Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (88 page)

Tomassoni, Alessandro 284, 285, 286

Tomassoni, Felicita Plautilla (Ranuccio’s daughter) 323–4

Tomassoni, Giovan Francesco 178, 180, 284–6; pleas to return to Rome 321, 325; seconds Ranuccio in duel 313, 314–18, 320–22

Tomassoni, Lavinia (wife of Ranuccio) 323–4

Tomassoni, Mario 318

Tomassoni, Ranuccio 178–81, 208–9, 284, 285, 286, 298; killed by C. 313–22; possible reason for duel 323–4

Toppa, Captain Petronio, seconds C. in Ranuccio duel 315–22

Trisegni, Filippo, and the Baglione libel case 254–60

The Triumph of Christianity
(Laureti) 68

trompe l’oeil
, effect in the
Basket of Fruit
135

Tufo, Giovan Battista del, more about the Cerriglio 416

Turchi, Angelo (Judge), Ranuccio murder investigation 318

Turin, Holy Shroud of 280

Turrensi, Antonio, Valletta brawl investigator 387

Two Sicilies, Kingdom of the 335, 359–60, 393,
see also
Sicily

Uffizi Galleries 155

unemployment, Naples 337

Urban VIII, Pope 122

Urbani, Giovanni 199

Vaga, Pierino del,
Roman Charity
, 344, Plate 71

Valentino, Maestro
see
Spata, Constantino

Valette, Jean de la, Grand Master 360–61, 366

Valletta 365–6

Van Bael/Van Balen, Hendrik 353

Van Dyck, Anthony, English aristocrats 173

vanitas
paintings 97, 135

Varallo,
sacro monte
37–9, 44, 201, 214, 280, 398, Plates 2, 3

Vasari, Giorgio 7–8, 41, 93–4, 157, 166, 203, 381; Anguissola story 96; on Michelangelo’s
Sleeping Cupid
sculpture 383–4; offended by Bazzi 248

Vatican, Secret Archives 71

Vecchia, Laura and Isabella della 287–8, 298, 299

Vecellio, Cesare, treatise on
Costumes Past and Present
108

Velàzquez, Diego 42, 184, 439

vendettas 64, 420

Venetian painting tradition, influence on C. 64–5, 118, 331

Veneziano, Simone
see
Peterzano

Venice: C.’s possible visit (1592) 64–5; Holy Roman Empire and 20; war with Ottoman empire 13–14

Veronese, Paolo:
Christ in the House of Levi
35;
Last Supper
34–5

Vervins, Peace of (1598) 69

Villamediana, Juan de Tassis y Peralta, Conde de 344

Villamena, Francesco 231, Plate 49

Vincenzo I, Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua 350, 353, 354–5

Vinck, Abraham (art dealer) 352

Visitation Bull, of Clement VIII 71–2

visualization: Franciscan meditation 32–3, 38–9, 144–5, 147; in Ignatian meditation 31–2, 38; the Rosary and 351

Vittrice, Girolamo, commissions
The Entombment of Christ
278–80

Vittrice, Pietro 278, 280

Volterra, Daniele de, Sistine chapel fig-leaves 227

Vulgate Bible, revised by Clement VIII 69

Wadsworth Atheneum (Connecticut) 143

weapons, carrying of banned by Clement VIII 70, 74, 170

Weyden, Rogier van der 94

Wignacourt, Alof de, Grand Master 363, 365, 368–9, 370, 385, 388, 389, 402; applies for Knighthood for C. 374–7; Costanze strikes a deal 413; C.’s last paintings 435; defrocking of C. 392; efforts to recapture C. 399, 402, 404; investiture address 380–81; lifts threat of rendition of C. 415; portrait by C. 373–4

Willaert, Adrian 128

women: in the confessional 29; dress in church 27; nude modelling 75; segregation of sexes in worship 26, 27, 43

worship, segregation of sexes 26, 27, 43

Wright of Derby, Joseph,
Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
439, Plate 86

Zacchia, Prudenza, affray with Fillide Melandroni and Tella Bronora 178–81, 324

Zagarolo, refuge for C. 329–30, Plate 66

Zuccaro, Federico 202–4, 206, 248, 264

Zurbarán, Francisco 42, 347

Praise for Andrew Graham-Dixon
and
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane

A
New York Times Book Review
Editor’s Choice
A
Washington Post
Notable Book of the Year

“Andrew Graham-Dixon brings the bad-boy genius of the seventeenth century to life as vividly as if he were one of today’s pop stars.”

—John Richardson, author of
A Life of Picasso

“A rollicking take on the Counter Reformation painter, an autodidact prone to smashing plates in restaurants, challenging competitors with swords, and using prostitutes as models for the Virgin Mary.”

—Megan O’Grady,
Vogue

“[Graham-Dixon] makes the most of Italian criminal records. . . . The only other available source is the art, to which Graham-Dixon brings the kind of imaginative and emotional intelligence that gives life and point to painstaking research.”

—Hilary Spurling,
New York Times Book Review

“[Graham-Dixon] took ten years to come to terms with a very obdurate and highly original painter. Time well spent.”

—
Economist

“Graham-Dixon demonstrates why he is considered the foremost British art critic of his generation. . . . He’s achieved a masterpiece of his own: an informative, fresh account of the painter’s life and death. Even more impressive are the author’s powerful and accessible analyses of Caravaggio’s paintings, commentary that leaves readers eager to see the pieces at the heart of the story.”

—MiChelle Jones,
Dallas Morning News

“Brilliantly illuminates the life of an artist who was no less shadowy than his canvases—a man capable of both committing murder and creating ineffable beauty.”

—Joseph Luzzi,
Bookforum

“Andrew Graham-Dixon’s ability to have a reader see a painting through written language is a rare and precious gift. The book’s rigor and integrity are obvious. I trusted every word and was sorry to turn the final page.”

—Peter Carey, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novels
Oscar and Lucinda
and
True History of the Kelly Gang

“Graham-Dixon (
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
, 2009, etc.) brilliantly points out how Caravaggio’s paintings reflected a violent man in violent times, and self-portrait insertions in many of his paintings reflect the progression of the artist’s agonies. . . . An impressive web of biography, social history and art history.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Provocative. . . . Graham-Dixon’s work is the most complete and accurate portrait of a man who was both admired and misunderstood.”

—Olivia Flores Alvarez,
Houston Press

“There have been other biographies of Caravaggio, but Andrew Graham-Dixon’s has to be the one to read. Impressively knowledgeable and well written, it makes you want to plan your next holiday around seeing as many paintings as possible.”

—Christopher Hudson,
Daily Mail

“Graham-Dixon writes expertly and eloquently about the paintings, as one would expect, but he is even better at bringing out the lurid details of Caravaggio’s story, much of it drawn from contemporary archival sources.”

—Charles Nicholl,
Sunday Times

“Andrew Graham-Dixon . . . has been in thrall to the painter for more than a decade, and his meaty and revealing biography is a handsome return for those years of obsession.”

—Michael Prodger,
Sunday Telegraph

“Graham-Dixon conveys the force of Caravaggio’s personality and the consequences of his art with a brilliant grasp of detail.”

—Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the
Royal Academy of Arts,
Daily Telegraph

“[Andrew Graham-Dixon] is a masterly art historian. . . . He has a God-given ability to enter into the spirit of a painting and to tease out its meaning while preserving its mystery.”

—Craig Brown,
Mail on Sunday

“A highly readable . . . account of the firebrand artist and his times.”

—Ian Thomson,
Spectator

“Andrew Graham-Dixon reads Caravaggio’s paintings with the habits and assumptions, thoughts and fears of contemporaries, so that we see and feel the paintings more acutely and intensely than before. The man and his work emerge enriched and enlivened.”

—Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum

“Brilliantly sustained, very enjoyable.”

—Angus Trumble,
Times Literary Supplement

Copyright © 2010 by Andrew Graham-Dixon

Maps copyright © 2010 by Alan Gilliland

First American Edition 2011

First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First published as a Norton paperback 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Graham-Dixon, Andrew.

Caravaggio : a life sacred and profane / Andrew Graham-Dixon. — 1st American ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-08149-7 (hardcover)

1. Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, 1573–1610.
2. Painters—Italy—Biography.
I. Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, 1573–1610.
II. Title. III. Title: Life sacred and profane.

ND623.C26G73 2011

759.5—dc22

[B]

2011014403

ISBN 978-0-393-34343-4 pbk.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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