Ludovico Carracci a Roma

Abstract

This essay focuses on Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619) and this reputation in Rome in his lifetime and afterwards. Well-known, but often overlooked literary and visual evidence on Ludovico's appreciation in Rome is brought to bear, in order to reassess his contemporary fame, superior to his cousins', as is suggested by works attributed to him in the main seventeenth-century Roman collections. His present-day partial disgrace is the result of a number of changes soon brought about by several factors, including the probability of untold doubts on his religious orthodoxy raising in the early seventeenth-century. His use of German prints especially in his late religious paintings may have a lot to do with this.   On cover:ANNIBALE CARRACCI (BOLOGNA 1560 - ROME 1609), An Allegory of Truth and Time c. 1584-1585.Oil on canvas | 130,0 x 169,6 cm. (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 404770Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.