Welcome back to ArtHoles. My name is Michael Anthony and this is the podcast about art and art history with someone who really has no business with an art history podcast.

This is Caravaggio episode 2, and I am really excited for this series.

Episode one, as you know now, was really just to set the table.

We started with the birth of the we-we baby Jesus, stridently follow the evolution of the Catholic Church and its integration into secular Europe,

stumbled over some speed bumps of repeated Pope murder and our plenary indulgence habit,

and the start of the brutal inquisitions.

And now we're here, back in the late 16th century, bathing in blood and butter and the

piousness of the counter-reformation and to the gills with religious fervor over the win at the Battle of the

consciousness of the counter-reformation and to the gills with religious fervor over the win at the Battle of LaPanto.

In our last episode ended where our story begins at the wedding of Fermo Marisi and Luchia

Aratori soon to be parents of Michelangelo Marisi and Lucia Aritori, soon to be parents of Michelangelo Marisi, who will one day be known as Caravaggio.

The two big takeaways from the last episode about Michelangelo's parents were the presence of Francesco's Forza, the Marchese of Caravaggio at the wedding, and also knowing

that Fermo Marise was a stonemason.

And we know he was a stonemason and not a more technically skilled artisan like an architect that

required more education not just from the records that survived but what

wasn't present in those records. When Fermo died his probate records show that he had, quote, some old iron masons tools, and that he had his own independent workshop in Milan.

That he died with only those tools lets us know the early accounts of Fermo that said he was an architect weren't accurate.

He may have worked for architects, but he didn't die with any of the books or tools required to

be an architect.

And that he had an independent workshop means he was probably likely a small business owner, like his father, Bernardino Marise before him, and he wasn't working directly for any of the powerful families like the Colonna's.

So Ferma Marise was just a regular guy. He wasn't even in the more

upper crusty professions and as a stonemason his place in society is pretty set. And that makes it much more likely that the Marchese wasn't representing

...