Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals by Creighton E. Gilbert (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Early Modern European Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals. By Creighton E. Gilbert. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1995. Pp. xiii, 322.) Many of the thirteen chapters of this book might well have been published as separate articles. However, as Professor Gilbert states in his preface, running throughout them is the common thread of "the three paintings done by Caravaggio for the two Mattei brothers. . . ." The brothers were the Márchese Ciríaco (1545-1614) and Cardinal Girolamo Mattei (1546-1603); the paintings are the Supper at Emmaus (in the National Gallery, London), the Taking ofChrist (recently rediscovered in a Jesuit establishment in Dublin and now in the National Gallery of Ireland), and the picture formerly identified as SaintJohn the Baptist or Youth with a Ram (in the Capitoline Museum in Rome), which now has been established as representing the Pastor Friso or Paris the Phrygian Shepherd. The second cardinal of the title (although the first of Caravaggio's princely patrons) was Francesco Maria Del Monte (1549-1626). If Professor Gilbert has achieved nothing else in this book, he seems to have settled once and for all the question of the subject of the Capitoline painting: it is Paris, but not in his customary role as judge. Instead of appearing about to give the golden apple toVenus in preference to her two rivals, he is presented alone as the shepherd anticipating the reward for his choice—Helen. Thus the presence of the ram (rather than the innocent lamb which would be appropriate to Saint John) is justified: it is symbolic of the lust which will be satisfied by his choice. Among Gilbert's other achievements is the effective rehabilitation of Gaspare Celio as a valid source of information about Caravaggio and his era. Gilbert has also reconstructed the biographies of Ranieri Del Monte and his sons, the scientist Guidobaldo and the cardinal. Unfortunately, the book was presumably already in the process of publication when Zygmunt Wazbinski's full and very well documented two-volume biography of the cardinal appeared, under the auspices of the Accademia Toscana di Scienza e Lettere "La Colombaria" (Florence : Olschki, 1994). 245 246 BOOK REVIEWS Most importantly Gilbert has put together Cardinal Mattel's biography. He presents him as a major force in Caravaggio's career, supposing him to have been instrumental in inspiring both Mattei family patronage and the content of the painter's works. Caravaggio was first described in residence in the Mattei household in 1601, and the cardinal died in I603. So their relation must not have been very prolonged . It may have been very profound, and at a crucial phase of the artist's career , when he was establishing himself as a leading painter in Rome. Caravaggio was neither stupid nor ignorant; nor was he learned. So certainly he must have had erudite advisors throughout his maturity. Presumably, Cardinal Mattei performed this service for him during their documented contact. In Caravaggio's religious paintings and the few secular subjects antedating his flight from Rome in I6O6, Gilbert discovers much more meaning than meets the eye, presumably owing at least partially to these advisors. He emphasizes the artist's effort to synthesize doctrinal and symbolic meaning with natural appearances and "how experienced facts interact with allegorical meaning" (p. 240). But considering the near-total lack of any contemporary exegesis of hidden meaning in specific reference to Caravaggio's paintings (other than the clue provided by Celio with the title Pastor Friso), we may be hesitant to accept some of these discoveries, however richly elaborated with literary reference, as too speculative and hypothetical. For example, it may be appealing to recognize King Hirticus in the Martyrdom ofSaint Matthew, but the main basis for the identification is Gilbert's ingenuity. Equally appealing but even more speculative is his corollary: that the king is contrite, the first in a whole series of"killers of saints" in Caravaggio's oeuvre who are having "second thoughts" (pp. 168-169). Finally, still another thread running throughout the text is a consideration of Caravaggio's sexuality. On the basis of sources ranging from Ovid and Martial to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and from observations made from sixteenthcentury...