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Document 1 of 1Scrambling for scudi: Notes on painters' earnings in early Baroque RomeSpear, Richard. The Art Bulletin 85.2 (Jun 2003): 310-320,228.

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Abstract

This essay compares the earnings of various painters included in the recent exhibition TheGenius of Rome with wages of common workers, incomes of the middle and wealthy classes,and the cost of living in Rome, particularly the basic expenses of food and rent. The criteriafor pricing paintings, which usually were negotiated in scudi, and the cost of making paintingsalso are discussed. The results suggest that the established painters from the time ofCaravaggio and the Carracci until the election of Urban VIII (1623) belonged to a surprisinglylucrative profession. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] _______________________________________________________________

Full Text

HeadnoteThis essay compares the earnings of various painters included in the recent exhibition TheGenius of Rome with wages of common workers, incomes of the middle and wealthy classes,and the cost of living in Rome, particularly the basic expenses of food and rent. The criteriafor pricing paintings, which usually were negotiated in scudi, and the cost of making paintingsalso are discussed. The results suggest that the established painters from the time ofCaravaggio and the Carracci until the election of Urban VIII (1623) belonged to a surprisinglylucrative profession.Long snubbed by art historians as an ill-matched couple, art and economics have enjoyed agood relationship lately, especially at international conferences where no one thinks that talkabout money sullies art.1 Much of the growing interest in the economics of early Italianpainting focuses on the demand rather than the supply side of exchange, becausethroughout the Renaissance and most of the seventeenth century a system of elitepatronage, particularly in Rome, curbed the development of an open market in which theartist rather than the buyer initiated production.2 Given its premier standing in Italian studiesand its unusually rich archives, Renaissance Florence has received much more attentionthan any other Italian city (Venice being a distant second), but even then rarely have artists'earnings been the subject of discussion.3 The economics of painters working in seventeenth-century Rome has been little examined, despite the groundwork laid by Francis Haskell in hispioneering book on Italian Baroque patronage.4The focus of this essay was determined by a simple yet neglected question raised by therecent exhibition The Genius of Rome: 1592-1623 (held at the Royal Academy of Arts,London, in 2001): What can be said about the socioeconomic status of the artists included inthe exhibition? More specifically, how did their earnings compare with those of the largerRoman population, and what would their payments have bought at the time? For instance,

when Giulio Mancini, Caravaggio's early biographer, reports with dismay that the artist, newlysettled in Rome, was paid only 1 1/2 scudi for his Boy Bitten by a Lizard and only 8 scudi forhis Fortune-Teller5-an account invariably cited in the literature but without analysis-what didthose sums mean? As I hope to show, notwithstanding their frequent complaints aboutmoney and the post-Romantic notion of the starving artist coping with life from a garret, thepainters who established a reputation in Rome, including the protobohemian Caravaggio,belonged-or, if they knew how to manage their money, should have belonged-to theeconomic elite.To seek a conclusion by analyzing data sampled from payments to various artists in TheGenius of Rome can be justified on two accounts, regardless of the economic variablesmentioned below. First, most of the leading painters in the papal capital from the time ofCaravaggio and the Carracci until the election of Urban VIII in 1623 were represented in theexhibition, even if their assistants, other minor painters, and the failed hopefuls whodisappeared from record, of course, were not. Hence this essay, conceived as a bozzetto forcorrection and enlargement, is limited to successful painters at work in early-seventeenth-century Rome.6Second, the period from around 1590 to 1623 saw relative economic stability in Italy. Itcoincided with a leveling off of growth and inflation and preceded a gradual but seriouseconomic decline due to weaknesses in Italy's export markets, the availability of lessexpensive foreign goods, especially textiles, stiff maritime competition, foreign protectionism,high labor costs, and resistance to technological change.7 But just as Rome's economysuffered less than the maritime, textile, and agricultural economies of Venice, Genoa,Florence, and Naples,8 so Rome's artists remained in demand because, as of yet, therewere no substitutes for their high-quality goods. Thus, for this study-in-progress it is fair tosay that both prices and wages in the city, like its population of about 110,000, essentiallyheld steady from the 1590s to the 1620s.Prior to discussing paintings and prices, not just of pictures but also of bread and eggs, itshould be stressed that Rome's economy was unusual, given that it neither produced normanufactured many goods (and therefore was less vulnerable to the economic pressures justmentioned). The papal city was instead more dependent on luxury services provided byartists and artisans (particularly jewelers and goldsmiths), booksellers, tailors, hotel keepers,and, especially, bankers and the legal profession, including notaries, and many winemerchants and prostitutes, too.9 Nor were Rome's residents typical. Nearly 60 percent weremale, about half of whom worked in a trade or profession.10 In 1603 there were 1,241 priestsand 4,512 monks and nuns living in the city, 5.5 percent of the total population.11Pilgrims and tourists added considerably to the number of residents. More than a half millionpilgrims traveled to Rome during the Jubilee of 1600, five times the city's permanentpopulation.12 Not only did they make charitable donations and spend money on goods andservices, but also their periodic stays prompted costly public works. Another thirty thousandtourists visited the city annually, supporting an unusually large number of hotels.13 In 1622,Rome's residents and visitors could buy from 5,600 shops that employed twenty-four

thousand of the city's inhabitants, among which (in 1625) were sixteen "rivenditori di colori,"that is, sellers of pigments.14Dominating this economic activity was the court of the Church, with its wealthy Curia andextended bureaucracy, which formed the backbone of the client-based, or demand-driven,patronage system. As Giovanni Bottero put it in 1588, would Rome "not be more like a desertthan a city if the Pope held not his residence there? . . . If he . . . spent not a great part of therevenues of the Church?"15 Furthermore, the monies of the clerical bureaucracy in thesixteenth century "exceeded, perhaps even doubled, the monies directly controlled by thepapal central government."16 In 1571 the combined revenue from benefices of the College ofCardinals amounted to a staggering million gold scudi.17 During his papacy (1605-21), PaulV spent more than 1,200,000 scudi on just four building projects: St. Peter's, the Vatican andQuirinal palaces, and the Pauline Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore. That was the equivalent ofhalf the total annual papal income of 2,500,000 scudi.18It is important to bear such sums in mind, as well as the financial benefits of nepotism andthe nonhereditary structure of the Church, which significantly increased the distribution ofwealth. Time and again artists were dependent, directly or indirectly, on the families whosefortunes were linked to the papal court.19 They profited from an exceptionally high demandfor art in Rome, thanks to a combination of available money, the need for imagery to supportthe intensified cult of Mary and the saints after the Council of Trent, and extensiveopportunities for decoration-more than fifty churches, fifty palaces, and twenty villas hadbeen built or remodeled in the city during the sixteenth century.20 By 1630, there were someone hundred religious houses.21Prices in Rome typically were quoted in gold or silver scudi or their fractions (a gold scudowas worth about 1.3 times a silver scudo during the period under consideration), althoughactual payments frequently took the form of goods or a combination of goods and cash. Foruniformity, the silver scudo romano, which was divided into 10 giuli and 100 baiocchi andcontained about thirty-two grams of silver, is used throughout this essay (its value against thegold scudo declined approximately 14 percent from around 1590 until 1625).22Estimating the annual incomes of laborers is problematic because their wages often wereseasonal, making it difficult to determine how many days an agricultural or building worker(those for whom we have the best data) was employed. For comparative purposes I havetaken 250 days of annual work as a model, though it might err by being too high, given theinevitability of bad weather, slack demand, and the large number of holidays at the time (in1595 in Lombardy, for example, there were 96 holy days a year).23Many of the issues of concern here were raised by Peter Paul Rubens in a letter he sent tothe duke of Mantua's secretary in mid-1606, wherein he complained about money. He saidthat, while he had received his stipend from the duke for his first four months in Rome,now the time has passed, and the salary is already in arrears for four more months. . . . I begyou to intercede for me before His Most Serene Highness, so that it may please him tocontinue the same favor towards me. Then I can carry on my studies without having to turnelsewhere for resources-which would not be lacking in Rome.

Rubens's monthly allowance was 25 scudi. Four months later the artist wrote again,expressing his dismay that the duke wanted him to return to Mantua right away. That wasimpossible, he explained,because of some important works which . . . I was forced to accept out of pure necessity,after having devoted all the summer to the study of art. For I could not furnish and suitablymaintain a house with two servants for the period of one year in Rome on the mere 140crowns [scudi] which I have received from Mantua during my entire absence."Therefore," he went on to say, "when the finest and most splendid opportunity in all Romepresented itself, my ambition urged me to avail myself of the chance. It is the high altar of thenew church of the Priests of the Oratory, called Sta. Maria in Vallicella," or the ChiesaNuova.24The fathers of the Chiesa Nuova had been offered 300 scudi by the papal banker JacomoSerra to help fund the commission, whose total budget was 450 scudi, but Serra made theproviso that Rubens be chosen, or his gift might be withdrawn. Probably to show the padriwhat he could do, Rubens painted the picture now in Berlin.25Rubens got the job, but with the understanding that he would donate 200 scudi to the church.It was further agreed that he would pay for the materials, and that after the work wascompleted two experts would decide if he deserved a bonus. As Michael Jaffe noted,Rubens's "readiness to advance toward a contract on such a basis is the measure of hisdetermination to obtain the commission."26The agreement was revised, with Rubens's donation reduced to 50 scudi, so he stood tomake 400. But the finished altarpiece, evaluated by the experts at 800 scudi, was rejected forcomplex reasons.27 It meant that Rubens had to redo the altarpiece at his own expense andadd two lateral paintings. For those he received an additional 200 scudi each, which waslucky, since the new altarpiece was evaluated as being worth only 350 scudi instead of 800,thus deserving no bonus. The artist at least was excused from contributing 50 scudi to thechurch.Rubens nevertheless made more money than he had in 1601-2 when, recently arrived inItaly, he painted three pictures for S. Croce in Gerusalemme and was paid no more than 200scudi. Evidently, by the time of the Chiesa Nuova commission his reputation commandedbetter pay-or, simply, more money was available. For his contemporaneous altarpiece of1608 in Fermo, he received 200 scudi. Four years earlier, the much more famous FedericoZuccaro had negotiated a deal with the same congregation. He said that his altarpiece of theMartyrdom of Saint Lawrence should cost 600 scudi, but he proposed giving half of his fee asa contribution, although in the end he also settled for 200 scudi.28What can such documents tell us about the financial life of artists in early seicento Rome andtheir socioeconomic status? What would the 200 scudi that Rubens or Zuccaro earned perpicture buy? From what perspective did the twenty-nine-year-old Rubens complain that 140scudi a year was inadequate for his expenses, which included two servants?To have a domestic servant (in distinction to studio assistants) was a sign of financialsuccess, as is evident from the testimony at the trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of

Artemisia Gentileschi. Orazio Gentileschi's neighbor told the court, "I know that he never hashad a servant, that Gentileschi was truly a poor man [so che non ha tenuto mai servitore cheveramente il Gentileschi era povero huomo]," in part, it seems, because whenever he hadmoney he spent it lavishly.29 Fewer than half of the families in Florence in 1551 had anyservants at all; 23 percent had one servant; 18 percent had two to five; and 5 percent hadmore than five.30 To judge by that measure, Rubens enjoyed an elevated style of living, at aluxurious level for a single man. Artemisia Gentileschi also employed two servants in Romein 1623, but they were probably more a necessity for a separated, working mother. Twoyears later one of her servants went to court claiming 30 scudi in back pay, althoughArtemisia got off with a 20 scudi settlement.31Rent in Italian cities was high in relation to wages, resulting in terrible crowding of the needy.About 15 percent of Rome's population was miserably destitute and dependent on charity forsurvival.32 As many as two-thirds of Italian heads of households, including those workerswho lived in prosperous cities like Rome, had to resort to charity sometime during theirlives.33 A writer observed in 1601, "In Rome one sees only beggars, and they are sonumerous that it is impossible to walk the streets without having them around."34It is not known how much Rubens paid for rent, but the cost of living in Rome probablyjustified his complaint. Around the time of his letters, the Gentileschi's tenant and faithlesschaperon of Artemisia, Tuzia, with her husband spent 18 scudi a year for just two roomsupstairs in the house where the Gentileschi lived in the parish of S. Spirito in Sassia.35 In1609, Adam Elsheimer signed a lease for lodgings in the Campo Marzio that cost 60 scudiannually.36 A few years later, the Borghese gave Guido Reni, in addition to his monthlystipend of 9 scudi plus bread, wine, and firewood, an allowance of 50 scudi a year for rent.37These figures correspond well with summaries based on notarial data. They indicate that rentin the cheaper quarters of Rome was about 12 scudi a year, a bit more in the Via Giulia, from25 to 30 scudi in the area of the Via della Scrofa, and in the fancy zone-then as now, thestreets near the Trinita del Monti (Condotti, Frattina, Babuino, the Corso), where many artistslived-rents were about 35 to 40 scudi a year, peaking at 100.38Like rent, food was not cheap in Rome.39 In 1613 a thirty-eight-year-old merchant spent 70scudi a year to eat.40 Around 1600, wheat cost more in the papal city than almost anywhereelse in Europe, 4 to 5 baiocchi per kilogram. Adult wheat consumption was about a rubbio(roughly eight bushels) a year, meaning that an adult's annual expense on bread alone cameto about 10 scudi.41 Pasta was a luxury food, costing three times as much as ordinarybread.42 Eggs fetched a baiocco a dozen in 1600. Ordinary wine was priced at 3 to 4baiocchi a liter, the equivalent of 20 percent of a field worker's daily wage, and due toscarcity during Jubilee years its price, like that of hotel rooms and bread, skyrocketed.Nonetheless, per capita wine consumption in Rome was high, about two hundred liters ayear.43 In 1613 a pair of shoes cost 50 baiocchi, or two days' earnings for a worker. Fishcould be expensive: 24 baiocchi a kilo in 1615, the same price as for a pair of cocks. Beefand lamb were cheaper, roughly 9 baiocchi a kilo in the mid-1620s,44 maybe because, asMichel de Montaigne complained, in Rome "their mutton is no good and is held in scant

esteem," whereas "fish are less abundant than in France . . . pike especially is no good at all,and they leave it for the people," while barbel and dorados were excellent and costly.45Such prices were dauntingly high for the great majority of Romans.46 During 1605-7, a fieldworker made between 15 and 22 baiocchi a day, or about 50 scudi a year; a muratore, orskilled mason, earned 35 baiocchi a day in 1624, that is, about 85 scudi annually; in 1627 atailor made half as much; a soldier at Castel Sant'Angelo, like a Swiss guard, made 48 scudia year, though an extra 15 to 20 percent should be added onto laborers' wages to take intoaccount their supplemental food rations.47Thus, an ordinary worker spent roughly three-quarters of his income on food, of which a thirdwas for bread, leaving little for rent, clothing, and heat.48 To buy an easel painting by acontemporary artist of standing was beyond consideration, for it would have cost more than ayear's income.For the rich, on the other hand, housing, food, and clothing, like art, were traditional signs ofstatus. In 1576-77, 34 percent of the Odescalchi family's expenditures on consumer goodswent for food, 27 percent for housing, 10 percent for servants' wages, and 8 percent forclothing. Strikingly, despite their high style of living, they were able to save 80 percent of theirincome.49During the years represented by The Genius of Rome, the leading cardinal-patrons of artwere very wealthy. Odoardo Farnese, for example, in 1593 had an income of 60,000 scudi; in1600 Pietro Aldobrandini, from his annual income of 40,000 scudi, spent 5,000 scudi on onebanquet for fifteen hundred guests; as soprintendente dello stato ecclesiastico, ScipioneBorghese was paid 405 scudi a month, and that was just the start of what he could reap aspapal nephew. In 1612 he earned 140,000 scudi; from 1605 to 1633 he acquired anastonishing 6.5 million scudi. Paul V gave his family more than a million scudi simply asgifts.50Certainly, not all cardinals were that rich (one estimate of the income required for a cardinalliving in Rome during the first decade of the seventeenth century was about 8,000 scudi ayear),51 although just the annual ecclesiastical incomes of nearly one hundred late sixteenth-and seventeenth-century cardinals tabulated by Richard Ferraro average more than 20,000scudi. Even relatively "poor" cardinals-Cesare Baronio, and Felice Peretti before becomingpope-enjoyed incomes of about 5,000 scudi a year, while Antonio Barberini the Elder,although a Capuchin, had an annual allowance of more than 30,000 scudi. Some verywealthy Roman merchants also earned as much as 40,000 to 50,000 scudi a year.52Where, in this broad picture, do the successful painters of Rome fit? When Mancini wrotethat Caravaggio received only 1 1/2 scudi for his Boy Bitten by a Lizard and 8 scudi for hisFortune-Teller, the author wants us to be shocked at such low prices. They were, but only ifcompared with Caravaggio's later earnings: 400 scudi for his two lateral paintings in theContarelli Chapel and another 150 for its altarpiece; 300 for his two pictures in the CerasiChapel; 125 scudi for The Taking of Christ; 150 scudi for The Supper of Emmaus (London);probably 280 for The Death of the Virgin; and 400 for The Seven Acts of Mercy. Apparently,he earned his highest fees, 1,000 scudi, for his Nativity and Resurrection of Lazarus in

Messina. He reportedly turned down an offer of 6,000 scudi to fresco a loggia for the Doria inGenoa.53By different standards, however, even those early sums of 1 1/2 and 8 scudi were by nomeans meager. Fernand Braudel estimates that in the Mediterranean economy of thesixteenth century, less than 20 scudi a year was a subsistence wage; between 20 and 40 asmall income; and from 40 to 150 quite "reasonable."54 A family of five in Rome around 1600could live modestly on 90 scudi a year.55 So if one imagines that those two early paintingsby Caravaggio represented roughly a month's work, they would translate into over 100 scudia year, a very "reasonable" income by prevailing standards, especially for a young singleperson, though the cost of making paintings, as discussed below, must be taken intoaccount.Fees paid to other artists of note, no matter how varied, sustain the conclusion that they wereextremely high when compared with what most Romans were making. In 1603, for example,Pomarancio received 200 scudi for a painting at S. Gregorio Magno, which, in view of thepayments previously cited, seems to have been a typical rate for altarpieces in Rome. Adecade later, Paul V Borghese tried to satisfy one of the most temperamental of artists,Guido Reni, by paying him 40 scudi a week to work for him. At the time, Domenichino earned240 scudi for his first altarpiece, the Last Communion of Saint Jerome, dated 1614.Some payments were significantly higher, whether because of the size and complexity of awork, the artist's demand, an appraiser's judgment, or the budget at hand. For his Martyrdomof Saint Agnes, thanks to Reni's evaluation, Domenichino was paid 1,200 scudi. In 1615 thefamous and aging Cavaliere d'Arpino earned 750 scudi for his Coronation of the Virgin in theChiesa Nuova. Mancini, in fact, remarked on d'Arpino's wealth, especially his fancy clothesand sumptuous studio.56 In the mid-1620s, when the Congregation of St. Peter's hired Renito paint an altarpiece for its basilica, it agreed to the unusual terms of a 400-scudi downpayment plus 300 scudi monthly for four months, making a commitment of 1,600 scudi.57Federico Barocci, like Reni, was one of the most expensive painters in Rome. For hisEucharist of 1603-7, he received 1,500 scudi. That high fee undoubtedly was influenced byits many figures, since, at the same point in his career (1604), the artist accepted 300 scudifor a much simpler Crucifixion (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Barocci had foresight (andprobably tactical cunning) when it came to money. In 1590, writing about a more elaborateCrucifixion (Genoa Cathedral), he said that he planned to put aside his fee of more than1,000 scudi for his old age and for taking care of his ailments, which showed no signs ofgoing away.58Some of the Caravaggisti were very well paid, too, even those who specialized in modest-sized easel pictures with half-length figures. During the years shortly before his death in1622, Bartolomeo Manfredi was receiving from 200 to 400 scudi for his paintings. That ismuch more than Nicolas Poussin, newly arrived in Rome, earned in 1626 for his ambitiousDeath of Germanicus. But according to Giovan Pietro Bellori, Poussin, with numerous better-paid later sales, accumulated 15,000 scudi. While that was a lot of money, it pales incomparison with the 100,000 scudi that Pietro da Cortona left on his death, or with Gian

Lorenzo Bernini's huge estate of 400,000 scudi.59Other examples of payments could be cited,60 but they would not alter the picture that isforming: most painters who established a reputation should have been quite well off in Rome-at least if they did not have extraordinary expenses and knew how to budget and invest theirmoney, such as in the affordable, generally secure, and readily liquid bonds called monti.61Moreover, unlike Roman shopkeepers, whose inventories often were worth less than theoutstanding debts due from their clients (because many transactions were on credit), artistshad to invest relatively little in their own goods, so bankruptcy should have been remote. Still,in one of her many letters complaining about financial difficulties, Artemisia Gentileschi toldDon Antonio Ruffo that because her daughter's recent marriage had been so terribly costly, "Ihave very great need for work . . . I am bankrupt [son fallita]."62For most of the painters under consideration it is difficult to estimate their annual earnings,even just from their art, because fees for so many of the preserved works are unrecorded,not to mention those for what is lost. One exception is Guercino, whose finances areunusually well documented, thanks to his detailed account book, although it had not beenstarted when he was in Rome (1621-23). During the years it covers, 1629 until his death in1666, his annual gross income from art fluctuated, peaking briefly at about 4,000 scudi ayear, falling at times to 1,000 scudi, and averaging 1,500. During the 1630s, he spent 57percent of his income on running his unusually complex household and extended-familybusiness, for which expenses amounted to about 840 scudi a year. Even in the 1640s, whenGuercino spent large sums on real estate-including 4,250 scudi on his house in Bologna-hehad a 20 percent surplus.63Guercino's annual income can be compared with what Domenichino earned from his art atmidcareer. Only a rough estimate is possible, yet the result is remarkably consistent withDomenichino's later average annual income of 2,000 scudi from his commission in theCappella del Tesoro di S. Gennaro in Naples (1631-41), during which period he wascontractually bound to take on no other work (yet occasionally did). For the decade of 1616to 1625, which he spent in Rome, Fano, and Bologna, documented payments for oil paintingstotal about 3,000 scudi. He earned another 8,000 scudi from fresco work during the sameperiod. How much more he was paid for an additional three altarpieces, three decorativecommissions, and approximately thirty easel paintings is unknown, but a very conservativeguess would be another 3,750 scudi, resulting in an average per annum income for theperiod 1616-25 of nearly 1,500 scudi.64Known payments to Caravaggio span the last ten years of his life and total about 4,400scudi, for seventeen pictures. Approximately forty works from that period are widely acceptedas genuine.65 If one takes 250 scudi as the average recorded payment, the artist would haveearned about 10,000 scudi over ten years, just for the extant paintings. Of course, this is avery crude estimate, but the results are provocatively in line with Guercino's andDomenichino's average annual earnings.Whether one felt rich or poor in Rome, like anywhere else, naturally was relative to one'ssocial status, profession, sex, and age. Some ordinary Roman residents who said that they

were neither rich nor poor ("non sono ne ricco ne povero"), or maybe poorer than rich ("sonopiu povero, che ricco"), estimated that their total assets were worth anywhere from 400 toabout 1,000 scudi, which is little in comparison with the artists' estates mentioned above orthe annual earnings of Guercino, Domenichino, and Caravaggio, or with Giovanni Lanfranco,as noted below. An income of 1,000 scudi was considered adequate for a Roman gentleman,while three to four thousand a year allowed a nobleman "to live an eminently dignifiedexistence."66If his neighbor was right in saying that Orazio Gentileschi was not well-off in 1612 (later inEngland Orazio complained he was short of money at a time when he was handsomelypaid), Adam Elsheimer was downright poor by comparison, though it is difficult to know towhat degree he simply failed to manage his affairs. Artemisia Gentileschi, too, was ever inneed, as was Lanfranco, yet he certainly earned a great deal of money and lived well. In arare statement from an artist about his cumulative payments, Lanfranco boasted in a letter of1641 that he had made more than 30,000 ducats in seven and a half years in Naples-largelyfrom fresco projects-which was the equivalent of 3,000 scudi a year.67In 1611, shortly after Elsheimer died in Rome, Rubens wrote, "I pray that God will forgiveSignor Adam his sin of sloth . . . with his own hands he could have built up a great fortuneand made himself respected by all the world."68 The biographer Joachim von Sandrart alsosays that Elsheimer "was poor although he received high payments for his works. . . . he . . .ran into debts . . . [and] was put into the Debtor's prison. . . ."69 Actually, many Romans weresimilarly jailed. In the early 1580s, 6 percent of the population passed some time in debtor'sprison.70 In light of Elsheimer's circumstances, his drawing of an artist's studio appearspoignantly autobiographical (Fig. 1). It shows an artist unable to work because of poverty,which is graphically depicted in his attitude of despair, the hungry and naked children, andthe empty cupboard.71Elsheimer, however, seems to have been an exception. Without saying so, Mancini revealsthat artists indeed could be very well off when he reported that a good painter could earnthree to six scudi a day. If one averages that sum and multiplies it by only five days a weekfor fifty weeks, it translates into well over 1,000 scudi a year, just what I estimated for someartists mentioned above. That was ten to twenty times as much as a mason made and a lotmore than the 300 scudi a university professor might have been paid in a year, or the 216scudi a doctor aboard a papal galley collected.72 The going minimum rate for an altarpiece innew St. Peter's was 800 scudi, the same as a canon of the basilica received annually.Painters' incomes apparently overshadowed those of musicians, at least to judge from the 72scudi a year that Girolamo Frescobaldi was paid in 1608 when hired as an organist for St.Peter's, although by the 1630s he could afford to pay 60 scudi a year for an apartment for hisfamily and a servant. At the time, musicians working for the Barberini were paid anywherebetween 3 and 15 scudi a month, though, like Frescobaldi as an organist, they probably hadadditional income from other jobs around town.73 Had one of the Barberini's musicianswanted to buy even a copy of a painting by Caravaggio, it might have taken a month's salary,for Mancini relates that such copies at the time cost 15 scudi apiece.74

Little attention has been paid to the cost of making paintings, which affected artists' netearnings. Typically, only ultramarine blue, like scaffolding for frescoes, was negotiated apartfrom an artist's fee, with the patron paying extra for its use as it was so expensive. In Romein 1631, it went for as much as 50 scudi an ounce, which tallies with statements by twoEnglish miniaturists. Around 1600 Nicholas Hilliard wrote that the best ultramarine cost over11 pounds an ounce, and in 1635 John Hoskins said it fetched 10 pounds an ounce.75 In anitemized list of the money that Orazio Gentileschi had received from King Charles I between1627 and 1629 for "colors, blue, canvases, and models," the "azzurro oltramarino" singledout cost eight times as much as all of the other pigments put together. Nor is it surprising thatsome of Artemisia Gentileschi's goods were sequestered in Florence because she had notpaid for one and a half ounces of ultramarine she had been given for painting a Hercules forthe grand duke of Tuscany.76 Like all painters, she undoubtedly knew how to makeultramarine go a long way by mixing it with white and glazing it over cheaper pigments. Still,a large altarpiece such as Orazio's Circumcision (II Gesu, Ancona) might have needed threeounces of the precious mineral.77Orazio did not say what he spent on linseed oil, which he could have bought for five or sixpence a pint, or on his canvas and stretchers, but they were not very costly in relation toartists' fees. Rubens, for instance, by using a recycled stretcher for his altarpiece in Fermomeasuring about 10 by 6 1/2 feet (as mentioned above, he was paid 200 scudi for thepainting), spent only 8 giuli; even a new stretcher would have cost only 2 scudi.78 Otherstretchers were more expensive, whether because of the quality of the wood or thecarpenter. For Valentin's slightly bigger Allegory of Italy of 1627-28, the Barberini spent 8 1/2scudi, which corresponds to what a carpenter was paid for comparable stretchers foraltarpieces in St. Peter's by Poussin, Caroselli, Passignano, and Spadarino, amongothers.79The canvas and stretcher for Guercino's late, equally large Virgin and Child Appearing toSaint Jerome proved to be a comparative bargain, costing only 4 1/2 scudi. For two otheraltarpieces measuring about 10 by 6 1/2 feet each, Guercino was paid 320 scudi in 1632 andgiven another 40 scudi for the ultramarine and canvas.80 Valentin, for his much more modestSamson, was paid only 25 scudi in 1630, with 5 more to cover the cost of the canvas andpigments.81 In Venice that year, some canvas cost only a fourth of a scudo a meter.82In light of this and kindred data, I would estimate that when painters personally paid forstretchers, canvas, and pigments-ultramarine excepted-they spent no more than about 5 to10 scudi a picture, depending on its size and complexity.Artists had additional, indirect costs, notably, the overhead of running a studio. When OrazioGentileschi itemized his expenses in England, he said he had not kept track of the cost ofhiring male and female models ("non ce n'e conto preciso").83 Bernini remarked that a goodmodel in his youth could earn 15 scudi a month, a handsome sum for semiskilled labor.84 Inone of her letters of 1649 to Don Antonio Ruffo, Artemisia Gentileschi insisted with regard toa pair of pictures, "I want five hundred ducats for both . . . these are paintings with nudefigures requiring very expensive female models [figure ignude et femine di grandissimo

stipendio], which is a big headache. When I find good ones, they fleece me. . . ."85 Twenty-five years later, it was questioned whether, at 8 scudi a month, it was worth the cost of hiringa model for the few students studying at the Florentine academy in Rome. Such concernsshow how cost-effective making replicas must have been for an artist like Orazio Gentileschi,who reportedly used one model for forty days, three to four times a week, to paint a SaintJerome.86

Models and the expense of any unusual props aside, the cost of running a painter's shop inearly seventeenth-century Italy probably was not great, given that an artist's lodgingstypically doubled as a studio and that assistants' salaries were low, at least to judge from thesmall wage an apprentice, Mario Trotta, received for assisting Orazio Gentileschi and Tassi.In 1612 Trotta testified, "I have worked with them at Monte Cavallo this winter on a dailybasis and they gave me three giuli a day [ho lavorato a giornate con loro a Monte Cavalloquest'inverno et mi davano tre giulii il giorno]."87 Similar testimony comes from an otherwiseunknown Spaniard, Cristoforo Orlandi, who in 1598 arrived in Rome on horseback with 20scudi in his pocket to pursue a career in painting. After working awhile for a "painter in theCampo Marzio known as Vittorio [pittore in Campo Marzo chiamato Vittorio]," he was takenon by the established painter Antiveduto Gramatica at the rate of 25 baiocchi a day. A fewyears later Orlandi made 8 scudia month working independently. In 1606, he stated that forthe past three years he had been living in the service of a cardinal-patron for a monthlystipend of 4 scudi, plus 1 giulio a day for food.88What determined the price of a painting?89 On what basis did the experts evaluate Rubens'swork for the Chiesa Nuova or did Reni decide that Domenichino's altarpiece was worth 1,200scudG Mancini is explicit on the appropriate criteria, although he emphasizes that a painting

cannot have a definite value because, for the same object, someone who is rich would paymore than a collector of modest means, just as someone who is in need would sell at a lowerprice. The latter indeed happened regarding Elsheimer's masterpiece, his house altar withstories of the True Cross. In 1612, two years after Elsheimer died, Agostino Tassi advisedthe grand duke of Tuscany to buy the work, which he had seen in the home of a Spaniard inRome. Although the painter Ludovico Cigoli thought it was not good enough for the grandduke's collection, negotiations continued. Seven years later the grand duke was informedthat the Spaniard was in financial trouble and now willing to accept less than the 3,000 scudihe had hoped to get. By the end of the year the deal was closed, for an unknown butpresumably lowered price.90Mancini writes that a painting's value or price, which he says the buyer rather than the artistreally determines, is based on the talent and fame of the artist as well as the relativeexcellence of the particular work; on the artist's investment of time in learning his trade and inmaking the object under consideration (hence, its size and the number of figures counted);and on its materials. For earlier pictures, their age, rarity, condition, and a dealer's expensescontributed to their evaluation.91 While all of this sounds very modern, Mancini curiouslyomitted a conspicuous factor, subject matter, whose significance undoubtedly increased onthe secondary market after an artist's reputation and demand for his work had been shapedmore nicely. Mancini also stressed that the quality of the patron is significant, as many artistsdiscovered, for better or worse.Worse for Annibale Carracci, whose meager payment by the notoriously stingy OdoardoFarnese for his years of labor in the Farnese Gallery was such a disappointment that itcaused his physical breakdown. But better for Guido Reni, who cleverly manipulated hismarket by controlling supply and demand. According to his view, patrons could decide howmuch they wanted to spend by choosing from among painters of quite inferior quality ("pittoripiu bassi"), who deserved no more than about 2 or 3 scudi per life-size figure; an ordinaryartist ("pittore ordinario"), who commanded about 15 scudi a figure; and the special("straordinario") painter, like himself, who was rewarded according to the excellence of thefinished work.92Reni knew how to profit by not setting prices on his paintings and relying instead on themagnificence of his wealthy patrons, who, after seeing the works completed, would pay himmore than he would have asked for.93 Guercino, on the other hand, typically prepriced hispictures on the basis of how many figures they contained-100 scudi per full-length figure, 50per half-length, and 25 for heads. In a revealing letter to Don Antonio Ruffo, Guercinocautioned his patron, who did not want to pay the full price for an entire figure, that for his 80scudi, "you'll get a bit more than a half figure."94Occasionally painters turned some of their work over to dealers, whose markups could besubstantial. After settling in Bologna, Reni once stooped to working for what Carlo CesareMalvasia calls a "shrewd old man" on an hourly basis: 10 scudi an hour, four hours a day,during which time he would paint two pictures that would be resold for 100 scudi apiece,netting the dealer 80 scudi each.95 In Rome, Mancini learned that Gerrit van Honthorst "is

well paid, but making room for those who buy to resell and do well with their ownbusiness."96 Another foreigner, Jusepe de Ribera, was in Rome about the same time.Mancini writes of him that, "having come to Rome, he worked for a daily wage for those whohave workshops and sell paintings through the labors of similar young men." But his looseway of living ran up such big debts that Ribera had to get out of town. "In truth," Mancinicontinues, "one could say he acted slightly in bad faith, because when he wanted to work heearned five or six scudi a day, so that if his expenses had been normal, he could quickly andeasily have paid everyone."97At times an artist might adjust his expectations because of rivalry. Malvasia relates that someof Annibale's first commissions had been offered to Ludovico, but that Ludovico found theirfees unworthy. He passed the work on to his younger cousin, "not so much to giveencouragement and the small financial benefit . . . but to see to it that these commissionswould be a product issuing from their own workshop, so that they would not fall, as did manyothers, to their rival Procaccini, and to Fontana, Calvaert, and Passerotti."98Around 1595, the middleman who was negotiating the price of Ludovico's hugeTransfiguration complained that the Carracci, who usually had been charging only 60 or 70scudi for their pictures, had raised their prices to bolster their reputation and now asked for200 scudi. Therefore, he turned to their competitor Prospero Fontana, who said that, whilehis usual fee was only half as much, he would take the job at any price. Fontana'scompetitive discount notwithstanding, the patron finally gave in to the Carracci.99One more example concerns Ludovico, who in 1600 demanded 200 scudi for his painting theBirth of the Baptist. The patron hesitated, whereupon Ludovico's former student Guido Renioffered to paint the altarpiece for half that price. Not to be outdone, Ludovico countered thathe would match Reni's figure and throw in a small picture for the patron's sister, who wasresponsible for making the decision. Ludovico got the job.100Reni was unusually sensitive and competitive about issues of money. "Why is there thisscreaming all of the time about how long I take and how high my prices are?" Malvasiareports him demanding. "Can one so quickly and easily get a half-figure from Caravaggio?One pays less for it than one of mine, when in effect he wants twice as much? I did theCrucifixion of St. Peter at the Tre Fontane for 70 miserable scudi but didn't Cardinal Scipionegive [Caravaggio] 150?"101Ludovico prefigured Reni in knowing how to maximize and raise prices. He "taught all thosewho came after him to get well paid"102-but evidently not his cousin Annibale. Malvasia feltthat the 125 scudi Annibale got for his Madonna of Saint Luke of 1592 was inadequate,though a better reward than the load of grain and crate of grapes he received the next yearfor his Resurrection.103 Malvasia understood that Annibale's brother Agostino, like Ludovico,was scudi-savvy, and concluded that had Agostino been in Rome to help, Annibale wouldhave been better paid by Odoardo Farnese, for Agostino "knew how to deal with courtiersand how to stand his ground with princes."104

As a young man Francesco Albani was financially independent and could risk losing the dukeof Mantua's patronage by asking for 100 scudi a month, plus expenses and fees for hisassistants, on top of payment for individual works.105 Remarking on Albani's privileged birth,Mancini reported that the painter did not have to rely on daily wages for a living and thereforehe produced less, although he felt that what Albani completed was "of great perfection." Hethen posed the question: Is it better for an artist to be "comfortable and rich or poor andneedy [che sia commodo et ricco o ver povero et bisognioso] for his glory and for him to be ofuse to the world"? He decided that being comfortable and rich was preferable becausequality, which he linked to good pay and adequate time, is more important than quantity, aconsequence of need.106Elsheimer undoubtedly agreed. In his drawing The Artist in Despair (Fig. 1), he depicted aputto (at right) with one arm raised and winged, the other arm weighed down by a stone anddisabled. The image was taken from Andrea Alciati's emblem book (Fig. 2), where it carriesthe motto "Poverty hinders the greatest talents from advancing," glossed in its accompanyinglegend: "With my talent I could be soaring among the highest peaks, if envious poverty didnot pull me down."107 Regardless of which edition of Alciati Elsheimer consulted,108 thegrim message is clear: poverty clips the wings of artistic creativity.True or not, from a painter's perspective it is a smart marketing claim, as ArtemisiaGentileschi and probably every artist knew. In 1649 she bluntly wrote to her most importantpatron, Don Antonio Ruffo, "I can tell you for certain that the higher the price, the harder will Istrive to make a painting that will please Your Most Illustrious Lordship."109FootnoteNotes1. Papers on the economics of Italian Renaissance art far outnumber those on the ItalianBaroque, just as the Dutch art market of the 17th century has been studied in much greaterdetail than Italian painting of the same period. see, as representative recent publications withextensive bibliographies (further titles are cited below), Arnold Esch and Christoph Luitpold

Frommel, eds., Arte, committenza ed economia a Roma nelle corti del Rinascimento (1420-1530) (Turin: Einaudi, 1995); Michael North, ed., Economic History and the Arts (Cologne:Bohlau, 1996); Michael North and David Ormrod, eds., Art Markets in Europe, 1400-1800(Aldershot, Eng.: Ashgate, 1998); and, with slightly more attention to later Italian painting,Simonetta Cavaciocchi, ed., Economia e Arte: Secc. XIII-XVIII (Florence: Le Monnier, 2002),which was not yet available when this article went to press; and Marcello Fantoni, LouisaMatthew and Sara Matthews Grieco, eds., The Art Market in Italy (15th-17th Centuries)(Modena: Panini, in press). Two organizations are especially responsible for promoting thestudy of art and economics in Italy: the Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica"Francesco Datini" in Prato and ICARE (International Center for Art Economics), associatedwith the University of Venice, each of which sponsors conferences and publications.2. See Volker Reinhardt, "The Roman Art Market in the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies," in North and Ormrod (as in n. 1), 81-92, who argues that the broad-based systemof Roman nepotism, controlled by a narrow, wealthy upper class, shaped the buyer-based artmarket at a time when the middle class was very small. But also see Loredana Lorizzo, "IImercato dell'arte a Roma nel XVIIo secolo: 'Pittori bottegari' e 'rivenditori di quadri' neidocumenti dell'Archivio Storico dell'Accademia di San Luca," in Fantoni et al. (as in n. 1); Iam familiar only with an abstract of her paper.3. In the conference "The Art Market in Italy (15th-17th Centuries)" (see n. 1 above), fourteenpapers presented deal specifically with Florence, three with Venice, two each with Bolognaand Rome, and one with Naples. Christopher Marshall's research on Naples uncommonlyfocuses more on the artist than the patron. See his "'Senza il minimo scrupolo': Artists asDealers in Seventeenth-Century Naples," Journal of the History of Collections 12 (2000): 15-34; and idem, "Appagare il Pubblico: Public Exhibitions as Promotional Strategies in theWork of Luca Giordano," in Fantoni et al. (as in n. 1). Aspects of 17th-century patronage inVenice are discussed in the recent books by Linda Borean, La quadreria di Agostino eGiovan Donate Correggio nel collezionismo veneziano del seicenlo (Udine: Forum, 2000);and Isabella Cecchini, Quadri e commercio a Venezia durante il seicento (Venice: Marsilio,2000). For a study devoted to one artist's wealth (which I have read only in abstract form),see Rob Hatfield, "The High End: Michelangelo's Income," also in Fantoni et al.4. Francis Haskell, Painters and Patrons (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963).5. Mancini, 140. See below for further discussion of the value of these purportedly lowpayments.6. Beverly Brown, ed., The Genius of Rome, 1592-1623, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts,London, 2001. For discussion of the important painters excluded from the exhibition, see myreview, Richard E. Spear, "Classicism in the Shadows," Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 16,2001, 18-19. Aversion of this essay was presented at the conference "The Birth of theBaroque: An Artist's Rome," held at the National Gallery, London, Mar. 23-24, 2001, on theoccasion of the exhibition at the Royal Academy; it is preparatory to a much broader book-length study on the socioeconomic status of artists in Baroque Italy that Philip Sohm and Iare editing and will address many questions unexamined here, including the economics of

fresco work.7. Domenico Sella, Italy in the Seventeenth Century (London: Longman, 1997), 35-41.8. Ibid., chap. 2, provides a good overview of the Italian economy, with copious references,though Rome is conspicuously neglected. Richard Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand forArt in Italy, 1300-1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 29, points out thateconomic decline did not necessarily result in a loss of wealth or a decrease in itsaccumulation.9. See Delumeau, 416-32, on Rome's prostitutes (he states that an ordinary prostitutecharged anywhere from 1 to 4 scudi, while a deluxe prostitute was paid as much as 12 scudi,without clarification of what such distinctions meant with regard to courtesans, who typicallywere not paid set fees).10. Ibid., 422; and Ago, 6.11. Cipolla, 68. Only Bologna had a higher percentage of clergy and religious (5.7 percent in1624), but there the proportion of monks and nuns to priests was much higher.12. See the rich study by Mario Romani, Pellegrini e viaggiatori nell'economia di Roma dalXIV al XVII secolo (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1948); as well as Delumeau, passim.13. Delumeau, 142, 186-87. In 1615, he reports, Rome had 360 hotels. The owner of themost famous one, the Orso, became so rich that he could leave his daughter a dowry of30,000 scudi (142). Ago, 8, gives the conflicting number of 120 hotels in the 1620s (and 652osterie).14. Ago, 6, 8.15. Giovanni Bottero, quoted in Laurie Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 27-28. Determining the budget of the Vaticanis a notoriously difficult problem; for the 17th century, see, among various studies, GeorgLutz, "Zur Papstfinanz von Klemens IX. bis Alexander VIII. (1667-1691)," Romische QuartalSchrift fur christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichle 73 (1973): 32-90, esp. thereferences in nn. 1-6.16. Peter Partner, Renaissance Rome, 1500-1559 (Berkeley: University of California Press,1976), 51. The fundamental study of Rome's late Renaissance economy remains Delumeau;also see Nussdorfer (as in n. 15), chap. 2.17. Partner (as in n. 16), 56; and Delumeau, 453.18. Delumeau, 765; and Frederick Hammond, Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1994), 4.19. See Wolfgang Reinhard, "Papal Power and Family Strategy in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries," in Princes, Patronage, and the Nobility, ed. Ronald G. Asch andAdolf M. Birke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 329-56; and Reinhardt (as in n. 2). Inhis richly documented thesis, Ferraro counts some five hundred titled and untitled nobleRoman families, 20 to 25 percent of whose mature males entered ecclesiastical careers (49-75, 142).20. The principal analysis of wealth and demand for art in Renaissance Italy is Goldthwaite(as in n. 8). See Delumeau, 258-61, 275-76, 358, regarding Rome's new and newly

remodeled buildings.21. A. D. Wright, The Early Modern Papacy: From the Council of Trent to the FrenchRevolution, 1564-1789 (Harlow, Eng.: Longman, 2000), 91.22. Ago, 198-201; Delumeau, 656-88; and, for the gold to silver ratio in Rome from 1560 to1670, Enrico Stumpo, Il capitale finanziario a Roma fra cinque e seicento (Milan: Giuffre,1985), 24-29. From around 1610 until the end of the century, silver was gradually devalued inEurope following a long period when the nominal prices of gold and silver rose at fairlysteady, similar rates. See Fernand Braudel and F. Spooner, "Prices in Europe from 1450 to1750," in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 4, The Economy of ExpandingEurope in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. E. E. Rich and C. H. Wilson(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 378-86.23. Cipolla, 75.24. Peter Paul Rubens, The letters of Peter Paul Rubens, Irans, and ed. Ruth Magurn(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955), 38-40, nos. 13, 14. Rubens's contractis published and analyzed by Michael Jaffe in Rubens and Italy (Oxford: Phaidon, 1977), 85-89, 118-19 n. 14. See, too, Hans Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, pt. 8,Saints, vol. 2 (London: Phaidon, 1973), 43-50, no. 109.25. Brown (as in n. 6), 356, no. 137.26. Jaffe (as in n. 24), 87.27. See the excellent summary of the reasons in Steven Ostrow, Art and Spirituality inCounter-Reformation Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 174-80.28. Jaffe (as in n. 24), 92-94, 119 n. 55.29. Patrizia Cavazzini, "Appendix 1: Documents Relating to the Trial of Agostino Tassi," inChristiansen and Mann, 442 (Oct. 21, 1612, fol. 111).30. Cipolla, 66.31. Christiansen and Mann, xvii.32. On the poor of Rome, see Delumeau, 403-16.33. Sella (as in n. 7), 79 n. 90, with further references.34. Camillo Fanned, Trattato de lutte l'opere pie. . . . (Rome, 1601), quoted in Cipolla, 12.35. Mary Garrard, Arlemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian BaroqueArt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 419.36. Keith Andrews, "The Elsheimer Inventory and Other Documents," Burlington Magazine114 (1972): 599. Late in 1580, Michel de Montaigne rented lodgings in the Campo Marzioopposite S. Lucia della Tinta for 20 scudi a month, in which he was "well accommodated withthree handsome bedrooms, dining room, larder, stable, and kitchen," plus a "cook and fire forthe kitchen," from his "Travel Journal," in The Complete Writings of Montaigne, trans. D.Frame (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), 936.37. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Fekina pittrice, ed. Giampietro Zanotti et al. (Bologna: Guidiall'Ancora, 1841), vol. 2, 14.38. Riccardo Bassani and Fiora Bellini, "La casa, le 'robbe,' lo studio del Caravaggio a Roma:Due documenti inediti del 1603 e del 1605," Prospettiva 71 (1993): 75 n. 14. The authors'

claim that it was Caravaggio who in 1603 rented a rather large house in the Campo Marzionear the Palazzo di Firenze for 40 scudi a year has been contested by Sandro Corradini,"Nuove e false notizie sulla presenza del Caravaggio a Roma," in Michelangelo Merisi daCaravaggio: La vita e le opere attraverso i documenti, ed. Stefania Macioce (Rome: Logart,1996), 75. For discussion of where artists lived in the city, see Gian Ludovico MasettiZannini, Piltori della seconda meta del cinquecento in Roma (Rome: De Luca, 1974), xxx-xxxiii; and Donatella Sparti, La casa di Pietro da Cortona (Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1997), 25-29; and for much higher rental rates of palaces, partial or entire, see Ferraro, 418-26, as wellas Ferraro's chap. 9 regarding overall purchase and rental prices of Roman real estate, frompalaces to merchants' shops.39. See the data published by Massimo Petrocchi, Roma nel snicento (Bologna: Cappelli,1970), 176-79.40. Ago, 86.41. For discussion of the cost of wheat, see Braudel and Spooner (as in n. 22), 392-96 andpassim, as well as their methodological overview of how to interpret prices, 374-486.42. Jacques Revel, "A Capital City's Privileges: Food Supplies in Early-Modern Rome," inFood and Drink in History, trans. Elborg Forster and Patricia Ranum, ed. Robert Forster andOrest Ranum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 37-49 (39, for the relativecost of pasta).43. Romani (as in n. 12), 221; and Delumeau, 177ff, on Jubilee year prices. On the types,quantities, and consumption of wine in Rome, see Revel (as in n. 42), 45-46.44. Although meat remained a relatively minor part of the European diet until the 19thcentury, more was consumed in Rome than in other Italian cities (Nussdorfer [as in n. 15],29, 31). See Revel (as in n. 42), 42-44, on the meat supply in Rome.45. Montaigne (as in n. 36), 954.46. See Petrocchi (as in n. 39), 176-79, drawing on archival data from the congregation of S.Onofrio (the Roman unit of weight he cites, the libbra, equaled .339 kg).47. See Giovanni Vigo, "Real Wages of the Working Class in Italy: Building Workers' Wages(14th to 18th Century)," Journal of European Economic History 3 (1974): 390, regardingsupplemental rations. Ago, 8-9, states that a specialized worker earned about 3 scudi amonth.48. Cipolla, 23-24; and Vigo (as in n. 47), 381-82. Domenico Sella, in Salari e lavoronell'edilizia lombarda durante il secolo XVII (Pavia: Fusi, 1968), concluded that a skilledmason with a family of four in 17th-century Milan spent a third of his salary on bread. SeeNussdorfer (as in n. 15), 28-29, regarding the one-baiocco loaf of brown wheat bread and forthe surprising view that food in Rome was "relatively cheap." For further discussion of thecomplex task of computing real wages on the basis of historical prices and wages (withadditional references), see Jan de Vries, "Between Purchasing Power and the World ofGoods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe," in Consumptionand the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London: Routledge, 1993), 85-132, esp. 89-98, but with no reference to Italy.

49. Cipolla, 28-29. Their fame as patrons notwithstanding, only 1.5 percent of the Borghese'sexpenditure went toward paintings and sculpture (Goldthwaite [as in n. 8], 26).50. For these and other related incomes, see Delumeau, 441, 455-56, 461-63; Hammond (asin n. 18), 3-8; Wright (as in n. 21), 77; and Ferraro, 246-68, with charts of the annual incomesof some of Rome's noble families. For analysis of data regarding huge papal donations tofamily members, see Ferraro, 1063-1108. Also see Reinhard (as in n. 19), 335-36, and esp.his richly documented Papstfinanz und Nepotismus unter Paul V. (1605-1621) (Stuttgart: A.Hiersemann, 1974). See, too, Reinhardt (as in n. 2), 89; and, mostly for later data, MarkusVolkel, Romische Kardinalshaushalte des 17. Jahrhunderts: Borghese-Barberini-Chigi(Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1993).51. Wright (as in n. 21), 77.52. Ferraro, 255, 1113; and Delumeau, 464, on Roman merchants.53. All of these payments are recorded in Mia Cinotti, Michelangelo Merisi delta il Caravaggio(Bergamo: Bolis, 1983).54. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II,trans. Sian Reynolds (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), vol. 1, 458.55. Romani (as in n. 12), 139 n. 184, citing the estimate by A. Fanfani.56. Mancini, 239.57. Louise Rice, The Altars and Altarpies of New St. Peter's (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997), 206.58. Andrea Emiliani, Federico Barocci (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1985), vol. 2, 377-85, 361-64,307-15, respectively.59. Mancini, 251, remarks on the high prices paid for Manfredi's work. For the estates ofPoussin, Cortona, and Bernini, see Donatella Sparti, "Appunti sulle finanze di NicolasPoussin," Storia dell'Arte 79 (1993): 343.60. Pierre Gerin-Jean has created a database of art prices (paintings, sculptures, tapestries,and objects) in the Italian art market between 1470 and 1750, which I have not consulted;see his essays "Recherches stir la signification economique des prix des oeuvres d'art: Lafacon dont se formaient ceux des peintures et les hierarchies qui en resultent," inCavaciocchi (as in n. 1), and "Prices of Works of Art and Hierarchy of Artistic Value on theItalian Market (1400-1700)," in Fantoni et al. (as in n. 1). See, too, Olivier Bonfait, "Le prix dela peinture a Bologne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles," also in Cavaciocchi; of these titles, I haveread only an abstract of Gerin-Jean's latter paper.61. For an extended discussion of investment instruments in Rome (censi, cambi, compagnied'uffizi, monti), see Ferraro, 329-93. Interest rates on monti issued during the years underconsideration in this essay generally were about 5 to 6 percent (rates declined throughout thecentury, and the resale value of shares [luoghi] naturally lluctuated according to economicconditions). On the investment advantages of monti, see Ferraro, 823-28. GiovanniLanfranco complained to Ferrante Carlo about the low yield of his luoghi di monte, in letter113, dated Apr. 19, 1641, published by G. Bottari, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura. . . . ,reprinted in Giovanni-Pietro Bernini, Lanfranco (Parma: Centro Studi della Val Baganza,

1982), 336. For discussion of one artist's purchases and sales of luoghi di monti, see OlivierMichel, "La fortune materielle du Poussin," in Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665): Actes ducolloque organise au Musee du Louvre 1994 (Paris: Musee du Louvre, 1996), vol. 1, 25-33;as well as Sparti (as in n. 59), 344 n. 8.62. Ago, 38, on shopkeepers' credit risks; and, for Artemisia's letter, dated Mar. 13, 1649,Vincenzo Ruffo, "Galleria Ruffo del secolo XVII in Messina," Bollettino d'Arte 10 (1916): 49.63. For the data from which these figures have been calculated, see Il libro dei conti delGuercino, 1629-1666, ed. Barbara Ghelfi (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1997); as well as Richard E.Spear, "Guercino's 'Prix-Fixe': Observations on Studio Practices and Art Marketing in Emilia,"Burlington Magazine 136 (1994): 592-602. It should be noted that Guercino's Libra dei contiallows the rare opportunity to study the cash flow from his patrons, balance his annualreceipts against household expenses, and estimate his annual production (in peak years hepainted fifteen to twenty canvases). For brief discussion of these issues, which fall outsidethe chronology of this essay, see Richard E. Spear, introduction to seeing Double: TwoVersions of Guercino's "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife," exh. cat., Harn Museum of Art,Gainesville, Fla., 1999, 5.64. This estimate assigns only 75 scudiper easel painting, 200 per altarpiece, and 300 foreach of the decorative projects. For a summary of payments to Domenichino, see Richard E.Spear, Domenichino (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), vol. 1, 18-19.65. My figures are based on the data in the catalogues by Mia Cinotti (as in n. 53); and JohnSpike, Caravaggio (New York: Abbeville Press, 2001).66. Ago, 82-89, for discussion of the meanings of ricco and povero; and Ferraro, 244-46, forestimates of how much income the nobility required.67. For a brief discussion of Lanfranco's earnings and financial pressures, see Richard E.Spear, "Colorno, Naples and Rome: Lanfranco," Burlington Magazine 144 (2002): 128(knowingly or not, Lanfranco underreported Domenichino's earnings in the same letter whenhe says that his rival was paid only 18,000 ducats in eleven years).68. Rubens (as in n. 24), 53-54, no. 21.69. Joachim von Sandrart, quoted in Keith Andrews, Adam Ekheimer (New York: Rizzoli,1977), 56 (there is no documentary evidence for Elsheimer's imprisonment).70. Delumeau, 497-98; and Masetti Zannini (as in n. 38), xxxvii-xxxviii, on artists as debtors,some of whom also served time in debtor's prison.71. Werner Sumowski, "'The Artist in Despair": A New Drawing by Adam Elsheimer," MasterDrawings 33 (1995): 152-56. (1 am very grateful to Ann Sutherland Harris for bringing thisdrawing to my attention.)72. Mancini, 141, 250; and Stumpo (as in n. 22), 39-40.73. Rice (as in n. 57), 14, 162-64 (St. Peter's); and Hammond (as in n. 18), 3, 8 (musicians).74. I have discussed some of these issues, with further references, in Spear, 1994 (as in n.63), 592-602, and in idem, The "Divine" Guido: Religion, Sex, Money and Art in the World ofGuido Reni (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), chap. 12, "Marketing." On the cost ofcopies after Caravaggio, see Michele Maccherini, "Caravaggio nel carteggio familiare di

Giulio Mancini," Prospettiva 86 (1997): 71-92. A similar price (22 scudi) was paid to CarloMagnone in 1642 for making two copies after Caravaggio's Cardsharps and Lute Player(Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art[New York: New York University Press, 1975], 9, doc. 78).75. For the cost of ultramarine blue in Rome, see the testimony by Lanfranco regardingFabrizio Valguarnera's payments to him in diamonds and ultramarine blue (the painter twiceaccepted oltramarino in lieu of cash, at the values of 20 to 30 and 50 scudi an ounce), inJane Costello, "The Twelve Pictures 'Ordered by Velasquez' and the Trial of Valguarnera,"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13 (1950): 274. A decade later in Naples,Lanfranco used three qualities of ultramarine blue for his fresco in the cupola of the Cappelladel Tesoro di S. Gennaro, the best of which he said was evaluated at 12 ducats an ounce"although it is worth more"; 37 ounces of ultramarine cost the patrons 351 ducats (see ErichSchleier, ed., Giovanni Lanfranco: Un pittore barocco tra Parma, Roma e Napoli, 2d ed.[Milan: Electa, 2002], 439-40 [Sept. 11, Nov. 1, 1641, July 29, 1642, and Feb. 23, 16431).For Hilliard's treatise, see Nicholas Hilliard's Art of Limning, ed. Linda Bradley Salamon(Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1983), 33 (Hilliard notes that "the worst which is butbadd" costs 7 1/2 pounds an ounce); and for John Hoskin's pricing, see Edward Norgate,Miniatura, or, The Art of Limning, ed. Jeffrey M. Muller and Jim Murrell (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1997), 122 n. 32. Around 1650, according to the English antiquary RichardSymonds, "the best azzurro or Oltramarina is now sold in Rome at 21 crownes [scudi] theownce &so downward so that wch. they call cenneri [the lowest grade] are sold at 3 Juliosthe ownce [a seventieth as much as the finest grade]. . . . In Engl. (Mr. Sheppard told methen in Rome) they pay 8 pounds for an ownce"; Symonds, quoted in Mary Beal, A Study ofRichard Symonds (New York: Garland, 1984), 220.76. For the much lower cost of other pigments in England at the time of Orazio's stay, seeTheodore Turquet de Mayerne, Pictoria sculptoria &quae subalternarum artium, 1620, ed. M.Faidutti and C. Versini (Lyons: Audin, 1974), 100-101; and, for the sequestering ofArtemisia's goods, Christiansen and Mann, 449, xvi (1620), respectively.77. This estimate was made for me by Dorothy Mahon, conservator at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art, New York. Both she and Sarah Fisher, conservator at the National Gallery ofArt, Washington, D.C., calculate that an ounce of ultramarine mixed with oil would fill amodern medium-size tube of paint. I am very grateful to them and to Jo Kirby in the ScientificDepartment of the National Gallery, London, for discussing with me various aspects of artists'use of ultramarine. For an example of how painters "stretched" ultramarine, see RichardSymonds's observations on Canini's techniques, in Beal (as in n. 75), 245-55.78. For the cost of linseed oil, see Mayerne (as in n. 76), 100; regarding Rubens's use of asecondhand stretcher, see Jaffe (as in n. 24), 92.79. For Valentin, see Lavin (as in n. 74), 42, doc. 342, Aug. 1628; Rice (as in n. 57), 236,records the cost as 8 scudi. For Poussin, Caroselli, Passignano, and Spadarino, see Rice,230, 240, 243, 248, respectively.

80. Il libro del conti del Guercino (as in n. 63), 169-70 (no. 498), 66-67 (no. 53).81. Lavin (as in n. 74), 43, doc. 345.82. See the Libretto dei conti del pittore Tiberio Tinelli (1618-1633), ed. Bianca LanfranchiStrina (Venice: Il Comitato, 2000), xxxi, though the 180 brama di tela that cost 360 lirepuzzlingly is not cited in the text of the libretto. For some canvas sizes and prices in mid-17th-century Rome, see Richard Symonds, in Beal (as in n. 75), 293; a tela d'imperatoremeasuring 4 by 6 palmi (one palmo equals about 8 3/4 in., or 22.35 cm) cost just half ascudo.83. Christiansen and Mann, 449. I have not yet gathered adequate data on the cost of hiringmodels. In the later 1620s and earlier 1630s, the Accademia di S. Luca in Rome typicallypaid models only 1 scudo 20 baiocchi a month, but for unrecorded hours of work (AnnSutherland Harris kindly shared with me records from the academy's archives of payments tomodels).84. Bernini, cited in Paul Freart de Chantelou, Diary of the Cavaliere Bernini's Visit to France,trans. Margery Corbett, ed. Anthony Blunt and George Bauer (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1985), 35.85. Ruffo (as in n. 62), 52; and Garrard (as in n. 35), 398, letter 25.86. Klaus Lankheit, Florentinische Barockplastik (Munich: Bruckmann, 1962), 248, doc. 72,on the Florentine academy; for Orazio's Saint Jerome, see Christiansen and Mann, 94-96,no. 16, and esp. Christiansen's essay, "The Art of Orazio Gentileschi," 10 and passim, onOrazio's extensive use of the model and penchant to make replicas.87. Cavazzini (as in n. 29), 434, June 23, 1612, fol. 374v.88. Corradini (as in n. 38), 74.89. On the problem of pricing art, see Neil De Marchi, introduction to EconomicEngagements with Art, Annual Supplement to vol. 31, History of Political Economy, ed. NeilDe Marchi and Craufurd D. W. Goodwin (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 1-11,as well as the essay by Toon Van Houdt, "The Economics of Art in Early Modern Times:Some Humanist and Scholastic Approaches," 303-31 in ibid., with reference to the southernNetherlands in the early 17th century.90. Andrews (as in n. 69), 50, doc. 14.91. Mancini, 9-10, 139-41. See, too, Vincenzio Borghini's discussion of prices and value ofart in the context of the paragons between sculpture and painting, in Paola Barocchi, ed.,Scritti d'arte del Cinquecento (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1971), vol. 1, 630-35. He insists thatneither the material cost nor the expenditure of time of production matters, but that a work ofart is to be judged by "l'ingegno" it displays.92. Louisa Ciammitti, "'Questo si costuma ora in Bologna': Una lettera di Guido Reni, aprile1628," Prospetiva 98-99 (2000): 194-203 (her complex reading of ordinario, however, is notsupported by Reni's or general usage of the time). For a market definition of "il prezzoordinario et honesto" in 1573, see Ago, 118-19.93. On the virtue of magnificentia in distinction to liberalilas, see Guido Guerzoni, "Liberalitas,Magnificentia, Splendor: The Classic Origins of Italian Renaissance Lifestyles," in De Marchi

and Goodwin (as in n. 89), 332-78.94. On Reni's and Guercino's contrasting marketing strategies, see Spear, 1994 (as in n. 63);and idem, 1997 (as in n. 74).95. Malvasia (as in n. 37), vol. 2, 34.96. Mancini, 258.97. Ibid., 249-51; and Craig Feiton, "Ribera's Early Years in Italy: The 'Martyrdom of St.Lawrence' and the 'Five Senses,'" Burlington Magazine 133 (1991): 81.98. Anne Summerscale, Malvasia's Life of the Carracci (University Park, Pa.: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 2000), 91-92.99. Andrea Emiliani, ed., cat. by Gail Feigenbaum, Ludovico Carracci, exh. cat., Kimbell ArtMuseum, Fort Worth, Tex., 1993, 92, no. 42 (it is uncertain that the full amount of 200 scudiwas paid).100. Ibid., 123, no, 57.101. Malvasia (as in n. 37), vol. 2, 16-17 (I am indebted to Donatella Sparti for discussing thispassage with me). It is irrelevant to the gist of Reni's quip that Malvasia misstatedCaravaggio's patron and fee.102. Summerscale (as in n. 98), 248.103. Ibid., 158. As remarked above, payment in goods was not uncommon at the time.104. Ibid., 175.105. Spear, 1997 (as in n. 74), 214.106. Mancini, 242.107. Ellen Perry gave me her expert advice on the text in the Paris edition of Andreae AlciatiEmblematum libellus, 1534, 19; these translations, slightly modified, are taken fromwww.mun.ca/alciato/ltext.html. Sumowski (as in n. 71), 156 n. 4, mistranscribed "arces" in thelegend as "araes."108. Sumowski (as in n. 71), 152, assumes that Elsheimer used the Latin-German edition ofAlciati, which freely renders the explanatory lines of the Latin legend thus: "Mancher ist wolgeborn zu kunst, Die in zu hochen ehren bring, Doch so er arm, ists alls vmb sunst."109. Garrard (as in n. 35), 396, letter 24; and Ruffo (as in n. 62), 51: ". . . ma dico bene ehequanta piu sera alto il prezzo piu sfortiro di fare un quadro per V. S. Ill."^sup ma^ grato."ReferencesFrequently Cited SourcesAgo, Renata, Economia barocca: Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del seicenlo (Rome:Donzelli, 1998).Cipolla, Carlo, Before the Industrial Revolution, 3d ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).Delumeau, Jean, Vie economique el sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitie du XVIe siecle(Paris: E. de Boccard, 1957-59).Ferraro, Richard J., The Nobility of Rome, 1560-1700: A Study of Its Composition, Wealth,and Investment (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1994).Mancini, Giulio, Considerazioni sulla pittura, ed. Adriana Marucchi and Luigi Salerno, vol. 1(Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1956).

Christiansen, Keith, and Judith Mann, eds., Orazio and Artemisia Genlileschi (New Haven:Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2001).AuthorAffiliationAuthor of Caravaggio and His Followers, Domenichino, and The "Divine" Guido: Religion,Sex, Money and Art in the World of Guido Reni, Richard E. Spear most recently publishedFrom Caravaggio to Artemisia: Essays on Painting in Seventeenth-Century Italy and France(Pindar Press, 2002) [Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland,College Park, Md. 20742-1335]._______________________________________________________________

Indexing (details)

Subject Visual artists; Painting; Valuation; Art history

Location Rome ItalyTitle Scrambling for scudi: Notes on painters' earnings in early Baroque

RomeAuthor Spear, Richard EPublication title The Art BulletinVolume 85Issue 2Pages 310-320,228Publication year 2003Publication date Jun 2003Year 2003Publisher New YorkPublisher College Art Association, Inc.Place of publication New YorkCountry of publication United StatesJournal subject ArtISSN 00043079CODEN ABCABKSource type Scholarly JournalsLanguage of publication EnglishDocument type CommentarySubfile Painting, Visual artists, Valuation, Art historyProQuest document ID 222959216Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/222959216?accountid=15533Copyright Copyright College Art Association of America Jun 2003

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