The Caravaggio Conspiracy

by Walter Ellis

  A murmur of approval rose from the lips of most of those present. But not all. Bosani took careful note of the dissenters. ‘By Europe, I mean, of course, Christian Europe – Catholic Europe. For two thousand years, the Church has been at the heart of this continent’s history. It was the papacy, assisted by the Curia and the College of Cardinals, that made Europe pre-eminent in world affairs.

  ‘This is our legacy. As leaders of the universal Church, we must always be mindful of the needs and contributions of others. We offer grateful thanks for the work of cardinals, bishops and priests of all nations, as well as the Religious of both sexes. These have helped guide our conscience for centuries. Yet it is we, here in Rome, and you as the most senior princes of the European Church, who today must usher our beleagured continent into a new age.’

  Halfway around the table on the left-hand side, someone cleared his throat. It was Cardinal Horst Rüttgers, the German primate, appointed by the late pontiff.

  Bosani paused in his discourse, twisting his signet ring as he did so. ‘Cardinal Rüttgers, is there a matter you wish to raise?’

  ‘Indeed, Camerlengo. It is simply that the conclave is not intended, surely, as an instrument of earthly power. It is true, of course, that our world is troubled, Europe especially so. Our birth rate has fallen alarmingly in recent decades – though not so alarmingly as our attendance at Mass. It is only by virtue of high immigration that our economies are not shrinking. And yet, undeniably, the very immigrants who keep our schools open are neither European nor Christian, but Muslim. Soon, it is said, there will be more worshippers in mosques than in churches.’

  Bosani toyed once more with his ring. ‘And what is your point, Eminence?’

  The German, a clean-cut, elegant figure from the Black Forest, had once been a campaigning bishop in southern Brazil. Since returning to his homeland as Archbishop of Freiburg, he was best known for his pioneering work among car workers in Baden-Württemberg. ‘My point,’ he said, ‘is that in the twenty-first century we in the Church are no longer the arbiters of history. It might even be said that our institutional cover-up of decades of paedophilia within the clergy has rendered us morally bankrupt. It is not for us, as Catholics, to determine which set of beliefs shall be uppermost and which derided and scorned. Today, in a multi-cultural society, bequeathed to us by fifty years of change, our goal should be to improve the lives and spiritual welfare of all our people. At no stage are we justified in setting white against black or Christian against Muslim.’

  A Spanish cardinal from Andalusia opened his mouth to intervene, but Bosani motioned him silent. ‘Do you mean, Cardinal Rüttgers, that we should confine ourselves to increasing the numbers attending Mass?’

  ‘The numbers and their welfare,’ Rüttgers responded. ‘Yes. That would be a start. And it would be appropriate to our calling. We are servants of God, not servants of the state.’

  Bosani stared at the faces turned in his direction, then slowly shook his head. A week earlier, he had been Secretary of State and president of the civil administration of the Holy See: the second-most powerful man in the Church. But then the Pope had died and all executive appointments had lapsed – all save one. The Camerlengo, uniquely, remained in place to oversee the election. It was for this reason that Bosani had persuaded His Holiness to grant him the secondary title alongside that of Secretary of State, arguing that it removed one more layer of redundant bureaucracy. He nodded at the memory. That had been especially prescient of him. But time was pressing. The Novemdiales, the nine days of mourning, would soon be up. It was time to strike down the idea that the Church was a democracy. He had not, even when he was young, been a patient man. At the age of seventy, he found it next to impossible to tolerate dissent.

  ‘Eminence,’ he began, focusing on the German, ‘as the naivety of your comment on the deplorable practice of paedophilia reveals, you are new to the workings of the Curia. So I ought not to be surprised to discover that you do not as yet fully appreciate how the work of the Church, as seen from the Holy See, reaches into every area of human activity.’

  At this, the German stood up. The sound of his chair scraping on the polished floor caused several to wince. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a very condescending remark, which I must ask you to withdraw.’

  The Italian pursed his lips. ‘I was perhaps a little indelicate,’ he said. ‘But not inaccurate. However, if you are offended, I apologize. Now please resume your chair.’

  Rüttgers looked for a second as if he would continue his defiance, then appeared to think better of it. The Camerlengo was, by all accounts, vindictive and unforgiving. To oppose him once his mind was made up was to risk marginalization, usually in the form of an offer from the Vatican that one could not possibly accept.

  As soon as Rüttgers sat down, Bosani resumed. ‘We live in desperate times, gentlemen. The Church is in turmoil, assailed from within and without. Only last week, a playwright in Rotterdam was seriously injured by a group of thugs after he wrote an article about the growing Islamicization of the Netherlands – where, as I may remind you, nearly a quarter of the population under the age of twenty is now Muslim. A demonstration by the Khilafah Salvation Front outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg ended in a riot in which a dozen or more police officers were hurt, two of them seriously …’

  ‘As were scores of the demonstrators.’ Again, the intervention was from Rüttgers.

  Bosani refused to be drawn. ‘It is obvious that we must tread carefully and search deeply before making a decision about whom to place on the Throne of Peter. Yet I call upon each of you to use what influence you possess to ensure the election of the candidate who will see the world for what it is – weak, dysfunctional, morally corrupt – and bring order to the chaos that threatens our very existence. Above all, Eminences, Rome must be led by a pope who is ready to confront Islam and establish a limit on the tolerance with which we regard its present incursions into our heartland.’

  This last remark, which caused several audible intakes of breath, produced a second intervention, this time from the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Henry McCarthy, a thickset man in his late seventies, with alarming eyebrows and a shock of white hair, for whom the upcoming conclave would be his last. ‘What are you saying, Eminence? No one knows better than I the issues that confront our Mother Church in relation to Islam. In the last fifteen years, Catholic Ireland has taken in a huge influx of Muslims and I have become better used than I would wish to inter-faith meetings and taking my shoes off before entering a mosque. But to suggest that we in Europe, without sanction from the greater universal Church, should in some sense declare war on the Muslim world has to be asking for trouble.’

  ‘My dear old friend,’ said Bosani, throwing up both hands in a gesture of mock surrender. ‘Of course not. I am suggesting no such thing.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘What I am suggesting is that we need a new pope for a new era, one who is not afraid to speak in particularities and is not a prisoner of political correctness. We need a pope who will speak up for the Catholic and European position, who recognizes the extent of demographic change and the undeniable fact that Islam in the twenty-first century is not going to be wished away. We need a Holy Father who stands up for the Christian heritage and civilization that has been built in Europe over two thousand years of history.’

  ‘You mean a pope ready to call for a crusade?’

  Bosani paused before responding. ‘Crusade is not a word to be used lightly. It has too many connotations of blood and chaos … to say nothing of failure. But if by crusade you mean steadfast purpose and resolve, directed without pity and without fear at the achievement of Christ’s kingdom on Earth, then crusade it is.’

  Rüttgers, clad like the others in a black soutane, signifying mourning, shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The Irishman stared out the mullioned window of Bosani’s conference room and began to recite. ‘I summon today all these powers between me and those evils; against every cruel me
rciless power that may oppose my body and soul; against incantations of false prophets; against black laws of pagandom; against false laws of heretics; against craft of idolatry; against spells of witches and smiths and wizards; against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.’ He halted and looked at the sea of bewildered faces around the table. ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Best understood in Irish.’ Then he turned to their host. ‘It might help, Camerlengo, if we knew who you had in mind.’

  Bosani smiled, exposing the tips of his incisors. ‘What matters, Eminence, is not who I may have in mind, but who is best suited to do the Lord’s work. For guidance on that, I can only recommend that you pray each morning and evening from this day forth, then vote according to your conscience.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Rüttgers.

  As the cardinals dispersed, Bosani’s secretary, Father Cesare Visco, tall and thin, from Messina in Sicily, approached his boss. ‘Eminence, what are we going to do about Rüttgers? I fear he could spell trouble.’

  Bosani eyed his young companion. ‘I am aware of it, Cesare. The conclave will take place eighteen days from today. Eighteen days! Up until now we could hope to persuade individuals to join us, or at least to give us a hearing. Those who opposed us could gradually be isolated. We no longer have that luxury. There may only be four German cardinals, but Rüttgers is the primate and he could damage us. The Austrian and Swiss churches may also take their lead from him. He is that sort of man, unfortunately. Even more important than his standing in Europe is his following in Latin America. That is what I really worry about. Remind me: how long was it he worked in Porto Alegre?’

  Visco carried the histories and voting records of every cardinal elector in his head. ‘Seven years,’ he said after only a brief reflection. ‘He went originally as a pastor to the German-speaking minority, but ended up as a champion of the poor of every ethnic group, with a reputation that spread throughout South America.’

  ‘With its twenty-two cardinal electors. Yes. Just yesterday, the dean said to me that if Rüttgers hadn’t gone back to Germany he could easily have been head of the Church in Brazil. He could rally many to his cause.’

  ‘– Who already feel that a Third-World Pope is vital for the Church’s future.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Bosani paused for several seconds, examining his fingernails. ‘I fear that it may be time to provide a small demonstration of the nature of the threat we face.’

  ‘How small?’

  ‘Something that will make headlines. Something to concentrate minds. But nothing too obviously … horrific. I don’t want the mob rising in the streets. That would be counter-productive. What I have in mind is something more … focused.’

  The priest thought for a moment. ‘There is always the appeal case in Bologna.’

  ‘Is that still going on?’

  ‘A ruling is expected tomorrow.’

  ‘And the judge?’

  ‘Carlo Minghetti. An Opus Dei member all his adult life. He will uphold the sentences. He may even increase them.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. Men like Minghetti feel they embody both God and the law. But His Honour may yet serve our purpose. Do you follow me?’

  ‘A warning.’

  ‘A sign of the times. Something for Their Eminences to think about as they prepare for the conclave.’

  ‘I shall see to it.’

  ‘Very well. In the meantime, send Franco to me.’

  ‘Franco? Are you sure?’

  The Cardinal took off his skullcap and ran his elegant fingers through his thinning crop of black hair. ‘Ask him to meet me at the residence after prayers. And one more thing: bring me the files on Cardinals Salgado and Delacroix. Their silence today spoke volumes. It is time they were reminded of their Christian duty. For there is much to be done and they too have their part to play.’

  4*

  July 1603

  Caravaggio called out in the night but nobody heard. Three, sometimes four times a week for the last four years he had dreamed the same terrible dream. It began a little before noon on the morning of 11 September 1599. He was on the Ponte Sant’Angelo to witness the execution of Lucrezia Cenci, her daughter Beatrice and her elder son Giacomo. Following the most intense interrogation and a trial that lasted months, the three adult Cenci had been condemned to death by the Pope for the murder of Lucrezia’s villainous husband, Count Francesco. It was a decision that had aroused enromous controversy. Everybody, it seemed, had an opinion. Seated beneath the scaffold on one of the hottest days of a long, hot summer, Caravaggio was sweating profusely. He wished he hadn’t come. He need not have done so. He could have stayed away and none would have blamed him. But he had been drawn to the occasion as if by Death himself.

  Directly ahead, blotting out the sky, lay the bulk of the Castel Sant’Angelo, dating back to the time of the Emperor Hadrian. If the Muslims ever conquered Rome, it would be here that the last Pope would take his stand. The sun, directly overhead, bore down on a huge crowd made up of city dwellers of every class, as well as foreign observers come to witness the reality of papal justice. One of the two executioners, a giant of a man wearing a leather mask and apron, nudged the other with his elbow and whispered something. The second man, smaller with a scar down one cheek, turned his head and grinned at Caravaggio as if to say, ‘Don’t forget to put us in the picture.’ Next to them on the scaffold, erected on the bridge, stood the instruments of their trade: a long-handled axe, its scythe-like blade glinting dully in the sunlight; a heavy bludgeon inlaid with metal studs; and a set of iron tongs in a chafing dish filled with hot coals. He tried not to look at these, but he was transfixed. To his right, several members of a well-known noble family were being shown to their reserved seats by a young priest. Nuns offered them iced water with lemon juice, and sweetmeats.

  Caravaggio tried to avert his eyes from the axe but could not. Moments later, a ripple of excitement ran through the crowd. Twisting round, he was able to make out the tumbril bearing the Cenci to their doom. The cart, drawn by two farm horses, was flanked by armed men, led by a bishop and two hooded members of the Confraternity of St John the Beheaded, known as the Decollati. But it was the small family group that inevitably held Caravaggio’s attention. Lucrezia, the mother, who had devised the plot that ended in the murder of her husband, stood between Giacomo and Beatrice. Bernardo, the youngest boy, just twelve years old, forced by papal decree to witness the excecutions, buried his head in his mother’s skirts.

  Attempting to escape his dream, Caravaggio tried to rise out of his seat. He knew what was going to happen: he had seen it in his dream many times before. But he couldn’t move. His legs were paralyzed. The Cenci, hand in hand, were being led past him towards the steps leading up to the scaffold. Behind, in the piazza, the crowd fell silent, as if struck dumb in contemplation of the horror to come.

  Everyone in Rome was familiar with the story. The Cenci were one of the greatest noble families of Italy. But Don Francesco was a monster. No woman, nor any girl approaching puberty, was safe from his predations. As well as a rapist, he was a murderer three times over, and a thief whose brutality and greed had landed him in prison several times. In the past, he had always bought his freedom with ‘generous’ donations to the Church. It was his rape of Beatrice, his step-daughter, in front of her mother that convinced the family that it was time to act. Giacomo, with the support of one of his servants, confronted his father and in the midst of a violent argument stabbed him to death, throwing his body into the street from an upstairs window. Everybody in Rome knew the circumstances of the murder. Nobody doubted the righteousness of the act. What Giacomo and his family failed to take into account was the extreme rapaciousness of Pope Clement VIII, the former Ippolito Aldobrandini.

  The Aldobrandini, with their roots in Florence, had profited hugely from their Vatican connections. The Pope’s younger cousins, pushed forward by their uncle, had married into the Pamphilj and Farnese families, becoming at
a stroke key members of the ruling class. But no one joined the nobility without bringing something to the table. Power and influence were commodities like anything else, traded on the open market. Thus it was that Clement, dismissing pleas for mercy from every corner of Europe, pronounced that the Cenci must pay with their lives for the death of Don Francesco. Their estates, according to a codicil buried in the text, would be forfeit to the Aldobrandini.

  No one was surprised by such a display of greed. That was how things were done in the Eternal City. It was the way they had always been done. To the victor the spoils. But the executions themselves were regarded as exceptional. Not since classical times had one entire family been sacrificed in cold blood to serve the interests of another.

  By a convention dating back to the time of Leonardo, artists, including the 28-year-old Michelangelo Merissi, had been invited to record the final minutes of the condemned. Meanwhile, from the ramparts of Castel Sant’Angelo, raised above the multitude, the Pope would have an uninterrupted view of the proceedings.

  Looking up at the scaffold, locked into his nightmare, Caravaggio watched, appalled, as Beatrice, her hands tied in front of her, halted next to his chair. He had been sketching the headsman and she glanced down, then caught his eye. He turned away. ‘Will you sketch me, too?’ she asked him. But he didn’t – couldn’t – reply. One of the Decollati took her gently by the elbow and urged her forward. She mounted the steps behind her mother and older brother. Young Bernardo was held back for a moment, then compelled to follow.

  What ensued would never leave the artist, not even for a single day. It haunted his nights. It infused his art. Now, as he turned over and over in his sleep, he saw it all again, as red and bloody as the morning on which it happened.

  The mother, Lucrezia, was first to be led to the block. She fainted, and was revived with cold water. Afterwards, she stood tall and unwavering, saying the rosary along with her assigned Decollato while unfastening the top of her bodice so that the axe would not become entangled with her clothing. As she knelt down and forward, the executioner looked up towards the distant figure of the Pope, poised like an emperor in his box at the Colosseum. At the same time, the masked Decollato placed a wooden board, on which was painted a representation of the martyrdom of St John, in front of the condemned woman’s face so that it was the last thing she saw. The Pope nodded. The axe fell and the head of Lucrezia Cenci rolled forward, spurting blood from the neck.