Baroque

Medusa

Caravaggio, c. 1597–98

Medusa is Caravaggio's painting of the screaming severed head of the Gorgon on a round wooden parade shield, made around 1597–98 as a gift for the Medici Grand Duke Ferdinando I. It hangs in the Uffizi, Florence.

Artist: Caravaggio
Date: c. 1597–98
Medium: Oil on canvas mounted on a convex poplar shield
Dimensions: 60 × 55 cm
Collection: Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Movement: Baroque

Caravaggio's Medusa is a painting on a shield. Made around 1597–98, it shows the head of the Gorgon at the moment after Perseus has cut it off, painted on canvas glued to a convex poplar shield about 60 by 55 centimeters. It was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, Caravaggio's patron in Rome, as a diplomatic gift for Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. An earlier, slightly smaller version, sometimes called the Murtola Medusa after a poem about it, is in a private collection.

What you are looking at

A young face stares out from the center of a round green field, framed by a narrow dark border painted with gold ornament. The mouth is wide open in a scream, showing the teeth; the eyebrows are knotted, the eyes wide and glaring sideways. It is the expression of someone still alive in the instant of death.

Instead of hair, a writhing mass of snakes grows from the head, gray-brown and speckled, their heads twisting outward in every direction, some with open mouths. From the severed neck, streams of dark red blood pour downward in thin, separate jets.

Look at the shadow on the right side of the green ground. Caravaggio paints the head as if it were standing out from a flat surface and casting a shadow, even though the shield actually bulges outward. The trick makes the head seem to project toward us.

The myth

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Medusa is a beautiful young woman who is violated by Neptune in the temple of Minerva; the goddess punishes Medusa by turning her hair into snakes and making her gaze turn people to stone. The hero Perseus kills her by looking only at her reflection in his polished shield, and Minerva later sets the head on her own shield or aegis as a protective emblem.

Caravaggio's choice to paint Medusa on a real shield turns the object into Minerva's, or Perseus's, own: a weapon whose image is meant to terrify enemies. For the Medici, it was also a flattering emblem of a ruler who defeats his foes by wisdom.

How it was made

Tradition holds that Caravaggio used his own face, studied in a mirror, as the model, which would make the picture a kind of self-portrait. That is plausible but unproven. The rendering of the snakes, the open mouth and the blood shows his intense naturalism, applied to a mythological subject.

Where to see it

The painting hangs in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. See also Caravaggio's Saint Catherine of Alexandria, our Caravaggio paintings collection, and Medusa in later art in Perseus and the Gorgon and Medusa on Her Throne.

Questions & answers

Where is Caravaggio's Medusa?

The best-known version, painted around 1597–98 on a convex wooden shield, is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was a gift from Cardinal del Monte to Ferdinando I de' Medici. An earlier, slightly smaller version painted around 1596–97 is in a private collection.

Is Caravaggio's Medusa a self-portrait?

A long tradition says Caravaggio used his own face, observed in a mirror, as the model for the screaming Medusa. That fits his practice of painting from life and would echo Perseus using a mirror to see Medusa, but there is no documentary proof.

Why is Caravaggio's Medusa painted on a shield?

In myth, Perseus beheaded Medusa by looking at her reflection in his shield, and the goddess Minerva later placed her head on her own shield as a protective emblem. Caravaggio's parade shield was a ceremonial object meant to evoke that terrifying, protective image.

More by the artist

Caravaggio

All works →

A young beardless Christ blesses food at a table as one disciple grips his chair and another flings out his arms, with a fruit basket at the table's edge — Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601 — Supper at Emmaus
Caravaggio · 1601

A startled youth with a rose behind his ear jerks his hand back as a lizard bites his finger beside a glass vase with a pink rose — Caravaggio, Boy Bitten by a Lizard, c. 1594–95 — Boy Bitten by a Lizard
Caravaggio · c. 1594–95

A youth crowned with grape leaves reclines in a white robe, holding out a glass of red wine beside a bowl of ripe and rotting fruit — Caravaggio, Bacchus, c. 1596–98 — Bacchus
Caravaggio · c. 1596–98

A naked, grinning winged boy holding arrows climbs over a table above a scattered violin, lute, armor, crown and globe — Caravaggio, Amor Vincit Omnia, 1601–02 — Amor Vincit Omnia
Caravaggio · 1601–02

In a shadowed prison courtyard an executioner pins down the bleeding saint as a girl holds out a golden platter and prisoners watch through bars — Caravaggio, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1608 — The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
Caravaggio · 1608

Christ guides the finger of a frowning old apostle into the wound in his side as two other men lean in to stare — Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, c. 1601–02 — The Incredulity of Saint Thomas
Caravaggio · c. 1601–02

A young man in a brocade doublet kneels and leans over a dark pool, gazing at his upside-down reflection — Caravaggio, Narcissus, c. 1597–99 — Narcissus
Caravaggio · c. 1597–99

Two men lower the pale dead body of Christ onto a jutting stone slab as three women grieve, one raising her arms — Caravaggio, The Entombment of Christ, 1603–04 — The Entombment of Christ
Caravaggio · 1603–04

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A young woman in a white chemise and dark gold-patterned skirt kneels on a red cushion holding a long sword, beside a broken spiked wheel and a palm frond — Caravaggio, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1598 — Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Caravaggio · c. 1598

A nude Perseus in a winged helmet pins the fallen, screaming Medusa by her snake-hair and raises a curved sword, in white marble against a dark background — Laurent Marqueste, Perseus and the Gorgon — Perseus and the Gorgon
Laurent Marqueste · 1875–1903 (series); marbles 1890 and 1903

A gray sculpted scene of Medusa with snake hair and a serpent's tail seated on a column, surrounded by helmeted Greek warriors with swords and a bow, a blindfolded lyre player at left — Reza Sedghi, Medusa on Her Throne, 2021 — Medusa on Her Throne
Reza Sedghi · 2021

A wild-eyed gray-haired giant crouches in darkness, biting into the headless, bloodied body he clutches in both hands — Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, c. 1819–1823 — Saturn Devouring His Son
Francisco Goya · c. 1819–1823

Two women hold a bearded man down on a bed as one, in a gold dress, drives a sword through his neck and blood runs down the white sheets — Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, c. 1620 — Judith Slaying Holofernes
Artemisia Gentileschi · c. 1620

An armless marble statue of a half-nude goddess with drapery slipping from her hips, her head turned to the side — Alexandros of Antioch, Venus de Milo, c. 150–125 BC, Louvre — Venus de Milo
Alexandros of Antioch · c. 150–125 BC

Nude nymphs link hands and dance in a ring around a blazing bonfire in a dark wood while Pan crouches at the left playing a pipe — Joseph Tomanek, Nymphs Dancing to Pan's Flute — Nymphs Dancing to Pan's Flute
Joseph Tomanek

A skull-faced figure clutches its face on a railed road beneath a swirling blood-red sky over a dark blue fjord — Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 — The Scream
Edvard Munch · 1893