Giovan Francesco Caroto (Verona, c. 1480 – Verona, 1555) was an Italian painter.
A pupil of Liberale da Verona, following his travels to Mantua and, especially, to Casale Monferrato, Giovan Francesco Caroto gradually moved away from the tradition of the Veronese school of painting to embrace the various artistic currents that were prominent at the time, drawing inspiration from Mantegna, Raphael, Bernardino Luini, and Bramantino. In turn, his art influenced many Veronese painters, such as Francesco Morone and Francesco Torbido.
His works are now preserved worldwide, particularly at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona. It is in this museum that his most famous painting, Portrait of a Child with a Drawing, is displayed, which, due to the originality of its subject, is almost a unicum in the artistic landscape of his century. Other works are found in churches in his hometown, such as San Giorgio in Braida and San Fermo Maggiore, as well as in other cities such as Florence, Modena, Budapest, and Prague. His remains rest in the Santa Maria in Organo church in Verona, alongside those of his brother Giovanni, in the San Nicolò chapel, which, as Vasari recounts, "he had adorned with his paintings."
Biography
Childhood and family
Giovan Francesco Caroto was born in Verona to a family believed to have originated from Caravaggio, which had settled on the banks of the Adige several years earlier. This is suggested by a petition submitted on February 3, 1499, by the painter’s uncle, Don Stefano di fu Berin Baschi da Caravaggio, a chaplain of Santa Maria in Organo, requesting Veronese citizenship, as he had been living there for many years. Subsequently, the father, Pietro Baschi, abandoned the original surname in favor of Caroto, likely due to the apothecary shop he owned in Piazza delle Erbe, whose sign bore the word "Caro" or "Charo"..
The older brother of Giovanni Caroto, also a painter, his exact date of birth is uncertain due to inconsistencies in tax records and other documents. A 1508 document refers to him as "an eminent painter, son of the late Ser Pietro da Caravaggio, who has lived in Verona with his family for twenty-six years and more...".. The generally accepted birth year of 1480 is thus an average derived from various records: 1478, 1479, and 1482..
According to Giorgio Vasari in Le Vite, after abandoning his studies in the liberal arts, Giovan Francesco became a pupil of the painter Liberale da VeronaVasari writes: "...after having been taught the first rudiments of learning, he was induced, by his inclination for painting, to abandon the further study of letters, and to place himself with the Veronese Liberate, for the purpose of acquiring the art of the limner, promising to remunerate the master for his pains. Though still very young, Giovanni Francesco then devoted himself with so much love and diligence to design, that in that particular, as well as in the use of colours, his services were of great value to Liberate, even in the first years of his career." Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. alongside companions Antonio da Vendri and Nicola Giolfino. In Liberale’s workshop, he learned a vibrant and intense use of color and the ability to depict a luminosity with a certain softness, stylistic elements that would persist throughout his career, despite his continuous tendency to diverge from the Veronese school of painting and embrace the diverse artistic currents he encountered during his numerous travels in northern Italy..
Early years in Verona and Mantua
The first painting definitively attributed to Giovan Francesco is the Madonna with child and Saint John, created in 1501 (signed and dated "J Franciscus Charotus MCCCCCI"), now housed at the Galleria Estense. In this work, particularly in the figure of the Virgin, a clear inspiration from the style of the renowned painter Andrea Mantegna is evident. It is believed that Mantegna may have frequented Liberale’s workshop during his stay in Verona while working on the altarpiece for the Santa Maria in Organo church. Caroto was likely deeply impressed by the Paduan painter, following him to nearby Mantua, where Mantegna was active, though never joining his workshop, preferring to work independently. In the city of the Gonzaga family, Giovan Francesco encountered the great interpreters of Renaissance art from the Mantuan school, such as Lorenzo Costa the Elder, and was not unaffected by the works of a young Correggio.. Regarding the Madonna with child and Saint John, there exists a variant, also signed by Caroto but undated, displayed at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. This variant was once considered part of Caroto's early work. However, recent scholarship tends to date it later, given the influence of Lorenzo Lotto and Andrea Previtali, whose styles Caroto encountered in his later years..
By 1502, Caroto’s artistic activity was well-established, as he was engaged in creating a canvas depicting Saints Catherine, Sebastian, and Roch for the high altar of the Santa Caterina church at Ognissanti in Verona (a building no longer extant), a work now lost.. A tax record from the Santa Maria in Organo district, compiled in the same year, lists him as a pictor, suggesting he was already running his own workshop.. From this point, biographical traces of Giovan Francesco are lost until 1508; a notarial act informs us that by that year, he had become a widower following the death of his wife, the daughter of Baldassarre Gandoni, who died during the birth of their son Bernardino.. This tragic event likely prompted him to travel to Milan (around 1507) to study the style of Lombard Renaissance, where he stayed for about two years, returning frequently throughout his life..
In 1508, several of his works are documented: the Adoration of the Child, now displayed at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona, a Madonna now in Leipzig, and a fresco depicting the Annunciation for the San Gerolamo oratory in Verona (now the Archaeological Museum at the Roman Theatre); in all these works, the influence of the styles he absorbed during his time in Milan is evident.. Already in these early works, Caroto’s disinterest in following the pictorial tradition of the Venetian school and Veronese school of painting is apparent,. preferring to seek inspiration from other models and artists, such as the aforementioned Lorenzo Costa and Andrea Solari, demonstrating that his early interest in Mantegna’s style was only the beginning of a lifelong search that extended to various pictorial currents across much of the Italian peninsula.. In the same years, he received a commission to repaint the walls of the Spolverini-Dal Verme chapel in the Sant'Eufemia church in Verona, where he depicted, in two superimposed bands, Stories of Tobias and Stories of the Archangel Raphael. For the same chapel, he also painted the altarpiece, now housed at the Castelvecchio civic museum, depicting the Three Archangels..
Some art historians attribute the altarpiece, The Archangel Michael and Saints Cosmas and Damian, in the apse of the Santa Maria della Carità church in Mantua, to Caroto’s early activity. However, opinions on this attribution are highly debated.
Of certain attribution, and far more significant for his career, is the aforementioned decoration of the extrados of the triumphal arch of the San Gerolamo oratory, which Vasari also mentions, signed by the Veronese painter with an inscription at the bottom: "A.D. M.D.V.III.I.F CAROTUS FA". In this work, Caroto reaches the highest stylistic levels of his art, creating a spiritual intimacy among the figures in the sacred scene through a successful choice of simplicity and sobriety in the entire pictorial composition.. He was likely also the author of other frescoes in the San Gerolamo convent, though their poor condition today makes interpretation and attribution extremely challenging..
Around 1510, Giovan Francesco painted the predella Death, Funeral, and Burial of the Virgin, in which similarities with the themes of his master, Liberale da Verona, and with Mantegna’s series of canvases Triumphs of Caesar are evident..
His Stories of the Childhood of Christ, now housed at the Uffizi in Florence, painted on two panels, were possibly the shutters of the Magi altar in the San Cosimo church in Verona. On one side, he painted Two Shepherds Adoring and Saint Joseph, and on the other, the Circumcision. On the exterior, the work is completed by the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt.. Regarding this work and the influence of Emilian culture on it, Vasari noted:
According to art historian Dal Bravo, these panels can be dated around 1507 or attributed to the painter’s early works, thus serving as a foundation for his subsequent works.. However, according to others such as Fiorio, the decorative elements in the Massacre, inspired by Bramante, suggest a later date, likely around 1511, when Caroto had already stayed in Milan and thus came into contact with circles related to Bramante’s work. Fiorio essentially dates this work to the period immediately before Giovan Francesco settled at the court of Marquis William IX of Montferrat.
Stay in Casale Monferrato
The intermediate phase of the Veronese artist’s pictorial activity is undoubtedly linked to his interest in Lombard painting and is connected to his stay in Milan, as reported by Vasari. In the cosmopolitan environment of the man who became Count of Sesto Calende in 1514, he likely came into contact around this time with the art of the Leonardesque painters (particularly Bernardino Luini and Cesare da Sesto) and the Flemish painters, always highly popular in the Lombard capital. In the early 16th century, Milan was considered a major cultural and artistic center. Artists such as Vincenzo Foppa, Bergognone, Butinone, and Bramantino were active there. Attracted by such a vibrant artistic scene, Caroto settled there.. While in Milan, Giovan Francesco was "called by William, Marquis of Montferrat,"Vasari writes: "After having completed the works undertaken for the Visconti, Giovan Francesco, being invited by Guglielmo, Marquis of Montferrat, went very willingly to do him service, which he had been earnestly requested to do by the Visconti, and having arrived, a good provision was at once assigned to him." Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. and from the following year, his residence was stably in Casale, as a guest of his patron William IX, where he remained for at least the next five years..
Little remains of his works in Lombard territory; it is known that he painted the chapel where the Marquis usually attended Mass, the church, and the San Domenico castle, but no trace remains, as both buildings were extensively remodeled over time.Vasari recounts: "For the apartments of the Castle also our artist afterwards painted many pictures which acquired him very great renown and in the church of San Domenico he painted the whole of the principal chapel, by command of the same Signor; those decorations being intended for the adornment of the sepulchre wherein the Marquis was ultimately to be laid." Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. He devoted considerable attention to executing portraits of the ladies serving the Marchioness, as well as that of the family’s firstborn, as Vasari recounts:.
Regarding his skill as a portraitist, Vasari recounts an anecdote in which Giovan Francesco competed in Milan against a Flemish painter in a painting contest, ultimately losing only because, according to the Arezzo historian, the figure he chose was not as young and beautiful as that painted by his opponent..