Light in the Shadows

by Linda Lafferty

  “Who are you?” said Caravaggio, not budging. “I’m here to see the Marchesa Colonna. I am a friend and a guest of the Colonnas. I come from their estate in Paliano.”

  “Call me Giovanni.” The blacksmith blotted the moist soot from his face with his blackened sleeve. “Giovanni Pozzo. I’ve been expecting you.”

  The blacksmith looked up and addressed the driver. “I wager it was a hot drive here from the hills of Roma.” He gestured with his hammer toward Caravaggio. “This is the teppista, eh? Did he give you any trouble?”

  “Who are you calling ‘thug,’ bastardo?” said Caravaggio.

  Giovanni ignored him, speaking only to the driver. “The boy looks harmless enough.”

  “Buon ragazzo,” said the driver. A good boy.

  “Take me at once to the palazzo!” snarled Caravaggio, fingering the hilt of his dagger.

  “Go ahead and unload his baggage, Francesco,” said the brawny smith to the driver. “Leave them with me.” He turned his back on Caravaggio, continuing his conversation with the coachman. “Put his trunk right there, next to the haystack.”

  “No!” said Caravaggio. “Take us to the palazzo—”

  The smith turned and addressed Caravaggio directly. “You are not welcome in the palazzo, Maestro Merisi. The marchesa isn’t here to receive company. She gave me instructions on how to handle you. You insult me and you are directly insulting the Marchesa Colonna. Capisci?”

  Cecco’s eyes grew wide in wonder. Listen to this Napoletano give it to my master!

  “It is true, Maestro Merisi,” said the driver as he unstrapped the trunk and bundles from the carriage. “The Marchesa Colonna holds Giovanni Pozzo in the highest esteem. She trusts him above all others.”

  Caravaggio’s lips twisted in rage but he didn’t argue. The marchesa was his salvation. He descended from the coach and supervised the unloading of his kit.

  Cecco helped the coach driver, who handed him a velvet-wrapped parcel—a framed painting.

  “Give me that one,” snapped Caravaggio. Cecco nodded silently, gently handing the canvas to him.

  That’s the one he forbade me to see.

  “I’ve got some bread and cheese for you, Maestro Merisi,” said the blacksmith, wiping his sooty hands on a rag. “And some good sausage. A bottle of wine too.”

  Caravaggio glared.

  “The marchesa sends her regrets, but she has other business in the north,” said Giovanni. “She will be back within the month.”

  “The month? But . . . where am I to stay?”

  “You’ll need to find a room somewhere,” said Giovanni.

  “But—”

  “The Marchesa Colonna left me in charge of you. ‘Help the signore find a place to stay,’ she said. ‘So he can get to work painting.’ Until we find you a place, you can sleep here in the stables.”

  Caravaggio’s face wrinkled. “The stables?”

  “You have to lie low for a while. The boy. Is he your son?”

  “He’s not my son,” said Caravaggio, his lips tightening. “He’s my assistant. His name is Cecco.”

  Giovanni nodded to the boy, his face softening. “Benvenuto a Napoli, Cecco.”

  Cecco bobbed his head. “Grazie.”

  Caravaggio shot a look at the blacksmith. “And the marchesa’s son, Signor Fabrizio?” he asked. “Is he here?”

  “The grand admiral?” said the blacksmith sharply. He turned away from Cecco, his face hardening once again. “No, Maestro. He is at sea fighting the Turks.”

  Giovanni studied the bedraggled painter.

  Matted hair, a dirty beard. Black velvet tunic rent with holes and stained with wine and grease.

  The blacksmith snorted. “You didn’t think you were going to live here in the palazzo, did you, signore? The Spanish would certainly notice. They want no trouble with the pope. And you are a wanted man.”

  “Not here, I am not.”

  “Ha! Any hired assassin could bring your head to the pope and collect a bounty, bandito. And you would bring shame on the House of Colonna. Too risky.”

  “Do as you were ordered,” snapped Caravaggio. “Find me a room.”

  “I leave you now, Giovanni!” called Francesco from the coach. He winked at the blacksmith. “Buona fortuna!”

  “Arrivederci!” Giovanni called his farewell to the coach driver as the wheels spun dust into golden swirls in the late-afternoon light.

  The smith turned, saying nothing to Caravaggio. He retreated into the stable and returned with a wicker basket of food. He pulled out spicy soppressata sausage studded with white globules of fat, ricotta cheese wrapped in damp linen, and fine white-milled bread. He laid the feast on a broad stump. His meaty fist plunged the blade of a knife into the dead wood.

  “There,” he said to the newcomer. “Eat. Courtesy of your benefactor, the good Marchesa Colonna. And make sure that skinny boy of yours gets some. You don’t feed him enough, by the looks of him.”

  Caravaggio eyed the knife, determining how far the blade had sunk into the wood. He sized up the blacksmith, taking in the broad scar. After some hesitation, he moved away to sit on another stump to dine. He took a long draught of the wine from the bottle, never taking his eye off the blacksmith. Then he passed the bottle to Cecco.

  “You’ll help me to find a room, blacksmith. A room with light, where I can paint.”

  “What amount of money can you pay?”

  “Three scudi a month,” said Caravaggio. “Not a quattrino more.”

  “That’s not much, Maestro,” said the blacksmith. “Niente! Even here.”

  “It’s what I can pay, maniscalco—”

  “Call me Giovanni, not blacksmith.”

  “I’m not rich.”

  Giovanni shrugged, his palms open to the sky. “Who is but the nobili? You won’t live in a good neighborhood—”

  Caravaggio spat out a bitter laugh, almost a growl.

  “—but from the looks of you, Maestro,” said the blacksmith, “you will fit right in.”

  In the teeming neighborhood of Spaccanapoli—literally “Naples splitter”—Caravaggio found a cheap room atop a six-story building. The meager lodgings reeked of rat piss and the low-tide stench of the fishmongers below, but had a window—a single, greasy window—that looked out over the street. Feeble light found its way through the opening, particularly in the afternoon. It was enough to paint by, and the rancid smell of the burning tallow candles, olive oil lanterns, and turpentine masked the more malevolent odors.

  Raucous noise filtered through the warren of tight alleyways, though Caravaggio seemed not to notice. His eyes focused on the dark gesso preparation on his canvas where life took shape with the strokes of his brush.

  Napoli suited him, twisted and dark—a maze of narrow streets, cutthroats, thieves. And lost souls. But there was a vitality in the Napoletani, as spirited as their dialect, as earthy and comforting as their food.

  Caravaggio and Napoli were a perfect match. Murder? A Napoletano would shrug, palms cupped to the heavens. What is spilt blood in a duel but fairly earned? Caravaggio’s stain wouldn’t last in this city. It would open more doors and earn begrudging respect from the gangs of ruffians and the underbelly of Napoli. And from them he would choose his subjects to be immortalized in paint.

  Caravaggio’s brushstrokes became more rapid, confident, and economical, as if he were racing to conclude a shady deal in a dark alley—and assured of success.

  In the brawling city, in the sordid taverns and dangerous streets, he found peace.

  Caravaggio ventured out often at night, walking the streets of Napoli. On one such evening, Cecco worked alone on his own canvas by oil lamp.

  In the corner of the little room, the light flickered on the velvet-draped canvas, the one painting that Cecco was forbidden to see.

  The boy wiped his brush clean, gazing at the folds of velvet. He stood up and walked over to the shrouded canvas. His fingers reached out, gingerly unwrapping the painting.

&n
bsp; “Dio mio!” he gasped.

  In his hands was the image of Lena as Mary Magdalene. The Magdalene in ecstasy.

  His mind flashed back to what he had seen in the candlelight from his bed in Roma. The arching body of the magnificent Lena, the orgasm brought on by the hands and body of his master.

  In Caravaggio’s vision, he had painted Lena as the saint, the metamorphosis of erotic ecstasy to spiritual transcendence.

  He remembered how Roero had grabbed her wrist, dragging her away for sex.

  Lena. The boy had hated her at first sight. He had cried in jealousy, in agony. But those feelings had ebbed as he saw her as the Madonna, as mother. And now he knew beauty transcended jealousy and all the petty cares of mortals.

  He wiped the tears from his eyes with his wrist. The tears of one who beholds truth.

  With reverence, he carefully rewrapped the masterpiece.

  He walked to the window, blinking out at the dark night and the bright stars over Napoli.

  Chapter 34

  Napoli

  1606

  Smithy Giovanni Pozzo visited frequently to check up on the painter, keeping him informed of the Colonna family’s whereabouts. Pozzo had grown accustomed to Caravaggio’s rough ways, not so different from those of many Napoletani.

  But it was the boy, Cecco, whom he cared about.

  Caravaggio learned that the blacksmith had been born into the Colonna household, his father the Colonna blacksmith before him. The family trusted him almost as much as a family member, this faithful servant.

  Pozzo had a big family that lived in Spaccanapoli. There were few souls in the winding streets and alleyways who weren’t his friends or relatives.

  He took Caravaggio and Cecco to taverns in the neighborhood, and to brothels too. One that combined both trades was Osteria del Cerriglio—food and drink on the first floor and carnal pleasure on the second. This “den of thieves” was quite near Caravaggio’s sordid studio in the tight, winding vicoli.

  The smoky tavern was filled with the smell of cured hams, which were hung on hooks just above patrons’ heads. Oil lanterns threw shadows on the soot-coated haunches.

  Roasting meats on spits over the great hearth crackled and shot sparks into the laps of customers who dared to sit too close. A steady parade of waiters brought hefty jugs of wine, plunking them down on the plank tables along with wooden trenchers of sausage, bread, and pork. Terra-cotta bowls of pasta mixed with shiny-eyed sardines and pink and purple shellfish glistened in the half-light.

  A sweaty waiter with a white rag tucked around his waist juggled hot dishes in his arms. He put down an array of food on the table.

  “Per i signori!” said the waiter, clapping Giovanni on the back. “Buon appetito!”

  “Grazie, Enrico,” said the blacksmith, his hands still black with soot from his forge.

  “Mangia, Cecco!” said Giovanni. “Eat! You look like a skinny worm from the north. We’ll make you a Napoletano, put some brawn on your bones.”

  Cecco smiled and dug into pasta studded with briny clams. He twisted the linguine around his fork, shoving a great mound into his mouth. He closed his eyes in appreciation as he chewed.

  Giovanni shifted his eyes to Caravaggio. “What will you paint here, Maestro Merisi?”

  “I already have a commission. For the church of San Domenico Maggiore,” said Caravaggio, breaking a piece of bread. “An altarpiece of a Madonna and child surrounded by a choir of angels.”

  The blacksmith sat back on the bench, making it creak. He looked directly into Caravaggio’s eyes. “Do you really like painting angels? Davvero?”

  “Cazzo!” said Caravaggio, his face flushing in rage. “Fuck! I detest fluttering angels. That’s all the bastards want. A fucking choir of angels. With Saint Dominic and Saint Francis embracing! And a smiling Saint Vitus rising from a vat of oil.”

  Giovanni nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face.

  “I crave the stuff of life,” said Caravaggio. “The dirty skin of pilgrims, the open wounds of a martyr, an old man’s wrinkled face. I want to paint the world God has given us, the one we see each day and night. Not frilly lace and angel feathers!”

  Giovanni laughed. “Have you been contracted for anything that inspires you?”

  Caravaggio took a deep gulp of wine. “What do you know about inspiration, blacksmith?”

  Giovanni fingered his ugly scar, fixing his eyes on the painter. He waited until he had Caravaggio’s attention before he answered.

  “Don’t underestimate me, painter,” he said. “I know the satisfaction of good work. I have felt swollen fetlocks in my hand, interpreted the cause, and turned out iron shoes that cure a crippled horse. I know when I have achieved my best. I suspect you do too.”

  Caravaggio dug at a piece of meat in his back molars. “Davvero? You compare my trade with yours? Your triumph is a set of horseshoes with nails in the right places?”

  Giovanni raised his finger, pointing at Caravaggio. “I suppose you need to get the paint in the right places, Caravaggio. You must do that at least occasionally.”

  Cecco snorted a laugh through his linguine, the pasta spilling from his mouth.

  “What I meant by inspiration,” Giovanni continued, “was whether you have any commissions worthy of your talent. Rather than flights of angels flitting about in the clouds.”

  Caravaggio started to answer, then suddenly cocked his head.

  Outside, dozens of voices rose in chorus. A pathetic whine of children and women made every diner stop eating.

  “Pane! Pane! Pane!”

  “Bread,” said Giovanni, setting down his cup. “The poor bastards are starving in the street. Some of the richest families in Europe live here in Napoli. And the poorest of poor who die of starvation by the thousands.”

  Caravaggio stared out the arched doorway. “You asked me about commissions. There is one more,” he said quietly. “For the Pio Monte della Misericordia.”

  Giovanni’s eyes lit up. “Pio Monte della Misericordia!”

  “They proposed I paint the seven works of mercy,” said Caravaggio. “And they will pay double what the church of San Domenico Maggiore has given me for their damned flock of angels.”

  “What are the seven acts of mercy?” asked Cecco, glancing up from his plate.

  “The good works of a Christian,” said Giovanni. “They’re in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Visiting the sick, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry—I can’t remember the rest. Oh, sì . . . the burial of the dead.”

  Caravaggio crossed his arms. “They need more burials. Dogs chew on the corpses before the street cleaners arrive.”

  Giovanni waved away his words. “The Pio Monte della Misericordia takes care of the destitute and incurably ill. Without their good works, there would be hundreds more. The dead bodies would lie there for the dogs to feast upon until there wasn’t a bone left. Who do you think pays the street cleaners to cart away those carcasses and give them a decent burial? Who do you think feeds the starving while the Church turns its arrogant face away?”

  The blacksmith crossed himself, showing his bulging forearms. Cecco noticed Giovanni’s eyes glistening.

  “They are independent from the Church?” said Caravaggio, tearing at a loaf of bread.

  “As long as they don’t crow that they got papal dispensation, they are an exception. All their money goes to the needy, not a scudo into the coffers of Roma.”

  Caravaggio put down his bread. He stared at the blazing hearth. A ghost of a smile played on his lips. “I was approached for the commission by the Marchese di Villa. Do you know him?”

  “I know of him. He and the Colonnas entertain one another. The marchese hosts poets and radical outcasts in his salon. He is friends with Galileo Galilei.”

  “Galileo?” said Caravaggio, his right brow arching.

  “Do you know him?”

  “A most singular man,” said Caravaggio. “I admire him greatly. He will face trouble with the Church one day.”


  “The marchese is a good man.”

  “I shall paint them a masterpiece,” said Caravaggio, slapping his hand on the table for emphasis.

  Giovanni clapped Caravaggio hard on the back. “Pio Monte are the true saviors of our wretched.”

  Caravaggio looked down at his hands, turning them palms up. He lifted his gaze toward the open door. The plaintive call of “Pane, pane” still echoed through the streets.

  “We’ll see,” said Caravaggio.

  Within the little church of Pio Monte della Misericordia, just steps from the great duomo of Napoli, Caravaggio directed the hanging of his newest painting. The light spilled from the high windows, washing the oil paints in radiance, like the crash of cymbals in a spiraling symphony.

  He studied the painting with satisfaction, ignoring the cluster of well-dressed benefactors who lifted their chins in unison to survey the huge canvas that they were seeing for the first time.

  One, Signor Russo, pulled nervously at his lower lip, staring at the woman baring her breast to suckle her starving father through the bars of his prison cell. Russo’s eye then shifted to the limp feet of a dead body that gravediggers were carrying from the street for a proper burial.

  He fingered his collar, his face tense. His eyes flicked toward his companions, trying to gauge their response.

  “A perfect depiction of the mercies,” gasped Signor Carafa. “Magnificent!”

  “A stunning painting!” exclaimed Signor del Franchis.

  “But the daughter breastfeeding her own father—will it not cause scandal?” asked Signor Russo. “Her nakedness, it’s wholly inappropriate and—”

  “Don’t behave like a startled rabbit, Russo! The daughter is saving her father’s life, a starving prisoner,” said Giovanni Battista Manso, Marchese di Villa, his open palm gesturing toward the painting. “Do we not have the same suffering in our streets? Who would not sacrifice all—even honor—to save a dying loved one?”

  The other nobles nodded solemnly.

  “And look at the defiance on her face. A true Napoletana,” said Signor Carafa. “‘Dare criticize my act of mercy, and I’ll cut your face!’”