The paintings in the Contarelli Chapel form a group of three large-format canvases painted by Caravaggio between 1599 and 1602, initially commissioned by Cardinal Matteo Contarelli for the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, and eventually honored after his death by his executors. The intervention of Cardinal Del Monte, Caravaggio's patron, was decisive in obtaining this contract, which was the most significant of the painter's young career when he was not yet 30. The works evoke three major stages in the life of Saint Matthew: his calling by Christ (The Calling of Saint Matthew), his writing of his Gospel guided by an angel (The Inspiration of Saint Matthew), and his martyrdom (The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew). The paintings are still in situ at San Luigi dei Francesi.
Although Caravaggio worked particularly fast, the canvases were installed slowly and in stages: first, the two side canvases representing the Calling and the Martyrdom were hung in 1600, then it was decided to add an altarpiece with the angel to replace an unsatisfactory statue, but this painting had to be redone as its first version (Saint Matthew and the Angel) was rejected. In 1603, the ensemble was finally definitively installed; it met with great success, even if sometimes virulent criticism was voiced against its innovative aspects, in particular the naturalism of its painting and certain theological choices.
This was Caravaggio's first public commission, and it caused his reputation to grow considerably. It led to Caravaggio's work becoming well-known in Roman artistic circles and among the general public.
Context
Art and religion in Rome
The church of San Luigi dei Francesi ('St. Louis of the French') in Rome, between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, was built in 1518 as a French property for French pilgrims to the papal city. The 70 years of its construction were marked by various episodes in the Wars of Religion that were then tearing Europe apart (including the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572). During this time the Papacy made a deliberate choice of Catholic religious propaganda: the conclusions of the Council of Trent, which ended in 1563, notably emphasized the crucial role of images in propagating the faith.
The reigns of Popes Sixtus V and Clement VIII (whose reign coincided with Caravaggio's stay in Rome: 1592–1605) were marked by lively artistic activity, in a context of a return to the Christian roots of pictorial art. The Accademia di San Luca was revived in 1593, under the direction of Federico Zuccari. Cardinal Federico Borromeo, an influential prelate, was initially its patron but became Archbishop of Milan in 1596; he was succeeded by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte and the elderly Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, a veteran of the Council of Trent and author of a treatise on art. This was a favorable period for official commissions, with a certain openness on the part of the clergy to new artistic forms: the successes of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Federico Barocci and Annibale Carracci testify to a marked tendency towards , in particular in opposition to a certain form of Mannerism.
Rome was the home of the French prelate Matthieu Cointrel, whose name was commonly Italianized as Matteo Contarelli, as was customary at the time, and who attained the rank of cardinal in December 1583. Contarelli was a close associate of Pope Gregory XIII, who reigned from 1572 to 1585. Having made a substantial contribution to the financing of San Luigi dei Francesi (in particular for the work on the façade), Contarelli designated a chapel for his burial, the first chapel to the left of the main altar, which he had acquired in 1565.
Caravaggio's ascent
After receiving his initial training in Milan, Caravaggio arrived in Rome in the early 1590s, perhaps in the summer of 1592, aged around twenty. He passed through several studios, working on a variety of small-scale productions, including flowers and fruit. In the late 1590s, Cardinal del Monte discovered his paintings and took him under his protection; he even installed him under his roof in the Palazzo Madama, his official residence since 1589, as representative of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand I de' Medici. The palazzo (today the seat of the Italian Senate) is located right next to San Luigi dei Francesi. It is likely, however, that Caravaggio's home was in the Palazzo Firenze,The Palazzo Firenze is a ten-minute walk away on the Via dei Prefetti. which del Monte used in addition to the Palazzo Madama; this building has underground rooms with skylights that let in daylight, which would be just what Caravaggio needed for the series of paintings in the Contarelli Chapel.
Despite the success he was beginning to enjoy among art lovers, as evidenced by the cardinal's patronage, Caravaggio had not yet received any official commissions and had not produced any works with a religious theme; the Saint Matthew series was a novelty for him. The paintings in the Contarelli Chapel were his first public commission.The terms "official commission" and "public commission" tend to be intertwined in the Roman context: the commissioners, as in the case of Cardinal Contarelli, were both men of the Church and close to the state apparatus. Gérard-Julien Salvy more accurately refers to Caravaggio's great Roman creations as "works for the public", destined to be exhibited in chapels of churches, and thus to the public (see Salvy 2008, p. 132), even if it was indeed private commissioners ("always a private person, as their chapels were private" Salvy 2008, p. 143) who carried out these commissions, or their executors in Contarelli's case. Art historians tend to speak of "private commissions" when paintings are commissioned for personal collections and are not intended for public display. This is particularly true of the paintings that precede the Saint Matthew cycle, acquired by the papal camerlengo Vittrici or Cardinal del Monte, who kept them in their homes. The canvases exhibited in the Contarelli Chapel thus represent Caravaggio's very first public commission, and this new exhibition opens the door to his fame. His success was so intense and immediate that, even before completing this commission, he received another, equally prestigious one from Tiberio Cerasi for the church of Santa Maria del Popolo.These are The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Crucifxion of Saint Peter.
Public orders
Hesitation and delay
Shortly before he died in 1585, Contarelli chose the painter Girolamo Muziano to paint six scenes from the life of Saint Matthew on the altarpiece, walls, and vault, but Muziano in turn died in 1592 without even having begun the work. The cardinal's heirs, Monsignor Melchior Crescenzi and his nephew Virgilio, were therefore responsible for continuing the work: they chose to commission Giuseppe Cesari, alias the Cavalier d'Arpino. Cesari did indeed paint the fresco on the vault in 1593,It was during this period that Caravaggio was employed in the Cavalier d'Arpino's studio, a few years before being invited to Cardinal del Monte's home. Salvy 2008, p. 133. as well as two others depicting The Miracle of Saint Matthew and two groups of two prophets, but ultimately failed to supply any of the canvases also requested. He did, however, make a preparatory drawing for The Calling of Saint Matthew, but went no further. In addition, a statue was commissioned in 1587 from the sculptor Jacob Cobaert to be placed above the altar but was not completed and installed until 1602.
The choice of commissioning canvases rather than decorative frescoes to decorate a Roman chapel was an innovation specific to the decade 1590–1600. There are only a few earlier examples in Rome: Muziano's paintings for Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, for example, were produced between 1586 and 1589, and also depict scenes from the life of Saint Matthew. But this trend, new at the time, was destined to last.
Virgilio Crescenzi died in 1592, and his executor was Cardinal del Monte, a member of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, which directed and organized the work of the clergy in the Vatican. It is therefore likely that, as Caravaggio's first biographer Giovanni Baglione writes, Del Monte convinced Melchior CrescenziIt was all the more necessary for the Apostolic Chamber to take control of the project, as the Crescenzi family were beginning to be accused of deliberately wasting time to enrich themselves from the sums earmarked for the work. Cappelletti 2008, p. 44 and François Cointrel (nephew of the late cardinal) to ask Caravaggio to decorate the side walls of the chapels. According to the seventeenth-century biographer Gian Pietro Bellori, Caravaggio even belonged to Monsignor Crescenzi's household on the recommendation of Giambattista Marino (which is not attested elsewhere) and produced portraits of the two patrons (which have now disappeared). In this way, Del Monte was able both to boost his protégé's career and show his interest in France.
Side panels Caravaggio was finally commissioned in 1599 when the church administrators decided to reopen the Contarelli Chapel to worship. A contract dated 23 July 1599, provided for the payment of 400 ecusThis was the sum that the Cavalier d'Arpino was to receive for the paintings he had originally been commissioned to paint. Salvy 2008, p. 134. for the two side canvases, which were inaugurated barely a year later, in July of the Holy Year 1600: the Calling and the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, which were placed on either side of the altar. The completion of these two canvases was therefore particularly rapid.
Altarpiece
Cobaert's statue, barely installed on the altar in 1602, was finally rejected by the Congregation of St. Louis; it was completed by another sculptor, Pompeo Ferrucci (the angel was missing), and then installed in another Roman church, the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini. In 1602, Caravaggio was commissioned to replace Cobaert's statueOrdered on 7 February 1602 by Abbé Giacomo Crescenzi, for 150 Ecus. Salvy 2008, p. 134. with an altarpiece depicting Saint Matthew and the Angel. This canvas was installed on 26 May of the same year, the day of Pentecost, but was again rejected by the commissioners; Caravaggio immediately proposed another version, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, which was accepted and installed in February 1603, in the center of the chapel lined with multicolored marble.
This proposal for an almost immediate second version of Saint Matthew and the Angel is currently being put forward based on concordant documentary sources, and undermines Roberto Longhi's assertions on this subject in his seminal texts of the 1920s. For him, this crude, uncultivated Matthew was produced around 1592, eight years before Caravaggio reached "maturity" in 1600.
Reception Despite Caravaggio's speed (including a second, radically different version of his Saint Matthew and the Angel, two years elapsed between the installation of the two side canvases (1600) and the altar (1602), echoing the long delays in completing the building work. Tired of waiting for some thirty years, the church's priests harbored a certain resentment towards the Crescenzi family. In this tense context, it is possible that Caravaggio's radical choices for the last painting were very poorly received and led to a swift rejection. This is what his biographer Bellori tells us: