Dead Christ among Angels

Taddeo Zuccari died in Rome in 1566, not yet 40, with work still in progress at Caprarola, the Farnese family's country palace north of the city. His younger brother Federico took over the site and finished what was under way. He also went on repeating his brother's inventions, and this canvas is one of them. The dead Christ slumps against an angel who holds him up by the shoulders, while four more angels keep watch with tall lit torches. The original panel disappeared in the late 19th century and resurfaced only in the early 2000s. Guidebooks from 1650 on credited the Borghese picture to Taddeo, although an inventory written before 1633 had already named Federico, and scholars now agree with it. The arrangement of the body looks back to Raphael's Deposition, which hangs in this same museum.