An Ugly Soul. Figurations, Transfiguration, Misinterpretations and Fakes of Caravaggio’s Physiognomy

The critical success of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio has been notoriously flagged by a long disesteem, a real «damnatio memoriae» which ended only at the half of XXth Century with the rediscovery of the Master by Roberto Longhi. Before that, most writers who tackled the issue of Caravaggio’s painting had tried to find a causal relationship between style of the Artist and its violent and antisocial behavior. It is interesting that this mystification, that went as far as to falsify his biographical data to substantiate his image as a «killer-painter», concerned also an aspect of the critical about the Artist that is still little know. Starting from Bellori, and all along the XVIIth and XVIIIth Century, the Artist’s face – that accompanies many biographies written in that time – has undergone a metamorphosis up to assume a decidedly far-fetched appearance. Francesco Paolo Campione’s essay retraces, on the basis of the semiotic relationship between portrait and «Vita» already established by Vasari, a review of the interpretations of Michelangelo Merisi’s «true effigy», from deformations implemented especially during the XVIIIth Century until the total reconfiguration of his face in a perfect orthodox key, that in some ways is a prelude to its definitive aesthetic rehabilitation.