Caravaggio: A Passionate Life

by Seward, Desmond

  During 1609—1610, his normal gloom must have been intensified by terrifying memories of the attempt to kill him, the constant pain of slowly healing wounds, and the frustrations of an invalid’s life. His brooding, melancholy temperament made him peculiarly ill-equipped to bear such miseries. Yet, when examined objectively, his future still seemed glowing.

  As early as 1606, there had been rumors in Rome of a pardon. In May 1607, and again in August the same year, the Duke of Modena’s Roman agent reported that efforts were being made to secure one. During the first months of 1610, Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, who now owned the Death of the Virgin, begged Pope Paul to forgive the artist. Vain and weak, Gonzaga was scarcely a papal favorite, but almost certainly he was warmly supported by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who wanted his favorite painter back in Rome. For Caravaggio, a pardon meant not only returning to Rome but a guarantee that he would be feted as the greatest artist of the age. He could command an enormous income, and powerful friends in the College of Cardinals might even persuade the pope to restore the habit to “Fra’ Michelangelo.”

  Meanwhile, he appears to have gone on working despite his poor health. Although the one surviving picture that can be dated with absolute certainty to this Neapolitan period is the Martyrdom of St. Ursula, the fact that he was able to paint it shows that he was regaining his strength. Probably he seldom left the marchesa’s palace, let alone dared to visit the Ciriglio. He seems, however, to have gone to the Lombard community’s church of Sant’ Anna dei Lombardi, painting two pictures for the Fenarolli Chapel. One was a St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, the other a Resurrection of Christ, considered by some to be excessively naturalistic because, instead of depicting Christ in glory, the artist showed him with one foot still inside the grave. Both were destroyed by an earthquake in 1793.

  Naples was the ideal place to wait for news of his pardon, since it was so close to the Papal States and a mail coach regularly brought letters from Rome. Nevertheless, by midsummer 1610 Caravaggio had become desperately anxious to get out of the city. He may have heard from friends that the unknown knight had learned he was still alive and in Naples and was planning another attempt to murder him.

  Some historians suggest that Caravaggio left Naples on a boat bound for Genoa. But of his principal Genoese friends, the Giustiniani brothers and Ottavio Costa lived in Rome, while he could easily do business with Prince Doria without visiting Genoa. Rome had far more to offer him. Baglione and Bellori both say his destination was Rome. The only difference between their accounts is that Baglione thought Cardinal Gonzaga was still negotiating with Rome for the pardon, while Bellori thought he had already obtained it. There is also evidence that the cardinal secretary knew Caravaggio was on his way to Rome, bringing pictures with him, though he did not know how many or what they were. Obviously, these were intended for Borghese and Gonzaga, perhaps even for the pope himself. It looks as if Scipione Borghese had received a letter, either from the marchesa or from the artist, before Caravaggio left Naples.

  According to Bellori, Caravaggio, “despite suffering agonizing pain, went on board a felucca as soon as possible with his few possessions, and set off for Rome.” This was early in July. Probably he fancied that, from his hostess’s window, he could see his enemy’s bravi lurking outside. A recently discovered report from the nuncio in Naples, Bishop Deodato Gentile, sent to Borghese at the end of July, says that he left “from the house of the Signora Marchesa di Caravaggio di Caravaggio, who lives on the Chiaia.” The felucca would have anchored just off the seafront, immediately below her palace, so that he could go aboard and embark without attracting too much attention.

  XXXV

  “Puerto Hercules,” July 1610

  Porto Ercole was close to the northern border of the Papal States, not far from Civitavecchia. Today a seaside resort, in the seventeenth century it was a Spanish garrison town, one of the presidie, a string of enclaves on the Tuscan coast from which Spain monitored shipping between France and Naples. Its only other activities were fishing and the grain trade. The Spaniards called the little port Puerto Hercules. Probably Caravaggio had never even heard of it before now.

  The skipper of his felucca must have intended to sail slowly along the coast in the usual way, landing every evening to spend the night within reach of a fort. But, almost as soon as they had left Naples, a storm came up. People on shore thought the felucca might have run for shelter to the island of Procida, off the direct sea route, though only two miles out from Naples, which explains why a rumor later circulated that Caravaggio had died on the island. In reality, the gale blew the tiny ship northward and past Ostia, the landing place for Rome. At last the skipper managed to put in to Palo, still in papal territory, a fishing hamlet guarded by a fort with a small garrison.

  Unfortunately, the Spanish captain at the fort had just been warned to be on the lookout for a well-known bandit. Seeing a pugnacious little man in shabby finery, armed with rapier and dagger, his face scarred by sword cuts, the captain at once assumed that Caravaggio was the banditto. “When he landed on the beach, he was arrested in error and imprisoned for two days,” says Baglione. Bellori confirms that the soldiers in the fort had been waiting for “another gentleman,” obviously the bandit. The mistake gives some idea of the impression Caravaggio made on anyone meeting him for the first time. The nuncio adds that he had to pay the captain a large sum of money before he would let him go. Baglione and Bellori both thought that the arrest occurred at Porto Ercole. Only since the discovery of the nuncio’s report has it been known that it took place at Palo. On the whole, however, they seem to be reasonably accurate, while the nuncio supplies vital details.

  When Caravaggio was released, his felucca was nowhere to be seen, which sent him into a frenzy. His possessions were still on board, including his paintings. He ran along the beach like a lunatic, searching for the boat, until told that she had been blown even farther north. Learning she was at Porto Ercole, he hurried after her. Since most of his money had been stolen from him by the captain, he could not afford to hire another felucca and was forced to travel a hundred kilometers overland from Palo, possibly on foot, despite the risk of being murdered by peasants or banditti. He may have had enough funds left to hire a horse or a mule, but in the heat of the July sun, even if he rode, it would have been a grueling journey.

  Already faint from painful, unhealed wounds, further weakened by his ordeal at sea and his imprisonment, and worn out by his trek from Palo, Caravaggio was exhausted and half crazy by the time he arrived at Porto Ercole. He rushed off to look for the felucca and his pictures, but soon collapsed. Baglione tells us that “he reached a place on the seashore where he was put to bed with a deadly fever, and after a few days he died miserably, with no one to care for him.” The “place” [luogo] sounds like a boathouse or a shed for nets. Mancini, too, says, “he died in want, and without treatment.” Caravaggio’s death was 18 July 1610. He was thirty-eight years old.

  In 1995 Professor Maurizio Marini discovered a document in the archives of the local diocese that shed fresh light on the painter’s death and burial. He died from drinking polluted water, contracting some lethal form of enteric fever. He did not die alone as Baglione and Mancini thought, but was nursed by the Confraternity of Santa Cruz. Its members, officers of the Spanish garrison at Porto Ercole, saw that dying wayfarers received medicine and the Sacraments, took inventories of their goods, and, when possible, sent their bodies home for reburial. They owned the little chapel of St. Sebastian near the sea, next to Fort Filippo, which had a small garden with two palm trees. They interred him here, between the palm trees. Despite the fact that it was a pauper’s burial, it is unlikely that the confraternity robbed his corpse. The chapel is still standing, no longer a place of worship, and although his grave has not yet been found, Caravaggio must lie nearby, rapier and dagger by his side, wearing his cross and wrapped in a knight’s choir mantle, the shroud of every Knight of Malta.

  Recently, it has been unconvinc
ingly suggested that the traditional account of Caravaggio’s death was an official fabrication by the knights and the local authorities to conceal his murder, which, supposedly, had taken place in a dungeon at Civitavecchia in papal territory with the connivance of the Catholic Church. It is alleged that the Knights of Malta had never forgiven him for the mysterious crime he had committed at Valletta in 1608, whose details they suppressed for reasons unknown. Yet not only had their grand master helped the painter to escape from Malta, but, had they wanted to, the knights could easily have arranged for him to be murdered while he was in Sicily. It seems unlikely that they would have risked infuriating Cardinal Borghese by killing one of his favorite artists, whose pardon he had only just obtained from the pope with great difficulty. And there is no known record of the Religion murdering anybody in such a way throughout its entire history.

  Certainly, no one could have been more taken aback by the unexpected news of Caravaggio’s death than Scipione Borghese, who was aghast at the loss of his eagerly awaited paintings. He immediately sent orders for the nuncio at Naples to find out exactly what had happened, in particular what had happened to his pictures. In the report, dated 29 July, the obsequious Bishop Gentile was careful to refer to the artist as il povero Caravaggio. He knew very well that he was writing about a favorite. He describes Caravaggio’s last journey in detail, mentioning the mistaken rumor that he had died on Procida. Then he deals with the paintings. “The felucca, when it got back, brought his belongings to the house of the Signora Marchesa di Caravaggio,” he states. “I at once went to look for the pictures, but found they were no longer there, except for three, two of St. John and one of the Magdalene, and these are at the Signora Marchesa’s house.” In fact, the three were the only pictures that had been on board the felucca. Borghese was determined to get possession of them.

  From a copy of a document prepared by officials of the viceroy of Naples, which was destroyed during the Second World War, it seems that the inventory of Caravaggio’s effects drawn up by the Confraternity of Santa Cruz was sent to the Religion at Valletta. The Knights of Malta, however, refusing to acknowledge him as a member of their order, declined to accept even the pictures. The viceroy then ordered that all of Caravaggio’s possessions be sent to the Viceregal Palace, “especially the painting of St. John the Baptist.” But Cardinal Borghese prevailed. St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness is still in his collection at the Villa Borghese.

  On July 28, the duke of Urbino’s agent in Rome sent his employer an avviso reporting, “News has arrived of the death of Michel Angelo Caravaggio, the celebrated artist, most excellent as a colorist and in imitating nature, after his illness at Porto Ercole.” On August 1, another avviso informed its readers that “Michel Angelo da Caravaggio, the famous painter, has died at Porto Ercole when traveling from Naples to Rome, thanks to the mercy of His Holiness in canceling a warrant for murder.”

  Bellori relates how everyone in Rome had been waiting for Caravaggio to return, telling us, with perhaps a little exaggeration, that the news of his death “caused universal sorrow.” But Sandrart was undoubtedly echoing the Giustiniani brothers and their circle when he wrote, “His passing was mourned by all the leading noblemen in Rome, because one day he might have done so much more for art.” Years later, his rakish old friend, the Cavaliere Marino, whose portrait he had once painted, published some affectionate verses in his memory, “In morte di Michelangelo da Caravaggio”:

  There has been a cruel plot against you,

  Michele, by Death and by Nature…

  The Cavaliere claimed that Caravaggio had not merely painted, he had created.

  An unforgiving Baglione wrote with relish that Caravaggio “died badly, just as he had lived.” It is only fair to remember that more than a few artists of the Baroque age possessed difficult temperaments, were no less violent, and had even stormier careers, yet in the end they generally settled down. An increasingly held view in seventeenth-century Italy was that most, if perhaps not all, artists and creative writers were slightly mad. Pope Paul V is credited with observing, “Everything is permitted to painters and poets: we have to put up with these great men because the superabundance of spirits that makes them great is the same that leads to such strange behavior.”

  Although Caravaggio’s earliest paintings had secular themes, he was primarily a religious artist. Essentially he was a man who, when painting, became a mystic. His deepest affliction was not his violent temper but a devouring melancholy. Yet despite his misfortunes and his early death, he should not be seen as a tragic figure. Nor would he have seen himself as one. The last version of David and Goliath was inspired by his conviction that, ultimately, he would triumph over sin and death, escaping from the unhappy man he had become. Caravaggio’s portrait of his own severed head, grasped by his redeemed self, was a declaration of hope.

  EPILOGUE

  Caravaggio’s reputation continued to grow steadily, and so many painters tried to copy his style that art historians speak of “Caravaggists.” It was only to be expected that his pictures found a place in the collections of Charles I of England and Louis XIV of France. In 1750, Pope Clement XIV presented a St. John to the new Capitoline Museum at Rome. In 1780, during the dissolution of the Flemish monasteries, Emperor Joseph II confiscated the Madonna of the Rosary from the Dominicans and added it to the imperial collection in Vienna.

  Many people have always been of two minds about Caravaggio. Berenson may seem eccentric in arguing that he was not a Baroque artist, yet at the height of the Baroque there were reservations about Caravaggio. Mancini criticized his “school” for a frequent “lack of movement, expression and elegance.” Baglione admitted that his style was beautiful, but thought he had “poor judgement in selecting what was good and leaving out what was bad.” Bellori admired many of his pictures, particularly those in his early style, but was horrified by what he regarded as his coarse naturalism, his concentration on “common, vulgar things.” Poussin went even further, saying that Caravaggio “had come into the world to destroy painting.” However, for many years hostile critics like this were in a minority, and he remained among Europe’s acknowledged great masters.

  In 1764, in an Essay on Painting, the Venetian savant Francesco Algarotti could still call Caravaggio “The Rembrandt of Italy,” alluding to “the magic of his chiaroscuro.” But, in the age of the rococo and then of the neoclassical, he was going out of favor. At about the time Algarotti wrote, the German artist Anton Rafael Mengs claimed, “Caravaggio possessed neither variety nor moderation, so that in consequence his draftmanship was very inferior.” It was an amazing statement, but the fact that Mengs, the king of Spain’s court painter, was able to make it shows just how much popular taste had turned against Caravaggio. In 1789 a highly respected historian of Italian art, Luigi Lanzi, sneered that Caravaggio’s men and women were “memorable only for their vulgarity … and lived in dungeons.”

  Writing during the 1850s, the great Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt could refer dismissively to “the crude style of Caravaggio.” In England, the Victorians were especially hostile. John Ruskin, for example, found Caravaggio neither great nor sincere, solemnly placing him “among worshippers of the depraved.” John Addington Symonds compared Caravaggio’s paintings with the novels of Zola, blaming him not only for “vulgarity” but for “a crude realism,” grumbling, “it seems difficult for realism, either in literature or art, not to fasten upon ugliness, vice, pain and disease, as though these imperfections of our nature were more real than beauty, goodness, pleasure and health.”

  By the early years of the twentieth century, however, the cultivated were once more beginning to appreciate Caravaggio. In 1905, Roger Fry declared that he was “in many senses the first modern artist… the first to rely entirely on his own temperamental aptitude and to defy tradition and authority.” Dedicated scholars, notably Roberto Longhi, started looking for his paintings and, in consequence, the number of works attributed to him has more than doubled, even
if several attributions may not be universally accepted. Some have been tracked down after disappearing during the long years of disfavor, while others previously thought to be copies have been recognized as originals. The Bacchino Malato and even the Judith and Holofernes were found only during the late 1940s. Since then, Mina Gregori has discovered the portrait of a Knight of Malta, recently identified as Fra’ Antonio Martelli. More exciting still has been the finding of The Cardsharps and The Taking of Christ. It is far from impossible that other paintings still await rediscovery. One reason for their disappearance may be that, when his white or cream tones go yellow with age, all the light leaves his canvases, though this returns miraculously with modern techniques of restoration.

  There have also been some tragic losses, such as the pictures that perished during the Russian army’s capture of Berlin in 1945, the portrait of The Courtesan Fillide, and the first version of the Inspiration of St. Matthew. The Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, stolen in 1969, may never be recovered. In 1984, the St. Jerome was stolen from St. John’s church at Valletta. Thanks, however, to the patient negotiations of the Maltese Director of Museums, Marius Zerafa, and his advice to the police, it was recovered in 1987. Some suspect that, as in the case of the Palermo Nativity, the Mafia were involved in the theft.