Caravaggio: A Passionate Life

by Seward, Desmond

  XXXI

  Syracuse, 1608–1609

  The beautiful island of Sicily, technically part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, was separated, administratively as well as geographically, from the mainland by the Straits of Messina, and ruled independently by a Spanish viceroy at Palermo, Caravaggio spent nearly a year on the island.

  William Lithgow, who came in 1616, thought the Sicilians “generally wonderfull kind to strangers,” if, among themselves, “ready to take revenge of any injury committed.” He was astonished by the island’s fertility; “the porest creature in Sicily eateth as good bread as the best Prince in Christendome doth.” However, he warned that Sicily was far from safe, “ever sore oppressed with Rebells and Bandits.” There was almost as much danger from the Barbary corsairs and the Turks; while Caravaggio was living on the island, the city of Reggio di Calabria, just across the Straits of Messina, was sacked by Turkish galleys. Lithgow cautioned against traveling along the coast, as Caravaggio would do often, because of the Moorish raiders who came at night and kidnapped the country people, “carrying them away captives to Barbary,” despite the strong watchtowers.

  We would know almost nothing about Caravaggio’s visit to Sicily were it not for Francesco Susinno’s manuscript history of the artists of his native city, Messina. If sometimes unreliable and padded out with details borrowed from Bellori, it contains information found in no other source. Clearly, both Caravaggio’s genius and his aggressive eccentricity were long remembered by the Sicilians. Susinno must have had access to contemporary accounts of him, in letters or memoirs that perished in the earthquakes that destroyed Messina.

  Understandably, Caravaggio was in a mood of black despair. “After leaving his profession [as a Knight], Caravaggio started to question a good deal about our most holy Religion, from which he gained the reputation of being a miscreant,” Susinno tells us. By “Religion” he means the Order of Malta, not Christianity, as some historians have mistakenly supposed. He had forfeited what he regarded as his spiritual vocation and his social position. Nevertheless, he stubbornly continued to call himself a Knight of Malta, and presumably to wear the cross round his neck.

  Susinno continues, “As a man, he was very distracted … caring little how he lived…. This was due to a mind scarcely less disturbed than the sea at Messina with its raging currents…. He always went armed, so that he looked more like an assassin than a painter.” He also seems to have acquired another large black dog, a successor to Cornacchia, who performed similar tricks, accompanying his master everywhere. Susinno’s considered opinion of Caravaggio was “a lunatic and quite crazy.”

  Syracuse was the most important Sicilian city after Palermo, renowned among antiquarians for its huge Roman amphitheater. In the quarries where the Athenian prisoners were confined after failing to capture the city in the fifth century B.C., there is a man-made, serpentine cavern, the Orecchio di Dionigi, or “Ear of Dyonisius,” famous for its echoes, which legend says was carved out for the Sicilian tyrant Dyonisius. He is supposed to have hidden in the cavern, eavesdropping on the prisoners.

  The legend, in reality, is a monumental joke, fabricated by Caravaggio, who had been taken to see the cavern by the celebrated archaeologist Vincenzo Mirabella. “Don’t you see, in order to make an ear-trumpet for listening, the Tyrant used as his model what nature had used for the same purpose?” Caravaggio is credited with telling the credulous Mirabella. “So he made this cave just like an ear.” Despite his misfortunes, he had not lost his sardonic humor.

  On a rocky point of land between two havens, the city was dominated by the massive Castello Maniace, a Byzantine fortress rebuilt in the thirteenth century by the Hohenstauffen emperor Frederick II. In Caravaggio’s time it housed the inevitable Spanish garrison. The threat from Muslim raiders was unrelenting. Every night, troops of horsemen had to ride out to search the seacoast for signs of danger. Nonetheless, amid its ruins, Syracuse was beautiful and opulent, a pleasant refuge for an exile. George Sandys remarked on the inhabitants’ dignity, and on how the women’s faces were hidden by their long black mantillas. If it was hot, there were plenty of gardens, watered by cooling springs.

  Susinno informs us that when Caravaggio arrived at Syracuse he was given a warm welcome by an old friend from Roman days, Mario Minniti, who had returned to his native island and remarried after the death of his first wife. Minniti had become a well-established local painter, setting up a workshop at Syracuse. He welcomed Caravaggio “with all the kindness to be expected from such a gentleman.” Susinno says that Minniti begged the Syracusan senate to offer Caravaggio a commission, partly because he wanted to keep his old friend in Syracuse for as long as possible, and partly because he hoped to learn as much as possible from him, since he had heard that Caravaggio “had become Italy’s greatest painter.”

  The city’s unusually likable patron saint was the charming St. Lucy, who had escorted Dante to the gate of Purgatory. The wealthy daughter of a Syracusan noble family, in the fourth century she had been denounced as a Christian by the man to whom she was betrothed, after giving away her entire fortune. Commanded by the consul Paschasius to sacrifice to the pagan gods, she staunchly refused. “Then Paschasius summoned panders and said to them, ‘Invite the crowd to have their pleasure with this woman, and let them abuse her body till she dies,’ ” The Golden Legend relates. But the panders were unable to carry her off. Even oxen could not drag her away. “Then the consul, beside himself with rage, commanded that a great fire should be built around her, and that pitch, resin and boiling tar should be thrown on her. This, too, made no impression on the dauntless maiden. When a sword was plunged into her throat, she cried out that the Church had triumphed. ‘This day Maximilian has died and Diocletian has been driven from the throne.’ ” As she spoke, officers came from Rome to seize Paschasius and put him to death. Lucy lived long enough for a priest to bring her Communion before she died.

  Although there is no mention in The Golden Legend of St. Lucy being blinded by her tormentors, as is sometimes claimed, another legend relates how, when a besotted admirer praised the beauty of her eyes excessively, she tore them out and gave them to him on a plate, whereupon they were miraculously restored to her. The story probably derives from her name, which means “light.” She was regarded as a saint who could cure any disease of the eyes. Blindness was commoner in the seventeenth century than it is now, and the church of Santa Lucia al Sepolcro, just outside Syracuse’s walls, built where she is said to have been martyred, attracted pilgrims from all over Sicily.

  The Syracusan Senate commissioned an altarpiece of St. Lucy from Caravaggio, who must have heard the many tales about her. In Susinno’s words, his picture shows “the martyr’s corpse lying on the ground while the Bishop comes to bury her, and two workmen, who are the main figures… are digging a grave in which to lay her.” This conveys neither the painting’s savagery nor its melancholy. A terrible wound in the throat was later made less obvious by the artist, perhaps in response to protests, Lucy being a much loved patron. Filled with sadness, the huge canvas is essentially a painting of mourners. There is grief even on the faces of the grave diggers.

  Caravaggio must have realized that if St. Lucy’s bones had vanished long ago from their shrine in the dimly lit chapel beneath the church, her bones’ former resting place was still deeply venerated, which is why he concentrated on the burial rather than the saint. The brushwork is less careful than in his Roman, Neapolitan, or Maltese paintings, the colors are fewer, and there is less light. It is likely that he painted without models, working from memory; the face of an old woman bending over the body seems familiar from his days in Rome. Even so, Syracuse was delighted by the tribute to its beloved patron saint, which was immediately hung over the high altar of her church.

  The applause at Syracuse did little to soothe the painter’s misery. “Michele’s disgrace would not leave him alone,” writes Bellori, who claims that he was terrified. Just what was he afraid of? It cannot have been
the Order of Malta, since during his time in Sicily he was always in cities where it was much in evidence. However, Susinno speaks of his being “pursued by his injured antagonist,” apparently meaning the unknown knight he had fought before being put in the Birdcage. It is possible he had heard that his former confrere had recovered and was planning a revenge.

  According to Susinno, “Michelangelo’s disturbed brain, ever fond of wandering through the world, made him leave the house of his friend Minniti soon after. So he went to Messina.” This was during the winter, at the end of 1608 or the beginning of 1609. Was he fleeing from the unknown knight’s hired killers, was he merely restless, or had he had an invitation from the Messinese? Whatever his reasons for leaving Syracuse, when apparently he had every reason to stay, Messina was not all that easy to reach. Sandys, from personal experience, warned travelers who were contemplating a journey overland that they would almost certainly be robbed and murdered by the country people.

  As for traveling by sea to Messina, Fernand Braudel reminds us of the hazards of the Mediterranean at the beginning of the seventeenth century. “Anyone sailing in the winter knew very well that he was at the complete mercy of the elements, that he had to be on the alert all the time, and that he had every chance of seeing the storm lanterns hoisted.” The Sicilian coast was especially dangerous. Although small vessels like the feluccas used by Caravaggio hugged the shore, their crews were well aware that at this time of year a lethal gale could blow up at any moment. The Straits of Messina had a terrifying name; their shores were littered with shipwrecks. Yet Caravaggio took his chance and sailed. He must have had some very good reasons for leaving in such a hurry.

  XXXII

  Messina, 1609

  On the Straits of Messina, with their lethal currents, the city at which Caravaggio landed has been obliterated by earthquakes. In his time, it was a gleaming white port, set beneath snowcapped mountains and defended by three massive castles. These fortresses were so strong that the inhabitants never bothered to shut the city gates, “in derision of the Turks.” Running in a semicircle around a sickle-shaped harbor, Messina must have looked magnificent from the sea as he sailed in on board his felucca.

  Rich from trade and silk-weaving, with many banking houses, it was governed by a Stratego, appointed by the viceroy, together with a senate elected by less than a thousand citizens. Arrogant patricians of ancient family, proud of their city’s semi-independent status, they insisted that Messina was the true capital of Sicily, not Palermo, and the viceroy had to spend half the year here. “The city is garnished with beautiful buildings, both publike and private. Venus, Neptune, Castor and Pollux had here their Temples; whose ruines are now the foundations of Christian Churches,” noted George Sandys in 1611. “Throughout the City there are fountaines of fresh water,” while “there standeth an high Lanterne, which by light in the night directeth such ships as are to enter these perilous streightes.”

  There was, of course, a dark side. “The Sicilians,” says Sandys, “are a people greedy of honour, yet given to ease and delights; talkative, meddlesome, dissentious, jealous and revengefull.” Messina was dangerous, even by the standards of the age. Sandys tells of constant housebreaking and robbery, “while in their private revenges, no night doth pass without a murder.” Men were frequently kidnapped in the streets and held to ransom.

  As a Sicilian, Francesco Susinno was irritated by the way the Messinese at once preferred Caravaggio to their own obscure painters. He adds, “Caravaggio’s newly acquired fame and the natural friendliness of the Messinese, who are always ready to like strangers, together with the man’s sheer quality, all combined to such an extent that they wanted him to stay and gave him commissions.”

  At Messina there was a wealthy Genoese from the vast network of Genoese banking families that reached as far south as Sicily. There is some speculation, but no firm evidence, that Giovanni Battista de Lazzari had links with Caravaggio’s Genoese patrons at Rome. In December, he commissioned a Raising of Lazarus that Caravaggio delivered the following June.

  “When certain rich gentlemen of the Lazzari family were building a chapel near the high altar of the church of the Crociferi fathers, they decided to commission a large picture from this artist, agreeing on a price of a thousand scudi,” Susinno tells us. “The painter proposed the Raising of Lazarus, in allusion to their family name. The said gentlemen were delighted, giving him every facility … his picture begins by showing on the left-hand side the Savior, with the Apostles, turning round and summoning the dead if once very much alive Lazarus, whose spirit has long since left him, while in the middle two workmen are lifting a large stone. Lazarus’s corpse is held up by another workman and seems to be on the verge of waking. Close to Lazarus’s head are his two sisters, watching him about to wake as if they were stunned. Michelangelo has given the sisters’ faces the most wonderful beauty.”

  Susinno was, however, shocked by what he had heard about the methods used by “this madman of a painter.” To give Lazarus exactly the right air of realism, he had a decomposing corpse dug up and given to some workmen to hold for him while he painted it. Unable to bear the horrible smell, they dropped it. He immediately drew his dagger, threatening to stab them, so that they had to pick it up again. Bellori says mysteriously that someone in the picture is placing his hand over his nose, to ward off the stench coming from the corpse. Either Bellori had not seen the painting for himself or else the man holding his nose has somehow disappeared from view over the years.

  Susinno tells us there was an earlier picture, which Caravaggio destroyed. The Lazzari family had given him permission to paint just as he pleased, allowing him to work in secret. When the first painting was exhibited, it caused general astonishment, and several Messinese art lovers made critical remarks. Caravaggio exploded with rage. “Impulsive as ever, Michelangelo pulled out the dagger he always wore at his side, giving a magnificent picture so many angry blows that it was quickly ripped to pieces. After venting his rage on the wretched painting, he felt much better and soothed the horrified gentlemen, telling them not to worry because he would soon produce another, more suited to their taste.”

  The Raising of Lazarus confirmed the people of Messina’s good opinion of Caravaggio. They could see that he was indeed “working well.” Accordingly, the Messinese senate paid him a thousand scudi to paint an Adoration of the Shepherds for the city’s Capuchin church, Santa Maria degli Angeli. Although the church vanished long ago, the picture has survived and is still at Messina, in the Museo Nazionale. Susinno thought it his best painting. “This great work of art alone would make him remembered for centuries to come.” He relates how “various princes” tried to get possession of it but were prevented by the Capuchin Fathers appealing to the Senate. “I can truthfully say that this work is unique and Caravaggio’s most masterly painting,” he wrote. Beautiful though it is, not everyone would agree with him. Certainly, the delicate young Virgin’s contentment is most moving, as is the faith on the strong, simple faces of St. Joseph and the shepherds. The donkey is charming too. Yet there is a brooding anticipation of the Crucifixion, almost a sense of approaching death.

  If Susinno praised Caravaggio’s painting during his stay at Messina, he was horrified by his behavior. Referring to the artist’s destruction of the first version of the Raising of Lazarus, Susinno comments, “This barbarous and bestial deed resulted from a jealous, intolerant nature. For the same reason, he became enraged whenever he heard Messinese artists being praised.” It is only fair to Caravaggio to remember that all of them were undeniably mediocre. Susinno was particularly upset by Caravaggio’s contempt for one of his own favorites, Catalano l’Antico, now totally forgotten outside Sicily. He records resentfully how Caravaggio, “in his usual sarcastic way,” compared a picture by Filippo Paladino with some by Catalano in the basilica of Santa Maria di Gesù, observing scornfully, “This one’s a real painting, the others are only a pack of cards.”

  Among Caravaggio’s private comm
issions in Messina were two large half pictures of St. Jerome for a local nobleman, Count Adonnino. In August 1609, Niccolo di Giacomo recorded that he had ordered four scenes of the Passion of Our Lord from Caravaggio, that the artist had already delivered a Christ Carrying the Cross, and that he was expecting to receive the other three by the end of the month. “One could recall several more fine works, which I omit for the sake of brevity,” says Susinno, referring to Caravaggio’s Messinese period. All these pictures must have perished in the various natural disasters that later overwhelmed the city.

  In the note recording his commission of the four scenes from the Passion, Niccolo di Giacomo refers to Caravaggio’s disturbed mind, his “twisted brain.” Plainly, he made an odd impression on the Messinese. In addition, he acquired a reputation for debauchery, or at least high living. “Since our painter had become so famous, he earned a great deal of money, which he wasted on gallantries and places of ill fame,” Susinno records primly. He then tells a sad little tale. “One day, going into the church of the Madonna del Pilero with certain gentlemen, one of them came up very politely to offer him holy water. When asked why he did so, the gentleman answered that it absolved venial sins. ‘No need of it for me, then,’ replied Caravaggio, ‘since all mine are mortal.’ ”

  Caravaggio must have been a spectator in June when the image of the Madonna della Lettera was borne through the streets. She took her name from the famous letter she had sent to “all the Messinese,” dated 3 June A.D. 42 and authenticated by the Jesuits as a copy of a genuine letter; the original had been destroyed “out of malice,” presumably by someone from Palermo. Normally it was enshrined in the high altar of the duomo, though occasionally it was borrowed for casting out especially stubborn devils or for helping a distinguished lady through a difficult pregnancy.