Caravaggio鈥檚听Death of the Virgin听has been likened to a dissection scene in its presentation of a dead putrefying body, surrounded by onlookers. But could Caravaggio also have taken a genuine interest in anatomy and what knowledge of this field might he have had, if any? Given Caravaggio鈥檚 appropriation of the work of Michelangelo, who was acclaimed as an anatomist, to what extent may Caravaggio鈥檚 allusions to cutting and severing have served his claim to know the body as well as Michelangelo had?
Frances Gage is associate professor of Renaissance and Baroque art history at the State College at Buffalo, New York. She is a historian of听sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian art and criticism, collecting, intellectual history and medicine. Her articles and essays have appeared in听Renaissance Quarterly,听Intellectual History Review听and The Burlington Magazine and in numerous volumes including听Display of Art in Roman Palaces, 1550-1750听and听Caravaggio: Reflections and Refractions. She is the author of听Painting as Medicine in Early Modern Rome: Giulio Mancini and the Efficacy of Art, published by Penn State University Press in 2016.