A propos biodiversity: autumn exploded on the hills and in the countryside around the town and our open markets offer quite a lot of diverse and different vegetables and fruits. The colours of the stands changed from summer and, looking at the goods displayed from the greengrocers, we realize how quickly seasons roll and pass. Now, middle in autumn, it’s a triumph of “warm” colours, of red, orange, purple, and every shadow of green.

All this beauty reminded us of the “Canestra di frutta” (the Basket of Fruits) of Caravaggio, the Italian painter who lived mainly in Rome among the end of 1500 and the beginning of 1600. So we asked our art teacher Simona to do a lesson on this wonderful masterwork. But we wanted also to do something special, to compare the picture of Caravaggio with a real “still life” (in Italian “natura morta” which sounds as “dead nature”). Early in the morning we went to the outdoor market to buy exactly the same fruits represented in the painting of Caravaggio. Those are typical of the autumn in the centre of Italy but autumn in the north comes a bit earlier and it was difficult to find the same fruits. Anyway we succeeded in finding everything we needed and even a basket, quite similar to the one of Caravaggio.

Simona explained how Caravaggio gave an artistic dignity to a neglected subject, the “Still Life”, while those times the most important painters devoted their art to holy or to mythological subjects. He could find allegorical meanings also in fruits and vegetables, mixing metaphors taken from the greek-roman mythology and from the Christian tradition.

So, let’s analyse the single fruits represented in the “Canestra”, remembering that it was commissioned from a cardinal of Rome:
Grapes: those fruits are often quoted in the Ancient and New Testament and symbolize the obedient people of Israel and, later, the Christian community.
quinces: apple is the fruit of “sin”. In the basket one of the apples is also wormy, corrupted (during our shopping, we were looking, with great surprise of greengrocers, for a wormy apple). It represents the ephemeral, the vanity, the precariousness of our life and of youth.
Pears: pear is the symbol of feminine and of love since the classical times
Peaches: in medieval times peaches were considered symbol of Trinity, as they are made of three parts: flesh, stone, seed. They can also be symbol of the human being, made of flesh, bones, soul.
Peach leaves: for their particular shape, tongue-like, the leaves of the peach-tree symbolize the truth.
Figs: the fig tree means protection, as under this tree, the goodness Gea (Earth) found shelter when escaping from Zeus. They say this tree is never stroke by lightnings.
The basket is surrounded by a golden light and sticks out from the background, like an offer to the observer or to God.