Irving Lavin

Divine Inspiration in Caravaggio's Two St. Matthews

It seems fair to say that in the last twenty years there have been two major developments affecting our understanding of Caravaggios art in the epoch-making period of his maturation in Rome.1 One of these developments is interpretive, and derives from the proposition that he was more than a realist in the ordinary sense. No one would doubt, especially since the publication in 1955 of Walter Friedlanders Caravaggio Studies, that the revolutionary naturalism and proletarian content of his great religious paintings served a deep moral and spiritual purpose. But a considerable body of scholarly literature is now available which tends to show that the seemingly innocent genre and mythological pictures with which Caravaggios career in Rome began, also carry ulterior meaning – morally ambiguous, perhaps, but certainly much more sophisticated than had been imagined. Hence their unique challenge may be seen to lie in a paradoxical kind of knowing naivete, This new view helps to make the early works more underst...

Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of His Early Works

In 1606 the Archconfraternity of the Pieta, proprietor of the Basilica of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome, determined to erect a hospital flanking the south side of the church, between it and the Tiber.1 The confraternity had been founded in the fifteenth century, and the hospital, one of many such national institutions in Rome, was to provide charitable aid and hospitality to Florentines, whether pilgrims or permanent residents in the Holy City, in need of assistance. Construction of the hospital began in December 1607.2 It was a fairly imposing structure of three stories, with a main central entrance and a balconied window above, flanked on either side by two smaller doorways.3

The Sources of Donatello's Pulpits in San Lorenzo

THE bronze pulpits executed by Donatello for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence confront the investigator with something of a paradox.1 They stand today on either side of Brunelleschis nave in the last bay toward the crossing.2 The one on the left side (facing the altar, see text fig.) contains six scenes of Christs earthly Passion, from the Agony in the Garden through the Entombment (Fig. 1); that on the right contains five of the post-Passion miracles, from the Marys at the Tomb through the Pentecost, and in addition the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (Fig. 2).

Duquesnoy's “Nano di Créqui” and Two Busts by Francesco Mochi

The chief purpose of this essay is to present three portrait busts, one by Francois Duquesnoy (1597–1643) and two by Francesco Mochi (1580–1654). One of those by Mochi is here published for the first time; the other two have been published before, with attributions to Bernini. The busts are historically valuable in part because very few documented portraits by these artists are known: five in the case of Duquesnoy, four in that of Mochi, including those we are adding now. Moreover, purely as a matter of chance, the three works, all of which are accurately datable, fall within a limited and historically critical span of time, the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. It was then that the notion of the portrait as a depiction of a significant physical and psychological “moment” emerged, and Bernini developed his famous “speaking” likenesses. These are often regarded as the crowning achievement of the period in portraiture. We shall see that the busts presented here deal with essentially the same notion ...

The art of art history

Abstract Like any science, art history is based on certain assumptions proper to the discipline: that every work of art is an absolute and unique statement, that anything man‐made is a work of art, that everything in it is intended by its creator to be there, and that it includes within itself everything necessary for its own decipherment. Art is a form of communication and the art of art history lies in treating art as if it were a natural science of the spirit.

A Further Note on the Ancestry of Caravaggio's First Saint Matthew

In an article published some years ago dealing with Caravaggios two altarpieces of the Evangelist Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi, I assumed, as had earlier commentators on the subject, that the first picture was without precedent in showing the Evangelist writing Hebrew, rather than Greek or Latin.1 This peculiarity was based on a patristic tradition that the Jewish tax collector Levi had written his Gospel in the language of his people after his conversion. I noted that Caravaggio copied the earlier of two Hebrew texts of Matthew rediscovered and published in the sixteenth century (1537, 1555).

On the Pedestal of Bernini's Bust of the Savior

In an essay on Berninis death and the art he made in preparation for it, I stressed the significance of the monumental support he designed for his last work, the great marble bust of the Savior, now in the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Virginia.1 The pedestal is described in an early inventory as consisting of a socle surmounted by two kneeling angels who held in their hands a base of Sicilian jasper, on which the bust itself rested. The socle and angels, made of gilt wood, were nearly two meters high, the jasper base was 28cm high and 50cm wide at the bottom, and the bust is 93cm high, for a total of more than three meters. In a footnote I expressed puzzlement as to how the weight of an over lifesize marble bust was sustained in the hands of wooden angels.

Afterthoughts on “Bernini's Death”

In my essay on Berninis death (The Art Bulletin, liv, 1972, 159–86) I published what I take to be Berninis last and long lost sculpture, the bust of the Savior in the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia (Figs. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9). Following the appearance of that article, Professor Eric Van Schaack of Goucher College signaled to me the existence, in the Cathedral at Sees (Orne) in Normandy, of what can almost certainly be identified as the lost copy of the Savior mentioned in a contemporary source (Figs. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10). Professor Van Schaack generously allowed me to publish this important discovery, which I present here together with some additional material that has come to my attention.

An Ancient Statue of the Empress Helen Reidentified (

During Rubens’ first visit to Rome in 1601–1602, he executed three paintings, now in the hospital at Grasse, for the chapel of Saint Helen in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.1 The church embodies part of a Constantinian imperial palace, and the chapel dedicated to St. Helen, Con-stantines mother, was supposed to have been installed in her own chamber. Two of Rubens’ paintings, the Raising of the Cross and the Crowning with Thorns, decorated the lateral walls of the chapel, while the third, which shows Helen holding the True Cross, hung over the altar. When the pictures were removed toward the middle of the eighteenth century, the altarpiece was replaced by an antique statue (Fig. 1) restored to represent St. Helen in a kind of composite imitation of Rubens’ figure (Fig. 3) and that by Andrea Bolgi in Saint Peters (1629–1640; Fig. 4).2 It is possible, however, that Rubens’ and Bolgis figures may themselves have been related to the ancient one, to which, even discounting the restorations, they seem to bear mo...

john pope-hennessy, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture

Lavin, Irving, Review of John Pope-Hennessy, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, London, 1963, in The Art Bulletin, XLVII, 1965, 378-83.