Carla Rossi, philologist and art historian, conducts archival and documentary research on Caravaggio, with particular focus on the painter’s final years, legal status, movements across the Tyrrhenian coast and the transmission of early documentary sources.
This page gathers recent scholarly studies, critical editions and source-based investigations authored by Carla Rossi, grounded exclusively in primary archival materials and verifiable historical records.

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Research Focus

Carla Rossi’s work on Caravaggio combines philology, archival research and historical analysis in order to reconstruct the painter’s biography through documentary evidence rather than anecdotal tradition.

Her investigations concentrate on:

• diplomatic correspondence and avvisi

• notarial and legal records

• property deeds and maritime routes

• Spanish and Papal administrative archives

• early seventeenth-century testimonies

• textual transmission of documentary sources

The objective is to clarify events surrounding Caravaggio’s movements between Naples, Palo, Porto Ercole, Procida and Gaeta, and to reassess the political and juridical context of his final months.

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Recent Studies and Publications
Caravaggio’s Last Journey (June–July 1610): New Documents and Reappraisals

Author: Carla Rossi
DOI / publication details available in each volume
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This line of research presents newly examined archival materials concerning Caravaggio’s final journey along the Tyrrhenian coast. Through the critical transcription of diplomatic dispatches, legal reports and notarial acts, the study reconstructs the painter’s movements and reassesses long-standing hypotheses regarding his arrest, detention and death.

Particular attention is devoted to:

the identification of the “captain of Palo”

the episode described as restato pregione

Spanish viceregal networks

the Orsini and Colonna family jurisdictions

contemporary diplomatic correspondence

The method privileges documentary verification and rejects later mythologising narrativesnarratives unsupported by sources.

Documentary Philology and Early Modern Evidence

Additional publications explore the material transmission of seventeenth-century documents, with semi-diplomatic transcriptions, paleographical commentary and critical apparatus. These editions provide researchers with direct access to primary texts and aim to establish a reliable evidentiary base for future Caravaggio scholarship.

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About the Author

Carla Rossi is a philologist, art historian and manuscript scholar specialising in medieval and Renaissance documentary cultures, material philology and archival reconstruction. Her work integrates textual criticism, historical method and digital humanities tools.