Scrambling for scudi: notes on painters' earnings in early Baroque Rome
Art Bulletin, The, June, 2003 by Richard E. Spear
Continued from page 2.
Certainly, not all cardinals were that rich (one estimate of the income required for a cardinal living in Rome during the first decade of the seventeenth century was about 8,000 scudi a year), (51) although just the annual ecclesiastical incomes of nearly one hundred late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cardinals tabulated by Richard Ferraro average more than 20,000 scudi. Even relatively "poor" cardinals--Cesare Baronio, and Felice Peretti before becoming pope--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 very wealthy Roman merchants also earned as much as 40,000 to 50,000 scudi a year. (52)
Where, in this broad picture, do the successful painters of Rome fit? When Mancini wrote that Caravaggio received only 1 1/2 scudi for his Boy Bitten by a Lizard and 8 scudi for his Fortune-Teller, the author wants us to be shocked at such low prices. They were, but only if compared with Caravaggio's later earnings: 400 scudi for his two lateral paintings in the Contarelli Chapel and another 150 for its altarpiece; 300 for his two pictures in the Cerasi Chapel; 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 in Genoa. (53)
By different standards, however, even those early sums of 1 1/2 and 8 scudi were by no means meager. Fernand Braudel estimates that in the Mediterranean economy of the sixteenth century, less than 20 scudi a year was a subsistence wage; between 20 and 40 a small income; and from 40 to 150 quite "reasonable." (54) A family of five in Rome around 1600 could live modestly on 90 scudi a year. (55) So if one imagines that those two early paintings by Caravaggio represented roughly a month's work, they would translate into over 100 scudi a year, a very "reasonable" income by prevailing standards, especially for a young single person, though the cost of making paintings, as discussed below, must be taken into account.
Fees paid to other artists of note, no matter how varied, sustain the conclusion that they were extremely 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 the payments previously cited, seems to have been a typical rate for altarpieces in Rome. A decade 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 earned 240 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 a work, the artist's demand, an appraiser's judgment, or the budget at hand. For his Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, thanks to Reni's evaluation, Domenichino was paid 1,200 scudi. In 1615 the famous and aging Gavaliere d'Arpino earned 750 scudi for his Coronation of the Virgin in the Chiesa Nuova. Mancini, in fact, remarked on d'Arpino's wealth, especially his fancy clothes and sumptuous studio. (56) In the mid-1620s, when the Congregation of St. Peter's hired Reni to paint an altarpiece for its basilica, it agreed to the unusual terms of a 400-scudi down payment plus 300 scudi monthly for four months, making a commitment of 1,600 scudi. (57)
Federico Barocci, like Reni, was one of the most expensive painters in Rome. For his Eucharisl of 1603-7, he received 1,500 scudi. That high fee undoubtedly was influenced by its many figures, since, at the same point in his career (1604), the artist accepted 300 scudi for a much simpler Crucifixion (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Barocci had foresight (and probably tactical cunning) when it came to money. In 1590, writing about a more elaborate Crucifixion (Genoa Cathedral), he said that he planned to put aside his fee of more than 1,000 scudi for his old age and for taking care of his ailments, which showed no signs of going away. (58)
Some of the Garavaggisti 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 in 1622, Bartolomeo Manfredi was receiving from 200 to 400 scudi for his paintings. That is much more than Nicolas Poussin, newly arrived in Rome, earned in 1626 for his ambitious Death of Cermanicus. 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 in comparison 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. (59)
Other examples of payments could be cited, (60) but they would not alter the picture that is forming: 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 their money, such as in the affordable, generally secure, and readily liquid bonds called monti. (61) Moreover, unlike Roman shopkeepers, whose inventories often were worth less than the outstanding debts due from their clients (because many transactions were on credit), artists had 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 told Don Antonio Ruffo that because her daughter's recent marriage had been so terribly costly, "I have very great need for work...I am bankrupt [son fallita]." (62)
For 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 are unusually well documented, thanks to his detailed account book, although it had not been started when he was in Rome (1621-23). During the years it covers, 1629 until his death in 1666, his annual gross income from art fluctuated, peaking briefly at about 4,000 scudi a year, falling at times to 1,000 scudi, and averaging 1,500. During the 1630s, he spent 57 percent of his income on running his unusually complex household and extended-family business, for which expenses amounted to about 840 scudi a year. Even in the 1640s, when Guercino spent large sums on real estate--including 4,250 scudi on his house in Bologna-he had a 20 percent surplus. (63)
Guercino's annual income can be compared with what Domenichino earned from his art at midcareer. Only a rough estimate is possible, yet the result is remarkably consistent with Domenichino's later average annual income of 2,000 scudi from his commission in the Gappella del Tesoro di S. Gennaro in Naples (1631-41), during which period he was contractually bound to take on no other work (yet occasionally did). For the decade of 1616 to 1625, which he spent in Rome, Fano, and Bologna, documented payments for oil paintings total about 3,000 scudi. He earned another 8,000 scudi from fresco work during the same period. How much more he was paid for an additional three altarpieces, three decorative commissions, and approximately thirty easel paintings is unknown, but a very conservative guess would be another 3,750 scudi, resulting in an average per annum income for the period 1616-25 of nearly 1,500 scudi. (64)
Known payments to Caravaggio span the last ten years of his life and total about 4,400 scudi, for seventeen pictures. Approximately forty works from that period are widely accepted as genuine. (65) If one takes 250 scudi as the average recorded payment, the artist would have earned about 10,000 scudi over ten years, just for the extant paintings. Of course, this is a very crude estimate, but the results are provocatively in line with Guercino's and Domenichino's average annual earnings.
Whether one felt rich or poor in Rome, like anywhere else, naturally was relative to one s social 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 ("sono piu povero, che ricco"), estimated that their total assets were worth anywhere from 400 to about 1,000 scudi, which is little in comparison with the artists' estates mentioned above or the annual earnings of Guercino, Domenichino, and Garavaggio, 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 dignified existence." (66)
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