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Of Books, Art and People CARAVAGGIO AND HIS ADMIRER, ROBERTO LONGHI

n BY LUCY GORDAN

rolonged through January 10, and were deeply in - 2021 at ’s Capitoline fluenced by his style Museums, is the temporary and subject matter P .” exhibition, Instead, this cur - Il Tempo di Caravag - rent exhibition is gio: Capolavori della collezione di or dedicated to Caravag - Roberto Longhi, The Times of gio, the painters who in - Caravaggio: Masterpieces from the fluenced his work, and Art Collection of Roberto Longhi. I’ve already written three articles those in Rome and later in Naples for about Caravaggio, this hot- whom his works influenced. The ITV tempered, violent genius, born near works, 45 paintings and a charcoal , who lived in Rome on and drawing, are all on loan from the off from 1593-1606 before having Roberto Longhi Foundation in Flo - to flee from justice and spend the rence to commemorate the 50th last four years of his life on the run. anniversary of this great art histori - My articles were: “The Genius of an/collector’s death on June 3, Caravaggio: The Father of Modern 1970. The painters collected by Painting” (April 2010), “Rome at Longhi included the Neapolitan the Time of Caravaggio” (January Giovanni Battista Car acciolo, 2012), and “He was Sentenced to nicknamed “Battistello”; the Death So Caravaggio Escaped…to Spaniard Jusepe De Ribera; the Naples” (February 2020). The first Above, by Caravaggio. In the circle, probably Neapolitan “Master of the RobeBrtoy L Bointtgehni , bFyl oar eLniztianred art historian and collector. concerned a monographic, block - Bottom, by Valentin de Boulogne ”; and The Denial of Peter Anunciation to the Shepherds buster exhibition, the first since the Calabrian , consid - World War II, held at the Quirinal’s to mark the ered the last of Caravaggio’s followers, all known as “ Scuderie Car - 400th anniversary of Caravaggio death in 1610; the second, ” avaggeschi. another blockbuster, held at covered the Born on December 28, 1890 in Alba (in to Palazzo Venezia, Piemonte) many artists from all over Europe who were painting in parents of Emilian origin, both of whom were teachers, Rome during Caravaggio’s sojourn and soon thereafter; and Roberto Longhi from an early age loved painting, particu - the third at the larly two works: Barnaba da Palazzo Pre - in the off-the-beaten- Modena’s in his torio Ma donna track town of Prato in Tus - parish church, and Mattia cany: “After Caravaggio: Preti’s in Alba’s Concertino 17th-Century Neapolitan town hall. Beginning with Art Exhibition in Prato.” As his thesis at the University I wrote: “This title clearly of (1911), however, states the exhibition is not his research and writings fo - about Caravaggio, but cused on Caravaggio after a about the painters, his trip to Rome a year earlier. contempor aries and others As the exhibition’s first wall of the next two genera - panel tells us: “The choice tions, who lived in Naples, was a ground-breaking in - studied his Nea politan, and sight for the time, since Car - sometimes Roman works, avaggio was one of the

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‘least known of Italian artists’… Nonetheless, pioneer translations of French, British, and American literature. In Longhi immediately understood the revolutionary impact 1939 they settled in and bought their historically of Caravaggio’s painting and considered him to be the important home, parts of which date to the Renaissance, ‘night porter’ or last great Renaissance artist and the first , also known as “Villa Ficalbo” at Villa Il Tasso Via modern painter.” in the Gavinana neighborhood of Benedetto Fortini 30, In 1912, Longhi moved to Rome for his doctorate and a Florence. high school teaching job and wrote for the magazine Longhi collected a considerable number of artworks by That same year his career masters of all artistic periods, from L’Arte. took off when he contacted the the 13th to the 20th century, and Vil - Lithuanian-born naturalized Ameri - offered him a peaceful la Il Tasso can art historian Bernard Berenson, refuge for his research. The core of offering to translate into Italian his his collection includes a work or book maybe two by Caravaggio and many Italian Painters of the Renais - and they became lifelong by Caravaggio’s inspirers and fol - sance, friends. lowers. Over the years, besides Here the L’Arte, Fondazione di Studi di Longhi wrote for and was Vita Artistica Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi in 1950 founded He was founded in 1971 by Longhi’s last Paragone. also a professor of art history at the will and testament. Having no chil - , where he dren, he left his art collection and his Annunciation of the birbthy oMf aStatiamss oSntr otom Manoach taught the poet Attilio Bertolucci, and His Wife libraries of books and photographs the father of film directors Bernardo “to the benefit of future genera - and Giuseppe, as well as the poet, tions.” Since 1971 up to now the writer, and film director Pier Paolo Foundation has awarded grants to Pasolini (for, besides painting, Lon - over 400 young scholars from all ghi loved the theater, cinema, and lit - over the world for a year of study in erature), and later at the University Florence to carry out their own per - of Florence, where the Tuscan sonal project in the field of art histo - writer, art critic, and feminist Carla ry. At her death in 1985, his widow Lonzi was one of his students. left the Villa itself and all its furnish - Longhi’s lifetime ambition was ings to the Foundation. the artistic re-evaluation of long- opens The Times of Caravaggio neglected and often-disparaged by MAadeosrtartoio dne oll'fA tnhneu Snhceiop haei Prdas stori with four small panels by Venetian Caravaggio and his importance to Lorenzo Lotto who inspired Car - 17th-century Baroque painting. avaggio’s interest in bright light, and He reached his goal by curating Bolognese Bartolomeo Passarotti’s two mega-exhibitions in Milan: canvas of a market scene, which pos - Car - in 1951, sibly triggered his obsession for still avaggio e i caravaggeschi and lifes and portraits of “low-class” I pittori della realtà in Lombar - in 1953. Besides Caravaggio, people. Of particular interest in this dia Longhi also put Piero della Fran - first of five rooms is Longhi’s canvas cesca on the world map. Among the There are three A Boy Peeling Fruit. other artists he wrote about were: other copies of this early work all Cimabue, Masolino, Massaccio, dating to 1592-93, all believed by Correggio, Carpaccio, Artemisia many scholars including Longhi, who by Battistello Carracciolo Gentileschi, the Futurists, the Ro - The Deposition of Christ included it in the 1951 exhibition, to man School, and . be Caravaggio’s earliest work painted upon his arrival in Not only was Longhi the most prominent Italian art his - Rome. Besides Longhi’s, one version is at Hampton Court, torian of his time, but, like his friend Berenson, he was also another in London’s Dickinson Group and the fourth in a an important collector. In 1924, he’d married his student, private collection in Switzerland. Later, however, Longhi Lucia Lopresti, who, using the pseudonym Anna Banti, came to understand that all four are copies of a lost original. wrote prolifically: historical novels including a “biogra - Nonetheless, originals or copies, from this work we can phy” of Artemisia, short stories, and essays, as well as date Caravaggio’s arrival in Rome. m

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