ABSTRACT
The final new document concerning the Cretan period in the life of El Greco is preserved in the extensive records of the Venetian administration of Crete, today held in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV).1 It is the fifth of its kind to be discovered. Four of the documents concerning the young El Greco derive from the Duca di Candia (Duke of Crete) series, that is, the records of the central Venetian administration of the island,2 while just one comes from the Notai di Candia (Notaries of Crete) series, which contains a mass of detailed notarial records from the Venetian period. This last document was prepared by Michael Maras, a notary public of Candia, on 6 June 1566 and is the earliest of the five documents so far discovered; in it Theotokopoulos signs as a witness a contract of sale for a house.3 The document to be presented here is also contained in the Notai di Candia series, though this time drawn up by the notary Zorzi Vasmulo, and dates from five months later: 5 November 1566. Here, El Greco appears not as a witness, but as a co-signatory. Before commenting on the new document, I feel it necessary to make a rather pessimistic prediction: I believe that it is unlikely that other records relating to the Cretan phase in the life of El Greco will be found in the Cretan archives of Venice. I am in a position to say this because I have examined all the records (close on 30,000) for the period 1541-1567 in the Duca di Candia and Notai di Candia series, and found no other documents, whether public or private, concerning El Greco. This means that from now on our only hope of finding new archival evidence for the earlier years in the life of El Greco is restricted to Cretan documents dating from after 1567, when El Greco was living far from his native island. We should not rule out the possibility, however, of uncovering further material – more likely in the Notai di Candia series – concerning his abandoned or deceased wife in Crete,4 as well as his family. Is there an explanation for this lack of archival evidence for El Greco in his native island where, as we know, he learnt the art of painting and began his career, and rapidly achieved recognition as the leading artist in Crete?5 Regarding his
1 See Appendix 1, text 6 and Plate 14. 2 Two were discovered by Constantoudaki, ‘Ὁ Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος’ and one by
Panagiotakes (see above, Ch. 4 and Appendix 1, text 1) (28 September 1563). For the fourth document, see the following note.
