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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Two faces 16th century drawing British Museum |
Polidoro Caldara is not remembered as often or as vividly as he should be. He is usually called Polidoro da Caravaggio in the art history footnotes where he now mostly dwells. No one now even knows what Polidoro's age was when he arrived in Rome around 1515 and became a menial in Raphael's large studio. Subsequent events make it clear that Polidoro rose quickly in reputation and responsibility under the supervision of established Raphael artists, including Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga. By the mid-1520s Polidoro was fulfilling commissions to fresco the exteriors of Roman palaces with monochrome recreations of scenes from Roman history. Over and over one reads of Renaissance artists covering facades of buildings with spectacular decorations and murals. Exposed to weather, these paintings seldom survived for more than a couple of generations. Polidoro's work in this medium is known now only from fragmentary drawings and engraving made by admiring contemporaries. When the Sack of Rome occurred in 1527 Polidoro, like many other artists, fled the region. He settled at Messina in Sicily where he remained for the rest of a too-brief life that ended in the early 1540s. Several of the short available biographies repeat a traditional story that "his servant" killed Polidoro in order to steal his money.
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Two youths 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio River god and nymph 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Two cupids 16th century drawing Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Figure studies with raised arm 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Figure study with raised arm 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Studies for the Transfiguration 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Studies for the Transfiguration 16th century drawing British Museum |
The drawings and engravings below were made by other artists copying figures from Polidoro's frescoes or paintings. Scattered images like these are in many cases the only surviving evidence that such works existed at all.
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| Unknown artist after Polidoro da Caravaggio Figures of soldiers copied from a fresco 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Unknown artist after Polidoro da Caravaggio Figures copied from a fresco 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Bartolomeo Passarotti after Polidoro da Caravaggio Figures of women 16th century drawing Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Michele Lucchese after Polidoro da Caravaggio Pagan ritual 1554 engraving British Museum |
"Pascal shared with the unbelievers a perception that the divine was absent from the visible world. For him, the world could serve only as a theological catapult for flinging us into something that disdained contact with the world. But proof by absence is the hardest. Observing men's rapt involvement in their amusements – their horrific gravity as they stalked their prey during a hunt, or rehearsed a dance step, or fingered fabric – he recognized in them the derided image of ancient worship, when the signs of the world were enough to fill the soul with awe."
– from The Ruin of Kasch by Roberto Calasso, translated by William Weaver and Stephen Sartarelli (Harvard University Press, 1994)
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| Sebastiano di Re after Polidoro da Caravaggio Lion attacking horse 1578 engraving British Museum |
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| Édouard Manet after Polidoro da Caravaggio Figure study 1857 drawing British Museum |