravaggio, and probably del Monte too, merely says, “He painted a music party of young men, from nature, and very well.”
Another of Caravaggio’s pictures for the cardinal was the
Lute Player
, whose model was perhaps a Spanish
castrato
, Pedro Montoya, a member of the Sistine Chapel choir. The boy is so girlish that Bellori thought he was “a lady in a blouse.” On the table before him are a violin, a sheet of music, and some figs. The sheet of music reads
Voi sapete ch’io v’amo
(“You know I love you”), the opening lines of a madrigal set to music by Jacob Arcadelt. Yet another painting of an androgynous boy is the
Bacchus
in the Uffizi. Although not among del Monte’s collection, it is typical of Caravaggio’s work at this stage.
Despite the prettiness of the concert players, it is most unlikely that they were meant to be homosexual pinups. The cardinal would have regarded them as images of platonic love and the transience of earthly happiness. Apriest and a member of the Accademia degli Insensati, he probably saw an emphasis on the vanity of this world’s beauty, which would awaken sophisticated Christians to a realization of heavenly beauty. In any case, in del Monte’s gallery such pictures were heavily outnumbered by Christs, Madonnas, saints, and martyrdoms, together with portraits of the famous down the ages.
No doubt, these so-called pinups look like homosexuals. Yet Caravaggio cannot have been responding to the cardinal’s “tastes,” which never existed outside the imaginations of a single seventeenth-century journalist and a handful of modern scholars. In the pre-Freudian world of the Baroque, admiration of male beauty did not necessarily mean homosexuality; girlish, Adonis-like looks in a young man were often considered a sign of aristocratic breeding rather than effeminacy. Many of the Davids in Baroque art were pretty enough, and yet most of the artists who created them were heterosexuals. At least one of the youths in the
Concert
, if he really is Minniti, married twice.
There is little evidence, except these early paintings, to suggest that Caravaggio was a homosexual. A vague allegation during a libel action in 1603, for belittling a would-be rival’s pictures, was not taken seriously by the court. In 1650, Richard Symonds, an English tourist visiting the Giustiniani collection, was told that the model for the laughing Cupid in
Amor Vincit Omnia
was “Cecco… his owne boy or servant that laid with him,” but this was mere hearsay. At about the same time, a guide to the Villa Borghese stated that the young David in the Borghese
David and Goliath
was modeled on the artist’s “Caravaggino,” by implication his boyfriend. This was probably a simple misunderstanding, since David is almost certainly an idealized self-portrait of Caravaggio in his boyhood. Nevertheless, a tradition that he had been a homosexual developed during the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
On these very slender foundations, some modern
Among his first paintings for del Monte was the
Concert of Youths
, four half-naked young men communicating a secret message. The lutenist is sometimes said to be the artist’s friend Mario Minniti, but no proper likeness of him survives, while the horn player may be a self-portrait. One youth has wings, which, with Caravaggio’s attempts at classical drapery, shows it is an allegory. Many historians think that the picture represents some aspect of homosexual love. We know from an inventory that the cardinal hung the
Concert
in his gallery, and it has been suggested that Caravaggio was catering for del Monte’s homosexual love nest. Yet Baglione, who knew Caravaggio, and probably del Monte too, merely says, “He painted a music party of young men, from nature, and very well.”
Another of Caravaggio’s pictures for the cardinal was the
Lute Player
, whose model was perhaps a Spanish
castrato
, Pedro Montoya, a member of the Sistine Chapel choir. The boy is so girlish that Bellori thought he was “a lady in a blouse.” On the table before him are a violin, a sheet of music, and some figs. The sheet of music reads
Voi sapete ch’io v’amo
(“You know I love you”), the opening lines of a madrigal set to music by Jacob Arcadelt. Yet another painting of an androgynous boy is the
Bacchus
in the Uffizi. Although not among del Monte’s collection, it is typical of Caravaggio’s work at this stage.
Despite the prettiness of the concert players, it is most unlikely that they were meant to be homosexual pinups. The cardinal would have regarded them as images of platonic love and the transience of earthly happiness. Apriest and a member of the Accademia degli Insensati, he probably saw an emphasis on the vanity of this world’s beauty, which would awaken sophisticated Christians to a realization of heavenly beauty. In any case, in del Monte’s gallery such pictures were heavily outnumbered by Christs, Madonnas, saints, and martyrdoms, together with portraits of the famous down the ages.
No doubt, these so-called pinups look like homosexuals. Yet Caravaggio cannot have been responding to the cardinal’s “tastes,” which never existed outside the imaginations of a single seventeenth-century journalist and a handful of modern scholars. In the pre-Freudian world of the Baroque, admiration of male beauty did not necessarily mean homosexuality; girlish, Adonis-like looks in a young man were often considered a sign of aristocratic breeding rather than effeminacy. Many of the Davids in Baroque art were pretty enough, and yet most of the artists who created them were heterosexuals. At least one of the youths in the
Concert
, if he really is Minniti, married twice.
There is little evidence, except these early paintings, to suggest that Caravaggio was a homosexual. A vague allegation during a libel action in 1603, for belittling a would-be rival’s pictures, was not taken seriously by the court. In 1650, Richard Symonds, an English tourist visiting the Giustiniani collection, was told that the model for the laughing Cupid in
Amor Vincit Omnia
was “Cecco… his owne boy or servant that laid with him,” but this was mere hearsay. At about the same time, a guide to the Villa Borghese stated that the young David in the Borghese
David and Goliath
was modeled on the artist’s “Caravaggino,” by implication his boyfriend. This was probably a simple misunderstanding, since David is almost certainly an idealized self-portrait of Caravaggio in his boyhood. Nevertheless, a tradition that he had been a homosexual developed during the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
On these very slender foundations, some modern
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