Before and after Car av aggi o Directions for an itinerary in the city

The same year that Caravaggio entered Peterzano’s workshop, 1584, saw the death of Saint Carlo Borromeo, the archbishop who had strongly influenced not only the religious but also the cultural climate in Milan. In those years, the young painter could see works that illustrated the stories of the Bible with clarity and suggestiveness in those churches that had been redecorated in accordance with the guidelines lain down by the Council of Trent. The short itinerary offered below includes the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, where Milan’s only other painting by Caravaggio, other than the Brera’s Supper , can be seen.

Sant’Angelo, piazza Sant’Angelo A night-time setting by Antonio Campi can be seen in the first chapel on the right

   in the church rebuilt as from 1552 for the

    $  Franciscans. The scene in Empress
 !   Faustina Visiting Saint Catherine in Prison (signed and dated 1584) is orches - trated by the skilful and powerful play of

 light, shadows and penumbra created by the presence of three $



   different light sources: natural light, artificial light and miracu -

+





 

  

lous light. Even though the execution is at times clumsy and

 

  



mechanical, Caravaggio retained a memory of the painting that  

  

 

  is manifested in the tragic Decollation of the Baptist in Malta. 





 San Marco, piazza San Marco

 On the altar of the fifth chapel on the         %     )  right in the basilica a few steps from

   Brera, there used to be a Triptych of   
         )  the Assumption (1577) by Antonio   



       Campi, a painter from Cremona. It is )       now conserved in the parish mu -


 seum. The experimental treatment (  '  of the light, with different sources that give life to the side panels of the Flight into Egypt and the Death of

     the Virgin , were stimulating to

   Caravaggio. In the Death , the Virgin’s body and the onlookers are illuminated by only two candles, some of whom are seen against the light. They hold the attention on ferial de -
  *        tails, like the apostle who tries to read in the dim light, and give the

  scene a tone of very human sorrowfulness (there are no angels or    "   miraculous events, and nothing that anticipates celestial glory), which  !       are also seen in the version painted by Caravaggio that is now in the Louvre.           San Fedele, piazza San Fedele 

 The first altar on the left in the Jesuit church of San Fedele is the setting for the Lamentation over

        the Dead Christ by Simone Peterzano. This         
            &      originally came from the Church of Santa Maria

  

 della Scala, which was destroyed in the eighteenth



 

 (   

     century to make way for La Scala Theatre.  )           

  The work was inspired by the Deposition by
  
  

     Francesco Salviati in Brera (Room XXVII), but in

        !

  

   turn provided a model for Caravaggio who, in his     

 

    expressive canvas of the same subject in the Pina -

 

   
    coteca Vaticana, presents the stone placed violently in the corner and                  the stream of light that invests the figures and freezes their movements.  !        
          Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, piazza Pio XI n. 2           !   $   $  The Basket of Fruit (Room VI) was

 ) 
 

 formerly part of the collection of  &    

     Cardinal Federico Borromeo in 
        

 

  1607, which he probably purchased

        during his stay in Rome. The basket, 
    in which the fruit is rendered very realistically by a crystalline light     and transparent shadows, is very

1/2       similar to the one in Boy with a Basket of        !   $   Fruit . The elements represented – the shrivel-

 
 

  &  led leaves and rotten fruit provide a visual   

     sense of the precarious nature of life, and the 
        

 

  threat posed by sin – have been interpreted as

        allegories of salvation. The originality of 
    Caravaggio’s naturalism emerges in a com - parison with a still life by Jan Brueghel, Flowers      in a Glass (Room VII), in which the various

   flowers, insects and seashell are described analytically but dis- 
      persively with the aim of arousing admiration and curiosity.   
 ! %     !     San Paolo Converso, corso Italia n. 21

 Over a period of thirty years, starting in the

  

   1560s, the church, which was annexed to a  
 

!   women’s convent, was fitted with an altar -   &

   piece, completely frescoed, and embellished    with stuccoes by the brothers Giulio and Anto - nio with Vincenzo Campi. This complex and

 rich decoration, which merits a careful visit,     stimulated Caravaggio’s imagination. Of the several paintings that inspired him, which the visitor can identify independently, one inter -       
     pretation was the Decollation of the Baptist (Antonio Campi, 1571,   on the altar in the third chapel on the right). This was presented as a contemporary scene in which the artist’s experimental treatment     of artificial light emphasises several instances of crude verism.              

! Santa Maria presso San Celso, corso Italia n. 37   Several altarpieces that were important to Caravag gio’s

       formation can be seen on the altars that face onto        )    the ambulatory of the church, which was a busy work site for much of the sixteenth century. Note the

    Conversion of Saint Paul (first altar on the left) by   #    Moretto, above all for its unusual configuration. The rearing horse is as much a protagonist of the scene as    #     the saint and stands out against the light of the silvery



 sky. The figures are cut by the edges of the painting



  as though in a snapshot, and this was an important



precedent for the Conversion of Saint Paul painted in Rome.



     Certosa di Garegnano, via Garegnano n. 28       
      Situated in open countryside in # $     "    Caravaggio’s time, and today still the most distant of the sites proposed, the Certosa di Gare- gnano is a large set of buildings founded by the Visconti family. Between 1578 and 1582 Simone Peterzano painted all the severe decorative apparatus in the presbytery, uniting a scrupulous attitude to the doctrinal contents with concrete realism in the details and figures, in line with the spirit of the Counter-Reformation. This is clearly visible in the Adoration of the Shepherds , in which the traditional image is embellished with detailed observations (the shepherd suffering from goitre, the woven baskets, and the worn clothes). For the young Caravaggio, this was a stimulating store of images on which he drew even in the early years he spent in Rome.

Timetable and information • The following hours are suggested for the ecclesiastical buildings : 8.3 0-12.00, 16.0 0-18.30. • The Church of San Paolo Converso is run by a private association. • Pinacoteca Ambrosiana . Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10.0 0-17.30; ticket office closes at 16.30. Closed: Mondays, plus 1 st January, Easter Day, 1 st May, 25 th December. Website: www.ambrosiana.it. • Certosa di Garegnano . Public transport: tram 14 or bus 80 (MM1 - Uruguay). Rail: Milano Certosa.

EDITED BY SERVIZI EDUCATIVI OF THE PINACOTECA DI BRERA. TEXTS: EMANUELA DAFFRA, PAOLA STRADA. TRANSLATIONS: TIMOTHY STROUD. PAGE LAYOUT: CARLO BASSANINI. MILANO, 2009. 2/2