by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield
Caravaggio's Medusa is a painted shield, not a rectangular canvas hung like an ordinary portrait. The severed head of the Gorgon fills its round, convex face. Snakes writhe in her hair, blood spurts from the neck, and her eyes and open mouth hold the instant of violent recognition. The Uffizi dates the work broadly to 1596–98 and preserves it in Florence.[1][2]
The format is part of the subject. In the myth, Perseus avoids Medusa's petrifying gaze by looking at a reflection; after her death the head becomes a terrifying emblem on Athena's shield. Caravaggio puts a freshly severed head on an actual shield-shaped object, so the viewer encounters the myth through the kind of surface that could display it. The museum calls this a parade shield, emphasising its ceremonial character.[1][2]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleMedusa, also Shield with the Head of Medusa[1]
- Date1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598[1][12]
- Format and supportoil on canvas mounted on a convex wooden parade shield[1][2][5]
- CollectionGallerie degli Uffizi, Florence[1][2]
- Inventory cross-checkUffizi lists Medusa as 1890 no. 1351 in its Bacchus catalogue[4]
- PatronageUffizi says it was probably requested by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte and given to Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici[3]
Contents
- Why Paint a Shield?
- The Moment Caravaggio Chooses
- Medusa, Perseus and Athena
- The Gaze, Reflection and Viewer
- Del Monte, the Medici and the Uffizi
- The Shield in the Medici Armoury
- Mirror Image or Protective Emblem?
- The Proposed Earlier Medusa Shield
- Is the Face Caravaggio's Own?
- What the Paint Samples Reveal
- What Examination of the Shield's Structure Found
- A Later Medusa on Tortoiseshell
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: Medusa
The shield's circular field pulls the face forward while the snakes and spurting blood push beyond its apparent edge. These three details show how Caravaggio makes a painted surface feel like an immediate encounter.
123Details from Medusa
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
The open mouth
The open mouth and widened eyes hold the instant of shock. Light catches the nose, teeth and lower lip against the green field.
Living snakes
The snakes turn in different directions, breaking the symmetry of the head and making the hair seem to move.
Blood at the neck
Thin streams descend from the severed neck into the otherwise empty green space, giving the painted shield its violent depth.
Why Paint a Shield?
The curved surface immediately distinguishes this object from Caravaggio's Bacchus and other Florentine works. It is round and convex, made to evoke a shield rather than to offer a flat window onto a deep room. The painted canvas is attached to the shaped wooden support; calling it simply a wooden panel misses that layered construction. A severed head sits at its centre like an emblem on an armorial object. The Uffizi describes it as a parade shield, displayed in its Caravaggio rooms.[1][2][5]
“Parade” matters. The museum's term suggests a ceremonial piece made for display rather than a simple battlefield implement. This does not lessen the violence of the image. It makes a cultivated object carry an ancient warning: a monstrous face that once turned people to stone has become a sign of protection and triumph. In the myth, Athena puts Medusa's head on her shield after Perseus kills the Gorgon.[1]
The convex surface also changes the painting's relation to the spectator. As one moves before it, the face remains frontal and startling. The shape has a physical presence that a tightly cropped photograph can conceal. Seeing the shield's outline is essential to understanding it as an object rather than mistaking it for a canvas portrait.[1][2]
The Moment Caravaggio Chooses
Caravaggio selects the instant immediately after the head has been cut. Blood is still leaving the neck. The mouth opens in a cry, the eyes are wide, and the hair is alive with snakes. The Uffizi's account stresses the simultaneity of severing and reaction. The head appears to know its fate even as the act has just happened.[1]
That timing is crucial. A calm, already fixed head on a shield would show a completed trophy. This image holds a transition from life to death. The shock is not only the viewer's; it seems written in Medusa's expression. Caravaggio therefore makes a mythological monster physically vulnerable, a decision that can unsettle the usual division between hero and victim. Such a response is a reading of the image, not a claim that a surviving artist statement tells us to pity her.
The head fills the available field. There is no Perseus standing beside it, no landscape, and no narrative sequence around the edge. Caravaggio compresses the story into one face and its severed neck. The viewer must supply the action before and after from the myth. That concentration makes the work legible at a glance while leaving room for the more disturbing question of what it means to meet the Gorgon's eyes.
Medusa, Perseus and Athena
In the familiar Greek account, Medusa is one of the Gorgons, creatures whose gaze could turn a person to stone. Perseus receives help to defeat her and avoids looking directly at her by using a reflective surface. After he cuts off her head, Athena incorporates it into a shield or aegis. The Uffizi's own explanation lays out this sequence to show why a shield is an apt support.[1]
The story is not pictured literally from start to finish. We do not see Perseus's sword or Athena holding the shield. Instead, Caravaggio gives the spectator the position that the myth makes dangerous: face to face with Medusa. The artwork is safe to look at, but the fiction says direct looking is fatal. The gap between what the viewer does and what the story forbids is part of the object's force.
The reflected image that saved Perseus is also an apt thought for painting. A painted face is a representation, not the living Gorgon, so the viewer can look. The Uffizi's shop interpretation suggests that the convex support was chosen partly to recall the original myth, beyond its place among arms and armour. That is the museum's interpretation of a historical choice; it is not a documented note from Caravaggio.[3]
The Gaze, Reflection and Viewer
Medusa's eyes are open, yet her gaze does not create a stable conversation like the grin in Amor Victorious. The mouth is open and the blood still moves. She seems caught within a violent event rather than posing for us. The shock of an encounter lies in the speed with which the viewer must recognise snakes, severed neck and shield form.[1]
The dark surround and light on the face heighten that instant. The image does not need a scenic background to communicate fear. The round frame keeps everything close to the head. This is a strong example of Caravaggio's interest in faces and bodies at moments of physical consequence, but its format is unusual. The painting technique guide discusses evidence for working methods in examined canvases; conclusions from them should not be assigned automatically to this wooden shield.
The shield's mythological role is double. It shows what could petrify an enemy, and it demonstrates that the dangerous sight has been mastered and converted into an emblem. Caravaggio's fresh blood and scream hold the mastery and the violence together. That is why the work can feel more immediate than a conventional decorative Gorgon mask.[1]
Del Monte, the Medici and the Uffizi
The Uffizi says the shield was probably produced at the request of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte and given to Ferdinando I de' Medici. The “probably” belongs in the account: the museum states this as a likely reconstruction rather than a direct commission document. Its Uffizi destination fits the Grand Duke's collection of arms and armour.[3]
The museum's Bacchus record links that painting and Medusa as gifts from del Monte to the Medici and identifies the shield by its Uffizi inventory number. They are separate objects made in different formats. The history of gift and collection helps explain why a Roman painter's unconventional shield belongs in Florence today.[4]
The Uffizi has reorganised its Caravaggio rooms, and its published room account describes Medusa in a case. A visitor should use current museum information for the precise room and display status. The fixed point is the owner institution and object identity, not a promised wall position.[2]
The gift chronology can be tested more closely than those short accounts suggest. Art historian Gianni Papi reports that a Medici Guardaroba record registers the shield's delivery in Florence on 7 September 1598 as del Monte's gift to Ferdinando I. A separate Uffizi collection description also gives 1598 as the year of the gift and says the object was entered into the armoury initially without a named artist.[12][14] If these identifications of the recorded shield are right, 1608 cannot be its first arrival. It also follows that a 1608 wedding cannot by itself date Caravaggio's painting of this object.
The Italian national catalogue nevertheless connects the gift with Cosimo II and his 1608 marriage, while a Metropolitan Museum study calls it a gift to Ferdinando for his son's wedding.[7][8] These are published accounts of the same Medici connection, but they conflict with the reported 1598 delivery. The published sources here do not reproduce the archival leaf for direct comparison with the later catalogue wording. The safest chronology is therefore a reported 1598 Medici entry, followed by the documented seventeenth-century armoury history, while keeping the exact circumstances of del Monte's presentation distinct from later wedding interpretations. The national catalogue's circa-1598–99 headline date is also slightly later than the Uffizi's 1596–98 range.[1][7][12][14]
The Shield in the Medici Armoury
The Italian national catalogue places the shield's early display in the Medici armeria, an armoury rather than a picture gallery. An Uffizi collection description says that a 1631 armoury record names Caravaggio and describes the shield held with a suit of Persian armour on a mounted mannequin.[14] The national catalogue reports an old inventory description of that ensemble; a scholar identified the armour with a gift from Shah Abbas of Persia.[7] That particular identification is a later historical reconstruction. The better-grounded point for this page is how the Medusa object functioned among arms and ceremonial display before becoming an Uffizi painting viewed in a case. The 1598 wardrobe entry and the 1631 named armoury entry perform different jobs: one helps date the shield's arrival; the other documents its later attribution and setting.[12][14]
The catalogue also describes the reverse of the shield: painted ornament, a velvet arm cushion, fragments of leather and traces of velvet and silk straps. Those surviving parts make the support more than a decorative round panel. They show provision for an arm, even though they do not prove this individual shield was carried in a particular tournament or procession. The same record describes radiographic examination that challenged an older idea that Caravaggio merely repainted a pre-existing picture on the shield.[7] A later materials study found an earlier gypsum preparation and proposed that the physical shield had been reused. That does not restore the discarded claim of an earlier finished picture beneath Caravaggio's image.[11]
Mirror Image or Protective Emblem?
Perseus's reflected view has often supplied a way of reading the picture. Constanze Hager's specialist study offers another: the shield adapts the ancient gorgoneion, a frontal Gorgon head used as a protective device. She cites the shield's green field and cast shadow, as well as responses by the poets Gaspare Murtola and Giambattista Marino, in support of that interpretation.[9] A Metropolitan Museum study likewise connects the head's traditional protective power with a reading of the shield as Perseus's reflection.[8]
The two ideas emphasise different parts of the object. The mirror account asks how Perseus or a viewer can look safely; the emblem account asks what a Gorgon head could do when displayed on a grand duke's shield. Marino's praise of the gift imagines enemies turned to stone and then redirects the compliment to the ruler's own courage.[5] That is evidence for a contemporary courtly response, not a surviving instruction from Caravaggio that resolves every detail of the design.
The Proposed Earlier Medusa Shield
Maurizio Marini's 2004 study argued that a smaller shield then in a London private collection was an earlier Caravaggio Medusa, associated with Gaspare Murtola's early-seventeenth-century poem. The scholarly abstract records Marini's use of documents, comparison and conservation findings, and notes Denis Mahon's support for the identification.[10] This is a proposed distinct object. It does not change the Uffizi's ownership, inventory number or secure identification of the Florence shield.
Calling the private shield a “first version” depends on accepting its attribution and order. A specialist attribution argument deserves to be reported, but a reader should not assume that every photograph labelled Medusa depicts the Uffizi work, or transfer findings from one support to the other. This article's construction and display evidence concerns the shield in Florence.[6][7][10]
Is the Face Caravaggio's Own?
The Uffizi's virtual exhibition calls Medusa Caravaggio's most famous self-portrait, reading the face as the painter's own features made monstrous at the instant of death. That is an institutional interpretation and a longstanding way of discussing the work. The visible object itself does not include a signed identification of the model, so the likeness remains an attributed reading.[1]
The suggestion changes how a viewer may read the shield. If Caravaggio used his own face as a model, the object turns the painter into both maker and beheaded subject. Even if the identity remains a reading, the face's human specificity matters: it is not a generic decorative mask. We can describe that effect without pretending to know the session in which it was painted.
What the Paint Samples Reveal
The Uffizi shield underwent materials analysis during its late-1990s restoration. Monica Favaro and colleagues examined two tiny fragments from cracks in the green background, along with material lifted from the yellowed surface during cleaning tests. Microscopy and chemical methods let them distinguish underlying preparation, paint and varnish. The size and location of the samples matter: they reveal real layers in sampled areas, not a complete map of every part of the face and snakes.[11]
The researchers identified lead white, natural earth colours, verdigris and lead-tin yellow type I in drying-oil paint. The identification of verdigris gives the shield's green field a material history beyond its mythological symbolism. They also found copper-chloride particles in the verdigris and suggested a possible historical way of preparing it. Neither the pigment list nor that proposal establishes exactly how every visible tone was mixed. It gives named evidence for this object rather than a general formula for Caravaggio's painting.[11]
Their most suggestive finding for the shield's meaning is mordant gilding on its upper part. They propose that it may be the trace of an abandoned attempt to produce a mirror-like reflective effect. This belongs beside the myth's reflective shield and the scholarly mirror interpretation, but the relation is a hypothesis: a surviving trace of gilding does not prove a completed mirror surface, a specific optical trick, or Caravaggio's settled plan for the viewer.[8][11]
The team distinguished three varnish layers above the paint and identified mixtures including drying oil, mastic, turpentine and some beeswax in original and later coatings. The strongly yellowed surface was part of their conservation question. That is a practical reason to be cautious about treating a present photograph's colours and gloss as an untouched record of how the shield looked when it entered the Medici collection. The study supports a history of materials and interventions, not a numerical reconstruction of its original appearance.[11]
What Examination of the Shield's Structure Found
A conservation and materials study of the Uffizi shield adds a physical explanation for its unusual shape. Researchers examining records from the 1998–2002 restoration report that computed tomography revealed two adjacent shell-like layers of wooden strips, with the grain directions approximately at right angles. Wood identification pointed to poplar. Their experimental replica and modelling explored how such a structure responds to changing humidity and why it develops its rounded profile.[6]
That research concerns the support beneath the painted canvas. It does not mean Caravaggio painted directly onto bare timber, nor does it settle who first ordered the shield or whether its face is a self-portrait. It does make the ceremonial object more concrete: the convexity is built into a carefully fabricated, layered wooden form, not an optical effect created solely by the paint.[5][6]
The study notes that parade shields of this type were display objects, plausibly carried in processions or presented as tournament prizes rather than used as ordinary battlefield defence. The precise use of this particular shield is still a historical question. That limit makes the Uffizi's identification of it as a parade shield useful without turning a plausible ceremony into an invented documented event.[2][6]
A Later Medusa on Tortoiseshell
The Uffizi shield also generated later works that should not be mistaken for a second Caravaggio original. Sweden's Nationalmuseum owns a Head of Medusa by Giacinto Calandrucci, painted in oil on a convex tortoiseshell, about 49 × 48 cm. Its catalogue links the composition to a related Calandrucci drawing in the Louvre and compares its frozen expression with Caravaggio's Florentine shield. That relationship is the museum's art-historical judgment; the record does not document a particular occasion on which Calandrucci saw the Uffizi object.[13]
The Swedish object's material and reverse help explain why the distinction matters. Nationalmuseum reports no fittings for a hand or arm, only holes for hanging, despite the shield-like curve. Its catalogue also notes a former attribution to Raphael and substantial later damage from display near a window. This is an independent later painting with its own support, provenance and condition history, not the Uffizi parade shield, the debated private “Murtola” version or a conservation state of either. It shows how Caravaggio's image could be reworked into another kind of collectible object without proving that every later Medusa was a literal copy.[13]
Explore the Caravaggio collection
| Name | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio: The Messina Nativity | 1608–09; precise order relative to Resurrection of Lazarus remains unresolved | Artwork |
| Amor Victorious by Caravaggio | 1601–02 in the Berlin owner record | Artwork |
| Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1598, according to the Uffizi | Artwork |
| Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | after 1597, probably around the turn of the seventeenth century, according to the Ambrosiana | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1594–95 in the National Gallery's current catalogue; URL suffix “1596” is inherited | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: The Florence Version Attributed to Caravaggio | disputed; Longhi's catalogue record preserves historical 1592–93 and other proposed ranges, including c.1597 | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit by Caravaggio: The Royal Collection Painting | about 1592–93 in the owner's current exhibition record | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit in Florence: A Derivation from Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio Paintings in Rome: Churches, Museums and a Practical Route | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio Quotes: What the Documents Actually Record | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio's Lute Player: The Del Monte Painting Once Shown at the Met | about 1596–97 in the Met catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio's Painting Technique: Grounds, Incisions, Revisions and Light | — | Guide |
| Christ at the Column by Caravaggio: The Rouen Flagellation | c.1606 in the owner caption; owner prose gives 1606–07 | Artwork |
| Christ on the Mount of Olives by Caravaggio: The Lost Berlin Painting | — | Artwork |
| Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the Roma Capitale church record | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1603 in the 2019 KHM record; “1607” is an inherited URL suffix | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns in Prato: Attributed to Caravaggio | about 1602–03 in the collection presentation | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | 1606–07 or 1609–10 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue; the later Naples period is favoured by many scholars, while the owner keeps the question open | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Prado Painting | about 1600 in Prado material; “1599” survives only in the legacy URL | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1600–01 in the KHM's 2019 exhibition record; “1607” is a legacy route label | Artwork |
| Did Caravaggio Make Drawings? What Survives and What Paintings Reveal | — | Guide |
| Ecce Homo: Caravaggio's Madrid Rediscovery and the Genoa Painting | — | Artwork |
| John the Baptist in Caravaggio's Paintings: A Guide to the Different Versions | — | Artwork |
| Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio | beginning of the seventeenth century in the owning museum's account; about 1599–1600 in the Kimbell's 2025 loan label; around 1602 in one specialist catalogue | Artwork |
| Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: Caravaggio's Ludovisi Ceiling | about 1597; the archive connects the work with Cardinal del Monte's 1597 commission | Artwork |
| Madonna and Child with Saint Anne by Caravaggio: The Palafrenieri Altarpiece | 1605 in the Galleria Borghese object field; completed and delivered by 8 April 1606 | Artwork |
| Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio: The Pilgrims at Sant'Agostino | broadly c.1604–06; institutional records differ slightly in their starting year | Artwork |
| Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio: The Vienna Altarpiece | around 1603 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's object record | Artwork |
| Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio: The Detroit Painting | about 1598 in the Detroit Institute of Arts record | Artwork |
| Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield | 1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598 | Artwork |
| Narcissus, Attributed to Caravaggio | dependent on attribution; the Zeri catalogue gives a broad 1610–50 range under Spadarino | Artwork |
| Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: Caravaggio's Missing Painting | somewhere in 1600–09 in the parliamentary report; a specific 1609 execution and place remain debated | Artwork |
| Penitent Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio | 1597 in the owner's catalogue, during Caravaggio's early Roman activity | Artwork |
| Portrait of a Courtesan: Caravaggio's Lost Berlin Portrait | Berlin's data field says c.1590, while its own text compares a Caravaggio work of c.1598; precise date unresolved | Artwork |
| Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli? Caravaggio's Pitti Knight of Malta | 1608 in the Restituzioni object heading; within Caravaggio's Malta period | Artwork |
| Portrait of Maffeo Barberini: The Seated Corsini Painting | c.1596–97 in the national catalogue | Artwork |
| Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini: Caravaggio's Newly Acquired Painting | around the late 1590s / age thirty; “1598” in the inherited address is approximate, not an exact document date | Artwork |
| Portrait of Pope Paul V: A Caravaggio Attribution and a Borghese Copy | — | Artwork |
| Prints After Caravaggio: Who Made Them and What They Show | — | Guide |
| Reclining Saint John the Baptist: A Disputed Caravaggio Attribution | often proposed for the artist's final years; the later museum list does not give a precise year. | Artwork |
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Caravaggio | about 1597 in the owner's catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio: The Thyssen Painting | about 1598–99 in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio: The Cremona Painting | 1603–06 in the owner account; c.1605–06 in a KHM exhibition caption | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Prayer: Caravaggio's Carpineto Painting | 1606 in a 2016–17 exhibition work list | Artwork |
| Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio | c.1595–96 in the owner wall text | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome in Meditation: Caravaggio's Montserrat Painting | 1605 in the owner record; an owner publication reports scholarship placing it about 1605–06 | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | c.1606 in the owner catalogue; the “1605” URL suffix is inherited | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Malta Painting | around 1607–08; foundation dates Malaspina's commission to 1608 | Artwork |
| Saint John in the Wilderness at Toledo Cathedral | exact 1598 not established by the cited cathedral account. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at Galleria Corsini, Rome | about 1606 in the national record; older proposals ranged from the late 1590s onward. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Capitoline Museums, Rome | 1602. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Galleria Borghese | 1609–10 in the current Borghese record. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Spring: The Bonello Painting in Malta | early seventeenth century in the institutional account; a precise 1608 is not established there. | Artwork |
| Saint Matthew and the Angel: Caravaggio's Lost First Altarpiece | — | Artwork |
| Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1609–10, likely late Naples period in the Gallery's account | Artwork |
| Salome with the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's Madrid Painting | — | Artwork |
| Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio: The Painting Made in Malta | about 1608, Malta period | Artwork |
| Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge: Is It by Caravaggio? | — | Artwork |
| Supper at Emmaus (1606): Caravaggio's Brera Painting | — | Artwork |
| The Annunciation by Caravaggio in Nancy | c.1607–10 in the collection record; 1608–10 in the museum's restoration account | Artwork |
| The Basel Saint John the Baptist: Once Labelled Caravaggio, Now Maíno | about 1608–10 in that schedule, rather than the legacy URL's 1600. | Artwork |
| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | about 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608 | Artwork |
| The Burial of Saint Lucy by Caravaggio in Syracuse | 1608, during Caravaggio's Syracuse stay | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | about 1599–1600 | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio | about 1602–04 in the Trust's object text | Artwork |
| The Cardsharps by Caravaggio | about 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record | Artwork |
| The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel | commissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Caravaggio | 1606–07 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | about 1601 | Artwork |
| The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio | commissioned 1601; completed late 1605 or early 1606, according to the Louvre | Artwork |
| The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | 1610 | Artwork |
| The Doria Pamphilj Saint John the Baptist: A Second Youth with a Ram | linked compositionally to the Capitoline 1602 picture; an exact production year for this canvas is not established by the owner pages used here. | Artwork |
| The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition | about 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material | Artwork |
| The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio: The Capodimonte Altarpiece | around 1607, in the first Naples period | Artwork |
| The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio: The Louvre Version and Its Roman Counterpart | — | Artwork |
| The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | early 1600s in the Met catalogue; no more exact owner date asserted here | Artwork |
| The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the SPSG presentation | Artwork |
| The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | usually 1602; also catalogued 1602–03, for the installed final altarpiece | Artwork |
| The Lute Player by Caravaggio: The Hermitage Painting | about 1596 in the Hermitage collection publication; the Hermitage Friends restoration page gives about 1595–96 | Artwork |
| The Magdalen in Ecstasy: Caravaggio, Copies and a Disputed Original | — | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | 1599–1600; unveiled with The Calling in 1600 | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| The Musicians by Caravaggio | 1597 | Artwork |
| The Resurrection of Lazarus by Caravaggio in Messina | 1609; delivered 10 June 1609 in the owner account | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi: A Former Caravaggio Attribution | about 1615–17 in the Nicholas Hall catalogue; “1598” is an inherited URL label, not the accepted date | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1603 in the Uffizi catalogue | Artwork |
| The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio | 1606–07, according to the Pio Monte | Artwork |
| The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio: The London Painting | 1601 | Artwork |
| The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio | 1602 | Artwork |
| The Toulouse *Judith Beheading Holofernes*: A Caravaggio Attribution Debate | c.1606–07 if identified with the recorded Naples work; that identification is debated | Artwork |
| Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Youth with a Ram: Why Caravaggio's Saint John Looks So Unusual | — | Artwork |
No matching pages found.
Discussion
Share a close observation about Medusa by Caravaggio or a source that clarifies its history.
Which detail changes your reading?
Is there a collection record or document worth comparing?
What remains uncertain?
Join the Conversation
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Caravaggio's Medusa?
Is Medusa a canvas painting?
When was it made?
Why is Medusa's head on a shield?
In the myth, Perseus severs Medusa's head and Athena later uses it as an emblem on her shield. Caravaggio's actual shield-shaped support turns that story into the physical format of the artwork.[1]
Is Medusa a self-portrait of Caravaggio?
The Uffizi presents it that way. It is a reading of the face rather than a label written on the object by the painter, so the identification should be attributed to the museum.[1]
References
- Gallerie degli Uffizi, “Views from around the World,” Shield with the Head of Medusa.
- Gallerie degli Uffizi, “Caravaggio and the 17th century,” display of the parade shield.
- Gallerie degli Uffizi shop, Medusa object interpretation.
- Gallerie degli Uffizi, Bacchus, collection provenance and Medusa inventory cross-reference.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Petrifying Art,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 26, object caption for the Uffizi Medusa, 1991; compare the Uffizi's official works inventory, which records the painting as oil on canvas.
- Paola Mazzanti and colleagues, “The Medusa Parade Shield by Caravaggio: Making Its Structural Replica, Laboratory Testing, and Numerically Modelling Their Hygro-Mechanical Distortion Behaviour”, University of Florence research record, 2023.
- Italian national catalogue, Testa di Medusa, catalogue no. 0900289175, Uffizi object record, armoury history, support details and alternative gift chronology.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 75, no. 3 (2018), pp. 24–26.
- Constanze Hager, “Caravaggios Medusenschild von 1597 – ein Gorgoneion?”, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte (2016), publisher's abstract.
- Maurizio Marini, “Caravaggio, Murtola, e ‘la chioma avvelenata di Medusa’”, Artibus et Historiae 25, no. 49 (2004), pp. 175–84; CNRS/GRI bibliographic abstract of the proposed earlier shield.
- Monica Favaro, Pietro A. Vigato, Alessia Andreotti and Maria Perla Colombini, “La Medusa by Caravaggio: Characterisation of the Painting Technique and Evaluation of the State of Conservation”, Journal of Cultural Heritage 6, no. 4 (2005), pp. 295–305, publisher abstract and methods summary.
- Gianni Papi, “Quale fu veramente l'iter esecutivo di Caravaggio?” (2018), note 5 on the Medici wardrobe delivery of 7 September 1598.
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Giacinto Calandrucci, Head of Medusa, no. NM 7163.
- Uffizi Gallery object description on Google Arts & Culture, Medusa, 1598 gift and 1631 armoury entry.
- Annotated image source: High-resolution digital reproduction supplied by the site owner for the annotated details.
