Caravaggio arrived in Naples in September 1606 after hiding out in the Alban Hills to escape facing justice for the murder of Rannuccio Tommasoni.
Naples was, at this time -- according to our guide -- the Vice-Capital to the King of Spain and everyone in the Court wanted to have a small house there. Also, in this timeframe, first-born sons would be given castles while second-born sons had churches built for them in the city. Naples thus became the "City of a Thousand Churches" and the most inhabited city outside of Paris. It was a relatively small city and many of its inhabitants were very poor. This concentration forced many of the poor to live in the streets and near the multitude of arches in the city. So Naples was, on the one hand, a place where you came to show off your wealth and, on the other, a reality of how destitute an individual could be. Crime was rampant, prostitution a constant, and a lack of clothing endemic.
In 1602, 12 members of the privileged class got together and founded the Misericordia to relieve some of the misery of the City's poor. They gained permission from the Church to build out the structure and manage incoming funds. The deal between the Fathers and the Founders remained secret for 200 years.
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| Pio Monte della Misericordia Founders |
Bernardo de' Dominici, often referred to as the Neapolitan Vasari (because of his similar treatment of the lives of Neapolitan painters) stated that "... Caravaggio came to Naples where he was received with great acclaim by both artists and lovers of art painting, and he painted many works there."
The first of these was The Seven Acts of Mercy, painted between September 23, 1606 and January 7, 1607, for the then enormous sum of 400 ducats. The Seven Corporal Works of Mercy are (https://media.benedictine.edu/):
- Feed the hungry
- Give drink to the thirsty
- Clothe the naked
- Shelter the homeless
- Visit the sick
- Visit the imprisoned
- Bury the dead.
According to caravaggio.org, the terms of the agreement stipulated that both the Madonna of the Misericordia and the Acts of Mercy had to occupy a single canvas. Historically each Act had been represented separately.
Twenty years after the painting was installed, Board Members of the Misericordia signed a document prohibiting the sale or movement of the artwork from its emplacement. If I wanted to see this painting, then, I would have to travel to Naples. That I did with my friends Brandon and Lidia.
We had spent the prior day pursuing Caravaggio through the halls of the Capitoline Museums and the Doria Pamphilj Gallery. Now, on the morning after, we took a train from Rome to Naples. This was a significant trip because I had written about Caravaggios work up to his stay in the Alban Hills but could not proceed beyond that until I had seen the next phase of his work -- Naples. Because I wanted to get the flavor of Naples, we enlisted in a 3-hour guided tour which would include art emplacements as well as locations which Caravaggio would have frequented while he was in the city.
Our tour as scheduled to begin at 10:00 am . We got into town early enough for a leisurely walk to the Misericordia, the starting point of the tour.
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| Brandon at Pio Monte della Misericordia |
We went into the cafeteria situated below the offices of the Misericordia in order to have a pre-tour breakfast. While having our breakfast, the tour guide contacted me by phone to ask where we were. She asked us to remain there as that was actually the real starting point and she would bring the other members of the tour over there.
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| Brandon and the Author breakfasting at the cafe at Pio Monte della Misericordia |
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| Lidia, Brandon, and the Author at Pio Monte della Misericordia |
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Visual-arts-cork.com sees Caravaggio's church paintings of what they call "the first Neapolitan period," as being still linked stylistically with the paintings from the Roman years. As it relates to The Seven Acts of Mercy, the publication sees this piece as recalling "the S. Luigi dei Francesi scenes of St Matthew."
