Caravaggio鈥檚聽Death of the Virgin聽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聽sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian art and criticism, collecting, intellectual history and medicine. Her articles and essays have appeared in聽Renaissance Quarterly,聽Intellectual History Review聽and The Burlington Magazine and in numerous volumes including聽Display of Art in Roman Palaces, 1550-1750聽and聽Caravaggio: Reflections and Refractions. She is the author of聽Painting as Medicine in Early Modern Rome: Giulio Mancini and the Efficacy of Art, published by Penn State University Press in 2016.