Caravaggio and Late Renaissance Counter-Reformation Art

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas and Devotional Verification

Caravaggio's Der ungläubige Thomas (The Incredulity of Saint Thomas), created around $1603$ and housed in the Bildergalerie im Park Sanssouci in Potsdam, presents a radical concentration on physical touch and sight. The composition confronts the viewer directly with the tension between faith and empirical verification—a central theological theme rooted in the Gospel of John. By depicting Saint Thomas placing his finger directly into Christ's wound, the artwork places the viewer among the doubters who cannot believe without seeing. In the exact moment of viewing the canvas, the observer gazes upon the sacred event, contrasting with those whom Christ praises: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John $20:29$).

The image served as an intense medium for pious meditation. Its powerful impact triggered an immediate wave of copies and adaptations. The Mattei family commissioned a copy from Prospero Orsi in $1607$, and even a modest middle-class inventory from $1637$ listed a repetition of the composition. This widespread contemporary demand demonstrates that 17th-century viewers did not perceive the painting as agnostic or offensive, contrary to certain modern interpretations. The Jesuit scholar Silos dedicated a hymnic epigram to the painting as late as $1673$, describing the tactile contact immortalized by Caravaggio not as obscene, but as dulcis (sweet and lovely).

The Entombment of Christ: Provenance, Context, and Liturgical Space

Caravaggio's monumental altarpiece Grablegung Christi (The Entombment of Christ), executed around $1602-1604$ for the Pinacoteca Vaticana in Vatican City, measures $300 \times 203\,\text{cm}$. The work was commissioned by Gerolamo Vittrici for the family chapel in the Oratorian church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) in Rome. The chapel had originally been acquired in $1577$ by Gerolamo's uncle, Pietro Vittrici. Construction and artistic decoration of Santa Maria in Vallicella ranked among the most prestigious ecclesiastical projects in late 16th- and early 17th-century Rome, attracting renowned masters such as Federico Barocci ($1528-1616$), Cavaliere d'Arpino, Peter Paul Rubens, and Pietro da Cortona ($1596-1669$).

When the Oratorians expanded the church with narrow side aisles during the $1590\text{s}$, all side chapels required reconstruction. Gerolamo Vittrici utilized this opportunity to replace the original altarpiece. The commission brought Caravaggio substantial prestige and placed his art at the core of Catholic Reform ideals. The Oratorians maintained strict control over the artistic program, establishing a unified Marian iconographic scheme across the altars and dictating uniform architectural features for the side chapels, as seen in Federico Barocci's Visitation (Heimsuchung) for the Cappella Pizzamiglio.

While no original contract for Caravaggio's Entombment survives, Gerolamo Vittrici's personal connections played a decisive role. In $1586$, Vittrici married Orinzia Orsi, the sister of Caravaggio's close friend Prospero Orsi. Art historical research by Lothar Sickel indicates that Vittrici likely owned several key early paintings by Caravaggio, including Saint Mary Magdalene (Heilige Maria Magdalena), Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Ruhe auf der Flucht nach Ägypten), and the Louvre version of The Fortune Teller (Die Wahrsagerin). The impact of Caravaggio's altarpiece on contemporaries was amplified by the fact that the newly constructed Chiesa Nuova remained largely undecorated at the time. A modern high altarpiece was only commissioned in $1606$ from Peter Paul Rubens, whose first version was rejected by the Congregation on theological grounds.

Iconography and Compositional Structure of the Entombment

The Entombment of Christ is staged as a dramatic, elevated theatrical presentation. The figures are arranged along a horizontal, sharp-edged stone slab (the tombstone or Grabstein) that projects diagonally into the viewer's space. In the heavily darkened background, a rock formation indicating the cave tomb is barely discernible. John the Evangelist and Nicodemus bend forward under the weight of the Corpus Christi, wrapped in a white linen shroud. John embraces Christ's upper body while gazing down at His sunken face, whereas Nicodemus wraps his arms around Christ's legs and turns his head directly toward the viewer.

Behind the central figure of Christ stand three women in distinct postures of mourning, presenting exemplary models of emotional participation (Anteilnahme). The veiled Virgin Mary stands with lowered eyes and her right hand outstretched over her dead son in a silent gesture that Oratorian circles recognized as a posture of prayer. Mary Magdalene lowers her head in deep grief, drying her tears with her right hand in a self-contained, internal gesture similar to her portrayal in Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin (Tod Mariens). On the outer right, Mary Cleophas (Maria Kleophas) extends her arms toward heaven in an emphatic, vocal ritual gesture of lamentation established since antiquity. Caravaggio thus structures human grief across a complete spectrum, ranging from silent, spontaneous interior emotion to codified public mourning.

Noticeably absent from the scene is Joseph of Arimathea, who historically petitioned Pilate for Christ's body. Instead, the narrative blends the canonical elements of the Entombment with the iconography of the Lamentation (Beweinung) and the Pietà. The diagonal projection of the stone slab over the altar table (Altarmensa) establishes a direct sacramental link to the Eucharist. As the officiating priest raised the consecrated Host during Mass, the visual arrangement was activated liturgy-wise, making it appear as though John and Nicodemus were lowering the body of Christ directly onto the altar table and into the grave situated within the viewer's physical space.

Art Historical Receptions, Variations, and the Paragone

Caravaggio's Entombment engages in a deliberate paragone—a formal competition between painting and sculpture—with his Renaissance namesake Michelangelo Buonarroti. Caravaggio drew direct inspiration from Michelangelo's famous $1499$ marble sculpture Pietà in St. Peter's, as well as ancient relief models such as the Carrying of Meleager (Heimtragung Meleagers) on Antonine sarcophagi ($160-170\,\text{AD}$) in the Museo Chiaramonti, the ancient Pasquino group, and Raphael's Entombment in the Cappella Baglioni. He also competed directly with Annibale Carracci's contemporary Pietà (c. $1598-1600$, oil on canvas, $156 \times 149\,\text{cm}$, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).

As art historian Herwarth Röttgen observed, Caravaggio shifted the traditional frontal presentation of the Entombment onto a diagonal axis, operating like a revolving stage to emphasize the three-dimensional, multi-viewable (allansichtig) nature of sculpture through painterly means. By pairing dramatic chiaroscuro with naturalistic modeling, Caravaggio asserted that painting could surpass sculpture. Early biographers Giovanni Baglione and Giovan Pietro Bellori praised the Entombment as a supreme pinnacle of Caravaggio's Roman period.

The composition exerted a powerful influence on subsequent masters:

• Peter Paul Rubens closely studied the altarpiece and executed a free variation in $1614$ (and an earlier oil sketch c. $1612-1614$, wood, $88.6 \times 66.5\,\text{cm}$, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa). Rubens shifted John further to the left edge behind Christ's body and placed his foot on a lower ground level to make the physical descent into the crypt even more explicit.
• Dirck van Baburen, an Utrecht Caravaggist who arrived in Rome in $1617$, painted his own Entombment around $1617$ (Centraal Museum, Utrecht). Uninterested in the sculptural paragone, Baburen dissolved Caravaggio's sculptural density into a relaxed rearrangement of figures. Baburen also executed a Crowning with Thorns (Dornenkrönung) around $1622-1624$ (Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht), while Valentin de Boulogne created his own Dornenkrönung around $1624$ (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).

The Madonna of the Pilgrims (Madonna di Loreto) and Devotional Context

Caravaggio carefully accounted for real-world architectural lighting in his altarpieces, aligning internal light sources with windows or doors in the original chapel settings. In the Madonna of the Pilgrims (Pilgermadonna / Madonna di Loreto), created around $1603$ for the Church of Sant'Agostino in Rome, light enters the composition from the upper left, precisely matching the light that originally entered from an adjacent side portal.

The windowless side chapel was acquired on September $3$, $1603$, by the widow of Ermete Cavalletti to fulfill her late husband's last will, dedicating the altar to the Madonna of Loreto. Ermete Cavalletti was a wealthy chief accountant (Oberbuchhalter) of the Apostolic Camera and a passionate arms enthusiast, though not an established art collector. As a devout member of the Confraternity of S.S. Trinità dei Pellegrini, Cavalletti played a major role in coordinating pilgrim care during the Holy Year $1600$. Between April $15$ and May $3$, $1602$, he led the logistical preparations for a major pilgrimage to Loreto, collecting funds along the route to reimburse costs incurred during the $1600$ celebrations.

Pilgrimage rituals at Loreto required devotees to approach the Holy House (Santa Casa) barefoot, kissing the outer steps and threshold. Men prayed bareheaded, while women kept their heads covered. High ecclesiastical dignitaries, including the Cardinal Protector and local nobles, met the pilgrims to wash their feet—a practice mirroring the holy reception in Rome where nobles washed the feet of impoverished travelers. Following his return from Loreto, Cavalletti attended no further confraternity meetings, making the journey his final spiritual milestone before death.

The altarpiece functions as a deeply personal votive image (Votivbild). Caravaggio depicts the Madonna standing at the brick threshold of her house, holding the Christ Child. The exposed brick wall (schlichtes Ziegelmauerwerk) evokes early Christian simplicity, contrasting with modern marble overlays. Caravaggio ennobles the figure of Mary by basing her pose on classical ancient statues, while the Christ Child makes a gracious gesture of blessing toward two kneeling pilgrims in the foreground.

While 17th-century writer Francesco Scannelli ($1657$) praised the painting's intense spiritual efficacy and its ability to bridge the space between viewer and artwork, Giovan Pietro Bellori criticized the realistic details of the dirty feet and the female pilgrim's cap. Modern assertions that Caravaggio intended to provoke viewers by modeling Mary on a statue of a barbarian woman lack historical evidence.

The Crowning with Thorns and the Passion Cycle

Caravaggio's Crowning with Thorns (Dornenkrönung), created around $1605$, contains a subtle anatomical reference to the famous ancient Belvedere Torso behind the figure of Christ. On June $25$, $1605$, Caravaggio reportedly signed a handwritten obligation to the Roman nobleman Massimo Massimi to produce a painting of equal value and size to one previously completed, depicting the Crowning with Thorns.

This painting formed part of a three-part private Passion cycle commissioned by Massimi for personal devotion. Stylistically related to this group was a now-lost Christ on the Mount of Olives (Christus am Ölberg), which belonged to Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, brother of the prominent collector Vincenzo Giustiniani.

The Madonna of the Rosary and the Death of the Virgin

Two major altarpieces from Caravaggio's late Roman period share nearly identical dimensions and complex structural histories: the Madonna of the Rosary (Rosenkranzmadonna, c. $1607$) and the Death of the Virgin (Tod Mariens).

The Madonna of the Rosary features classic Dominican iconography. The Virgin Mary with the Christ Child directs Saint Dominic to distribute rosaries to the kneeling faithful. To the right, Saint Peter Martyr points toward the Christ Child while looking out directly at the viewer; to the left, Saint Dominic exchanges a pious glance with the Virgin. Among the kneeling crowd—who closely resemble the realistic figures in the Pilgermadonna—is an unidentified portrait on the far left. This figure represents the only explicit donor portrait in Caravaggio's entire painted oeuvre.

The earliest documented reference to the Madonna of the Rosary occurs in a letter dated September $25$, $1607$, written by the court painter Frans Pourbus while in Naples on behalf of the Duke of Mantua. Pourbus informed his patron that he had inspected two paintings by Caravaggio offered for sale, noting that the Rosenkranzmadonna was originally intended as an altarpiece and was priced at no less than $400\,\text{ducats}$.

Depictions of Saint John the Baptist and Classical Allusions

During the same period as the Entombment (around $1602-1604$), Caravaggio created several monumental single-figure compositions featuring heroic nudes in dialogue with High Renaissance and ancient prototypes, including Amor Victorious (Amor als Sieger, Berlin) and versions of Saint John the Baptist (Heiliger Johannes).

The version of Saint John the Baptist in the Musei Capitolini, Rome (c. $1602$), was commissioned by Ciriaco Mattei. The youth is shown reclining on a rocky ledge draped with an animal pelt, a white cloth, and a red cloak. He embraces a horned ram with his right arm while turning over his shoulder to smile at the viewer. The complex, contorted pose of the nude youth directly adapts the figure of the Ignudo located to the left above the Erythraean Sibyl on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.

This composition creates a striking tension between an idealized pose and naturalistic rendering. Notably, Caravaggio replaces the traditional sacrificial lamb with a horned ram and omits standard attributes like the reed cross, the "Ecce Agnus Dei" banner, or the baptismal bowl. Some modern scholars have proposed alternative interpretations, identifying the figure as a profane shepherd (Gilbert $1995$, Whitfield $2007$) or as Isaac escaping sacrifice (Barroero $1997$, Rudolph/Ostrow $2000$).

However, unanimous 17th-century documentary evidence identifies the subject as Saint John the Baptist:

• Giovanni Battista Mattei's inventory of $1616$.
• Giovanni Battista Mattei's testament of 1623/24$.\n- Cardinal Del Monte's estate inventory of 1627$.
• Biographies and commentaries by Giovanni Baglione, Francesco Scannelli, and Giovan Pietro Bellori.

The presence of the ram—which also appears in Caravaggio's later Saint John the Baptist in the Galleria Borghese—serves a typological function, pointing to the Sacrifice of Isaac as an Old Testament prefiguration of Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the Cross. A second version of Saint John the Baptist (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), painted for Ottavio Costa, depicts the saint seated in a three-quarter view against a dark landscape, gazing down broodingly at the viewer from shadowed eyes.