CIGOLI

This painting was probably a modello for Cigoli’s altarpiece of the same subject in the Chiesa dei SS. Francesco e Chiara, annexed to the Convento dei Cappuccini di Montughi, in Florence.

The scene shows Jesus meeting the two fishermen, Simon and Andrew, on the shores of Lake Tiberias, and the invitation to them to leave everything behind and follow him on his path. This is a central episode in the general picture narrated in the Gospel, as not only does it represent the start of Jesus’s life as a preacher, but it is also the foundation for the future history of Christianity.

The essence of this solemn passage is shown in this composition with an extremely clear narrative: the organised layout of the figures allows the onlooker to clearly identify the moment and to capture, first and foremost, the intense effect of the looks between the master and his disciple, which reveals both the revolutionary request from Jesus and the firm affirmative response from the simple fisherman, ready to become a “fisher of souls”.

This work was painted in 1607 for nobleman Niccolò Carducci, agent of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I in Livorno, and destined for the chapel in the cathedral of that city. It is one of the most stunning works by the artist and also one of his last, since he died in 1608.

Cigoli’s drawing shows the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome of the Florence Cathedral.

Cigoli’s drawing shows the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome of the Florence Cathedral.

The history of what is certainly Cigoli’s most famous painting has recently been clarified by the discovery of new documents. Cigoli’s nephew, Giovanni Battista Cardi, was the first to report that this Ecce Homo was chosen as the best of three versions of the theme commissioned as part of an ‘unknown’ competition between Cigoli, Caravaggio and Domenico Passignano. It is now clear that in 1607, when Cigoli was resident in Rome, he painted an Ecce Homo for Massimo Massimi as a pendant for a picture by Caravaggio that the collector already owned.

Although Cigoli’s contract does not specify the subject of Caravaggio’s picture, it was most likely The Crowning with Thorns commissioned by Massimi two years earlier and that has been identified by some scholars as the painting now in Prato. A thumbnail sketch at the bottom of Cigoli’s preparatory drawing depicts a Crowning with Thorns that may reflect Massimi’s Caravaggio. The drawing also illustrates Cigoli’s attempt to bring his own more lyrical style into harmony with Caravaggio’s particular brand of dramatic naturalism. He adopts a ‘Caravaggesque’ illumination, in which the three principal figures are brilliantly lit from the front while the soldiers behind them are almost absorbed by the inky darkness of the background. In the painting Christ’s suffering is depicted with a subtle degree of realism, although the servant’s facial features are grotesquely exaggerated in keeping with the traditional manner of depicting the subject. This is precisely the type of caricaturing that is dropped in the Ecce Homo attributed to Caravaggio, where the servant is rendered with the same naturalism as Christ.

Joseph was the elder son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob and of Rachel. His numerous older brothers were strictly only half-brothers, being the sons of Leah or of handmaidens. The events of his romantic life story have been depicted continuously in Christian art from the 6th century onwards. The medieval Church saw the episodes of his life as a prefiguration of the life of Christ, and it is to this that he owes his important place in Christian art.

When in Egypt as a slave, Potiphar, captain of the Pharaoh’s guard, bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites and made him steward of his household (Gen. 39:7-20). Potiphar’s wife ‘cast her eyes over him and said, “Come and lie with me.”’ He refused her though she continued to press him. One day when they were alone together she clutched his robes, pleading with him to make love to her. At this, Joseph fled so precipitately that he left his cloak at her hands. When Potiphar came home she avenged her humiliation by accusing Joseph of trying to violate her, using the cloak as evidence. Joseph was promptly thrown into prison.

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This is a work with high pietistic content, which interprets fully a sort of anti-Mannerist reaction of a religious-moralistic nature. Leaving aside the facile emotivity generated by the emphatic pose of the kneeling saint and the mystical, theatrical smoke which heralds the divine event, the painting is a work of extreme austerity, and avowedly prosaic even from a technical point of view, considering that the artist, breaking with the Tuscan design tradition, executed it in the Venetian style, almost entirely with colour.

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Cigoli painted the Flight into Egypt several times during his career. This painting on copper was commissioned by Ferdinando de’ Medici in 1607 in Florence on behalf of Marguerite of Habsburg, Queen of Spain.

Cigoli’s picture depicts one of the most dramatic moments in the Old Testament (Genesis 22: 1-14), where the Lord tests Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Just as Abraham is about to slit Isaac’s throat an angel miraculously appears and points to a ram, tangled in a thicket, that can be sacrificed instead. Cigoli shows the moment at which the angel intervenes, pulling back Abraham’s arm as he points to the ram. According to Cigoli’s nephew, Giovanni Battista Cardi, the picture was painted while his uncle was working for Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni in Frascati just outside Rome. Cigoli, a Florentine, is documented in Rome between 1606-07, a date which accords well with the style of The Sacrifice of Isaac. There are several preparatory studies for the painting, one of which is on the verso of a drawing for Massimo Massimi’s Ecce Homo of 1607, making it safe to assume that Cigoli was working on both pictures at the same time.

Although The Sacrifice of Isaac was painted in Rome, the composition clearly recalls the Florentine tradition of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Andrea del Sarto. Isaac’s sensuous nude body, however, reflects the artist’s first-hand experience of classical sculpture. Despite the inherent suspense of the narrative, the picture itself lacks dramatic tension. Abraham’s massive red tunic serves as a foil for Isaac’s unblemished adolescent body, shifting the emphasis to the work’s more lascivious characteristics. When the picture was criticised for its sexually evocative content by a visitor to Arrigoni’s villa, the cardinal made an eloquent defence of the artist and the painting. The emotions evoked, he said, were the result of Cigoli’s excellence as a painter; any stimulation was the fault of the viewer.

For this large canvas, Cigoli made at least twenty preparatory drawings, from sketches to finished works. His vigorous and monumental manner became the style of the early Counter-Reformation and laid the groundwork for the Baroque.

This painting is one of the few surviving works by Cigoli on copper and displays the artist’s idiosyncratic use of strong primary colours and soft handling of paint.