Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin for Santa Maria della Scala in Rome as a “Subject of Controversy”: The Artist’s Intention and the Position of the Clergy

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the situation that developed around Caravaggio’s painting Death of the Virgin (1606, Louvre, Paris). The priests of Santa Maria della Scala forbade Laerzio Cherubini, who commissioned the work, to place it in the family chapel for which it was destinated. The conflict is considered as a spiritual choice, namely the rejection of the meanings the artist expressed in his reading of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. In this context, the main iconographical typologies of the subject are here analyzed: the Assumption as the death of the Virgin and the Assumption as Her triumph in Heaven. The innovative features of Caravaggio’s painting are also considered here, as well as the possible spiritual reasons that convinced the clergy of Santa Maria della Scala to reject it.

Keywords

• assumption
• iconography
• caravaggio
• titian
• rubens
• saraceni
• apocrypha
• composition
• naturalism