Percorsi artistici all’incrocio: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio e Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi nella casa romana di Pandolfo Pucci

It may happen that artists of very different styles find themselves in the same place at the same time and, although their destinies cross, their styles do not undergo mutual influences. In late 16th-century Rome, Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi from Pesaro and Caravaggio, who were almost the same age, shared the experience of painting in the house of a cleric originally from the Marches, a beneficiary of St Peter’s, Pandolfo Pucci, nicknamed “monsignor insalata”. Documentary evidence concerning both artists reveals that their stay was not entirely positive: in exchange for a little protection, they were given the opportunity to paint, but probably also had to do menial tasks. In the light of newly discovered documents, this paper describes the specific terms of Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi’s Roman stay, predating it to the pontificate of Sixtus V and definitively demonstrating that he belonged to the close circle of Federico Zuccari.