Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (62 page)

Rubens was a middle-aged man in the early 1620s, but he had been deeply impressed by Caravaggio’s work from the start of his career. Like many other artists from northern Europe, he had travelled to Rome in his youth, twenty years before, to study the art of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. While he was there he had been struck, as if by the force of revelation, by Caravaggio’s Roman altarpieces. The violence and drama of the works of Rubens’s early maturity, such as
The Massacre of the Innocents
, would be deeply touched by Caravaggio’s influence. Through Rubens, that influence would be transmitted to Flanders and Holland, where an entire school known simply as ‘the Caravaggisti’ would come into being. The development of Rembrandt’s subtle, shadowy realism would be part of the same story, which can ultimately be traced all the way back to the time of Caravaggio’s first visit to Naples, and Rubens’s early encounter with his pictures in Rome. In 1607, within just a few months of Pourbus’s negotiations on behalf of the Gonzaga to buy
The Madonna of the Rosary
– the very picture that Rubens, over a decade later, would help donate to the Dominicans in Antwerp – Rubens himself was acting for the Duke of Mantua in regard to another painting by Caravaggio that was for sale on the open market in Rome.

The picture in question was
The Death of the Virgin
, another rejected altarpiece from Caravaggio’s Roman years. Laerzio Cherubini, who had commissioned the work only to reject it in the summer of 1606, wanted to recoup his outlay. He had put it on the market in January 1607 and it had been snapped up by Caravaggio’s future biographer, Giulio Mancini. The fragmentary evidence of Mancini’s correspondence suggests that he paid 200 scudi for it, and that he intended to sell it to an unnamed purchaser in his home town of Siena. His letters to his brother, who was helping him with the negotiations for the sale there, show that he was concerned that Caravaggio’s indecorous depiction of the Virgin might cause a stir. ‘Someone knowledgeable will reprove us, but as it is for the service of God and the embellishment of the city, I will pay no attention to complaints.’
37

But by the middle of February, Mancini was considering other options. The Duke of Mantua, one of Rubens’s most valued patrons, had shown interest in buying the picture. His agent in Rome, Giovanni Magno, had opened negotiations with Mancini and was taking advice about the painting from, among others, Rubens. It seems likely that it may have been Rubens’s idea to acquire the picture for Mantua in the first place.

On 17 February, Magno wrote a cautiously encouraging letter to the duke’s secretary, Annibale Chieppio, about the potential acquisition. While he himself found
The Death of the Virgin
rather difficult and unpalatable, it had been greatly praised by the experts and connoisseurs: ‘Last Sunday I saw the painting by Caravaggio, proposed by Signor Peter Paul Rubens who, when he saw it again, was still more satisfied by it . . . It pleased me to a degree corresponding to the concordant judgement of the professionals. However, because people of little experience desire some pleasure to the eyes, I was more impressed by the testimony of the others than by my own feeling which is not sufficient to understand well certain occult artificialities which place this picture in such high esteem. The painter, however, is one of the most famous for the collectors of modern things in Rome, and the picture is held to be one of the best paintings he has ever made. Thus, presumption is in favour of this painting in many respects, and really one can observe in it certain very exquisite parts . . .’
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In Magno’s next letter, of just a week later, he told the duke’s secretary that the price for the painting had been agreed by Rubens at 280 scudi. Mancini would make a profit of 80 scudi on the deal. He was content with that, and at this point the prospective purchaser in Siena disappears from the story. By the end of March, Magno was writing to confirm that he had taken possession of the picture on behalf of the Duke of Mantua.

Within a week, the painters of Rome had heard about the purchase and were clamouring to be allowed a sight of Caravaggio’s painting before it left the city. It had been removed so quickly from its intended altar in Santa Maria della Scala in the summer of 1606, just before the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni, that almost no one had had a chance to view the work. On 7 April 1607 Magno reported to his masters in Mantua that

I found it necessary, in order to gratify the painters’ guild, to let the purchased picture be seen all week long. Many of the most famous painters have been flocking there with a good deal of curiosity because this picture was the talk of the town, but scarcely anybody had been allowed to see it. It has certainly been a great satisfaction to me to let it be enjoyed by the public because it has been commended for the exceptional art with which it was done. It will be forwarded next week.

In the event, despatch of the painting was delayed because Rubens wanted to be sure that it survived the journey. On 14 April, Magno wrote to say that ‘The purchased picture is at Sr Peter Paul Rubens’s disposal, ready to be forwarded. But he, in order to preserve it from injuries, is having I know not what sort of case constructed, which will necessarily delay the shipment until after the holidays.’ By May,
The Death of the Virgin
had reached Mantua.

FLIGHT FROM NAPLES

Clearly Caravaggio was held in deep regard by his fellow painters in Rome, despite being under capital sentence for murder. But he still had his enemies there. All had not been forgotten and forgiven. There were those who claimed that Caravaggio was still up to no good, still making trouble in the city even though he was in exile from it. Within days of his arrival in Naples, he had been accused,
in absentia
, of another attempted murder back in Rome. It was said that an assassin named Carlo Piemontese, working to Caravaggio’s orders, had tried to kill a man who was on his way into church to hear Mass. Carlo Piemontese was a painter, a man also known as
il Bodello
, a nickname for sodomites. The victim of his alleged assault was none other than Caravaggio’s old adversary Giovanni Baglione.

Baglione’s accusations are to be found in a series of depositions recorded by a notary in a Roman court of law at the beginning of November 1606:

Last Sunday at the 14th or 15th hour I was walking to mass at Trinità de’ Monti. I was alone, and wearing a sword and a cape. I was walking down the stairs toward the Medici gardens when, as I set foot on the last step the said Carlo, who was hiding behind a pilaster on the stairs, attacked me with an unsheathed sword and struck me a blow that hit me on the shoulder, and tore my cloak and coat, as Your Lordship can see when I show you here . . . [
Then I, the notary, saw a black cloak with a cut on the left shoulder, and a coat with a similar cut
] Then he aimed a blow at my head, which struck me on the arm with the flat of the sword. Seeing myself attacked in this way I put my hand to my sword also. In grasping it he wounded me in the said right hand, as you can see . . . [
Then I, the notary, saw a little scar on the index of the right hand
] Then we exchanged some blows and my sword broke, because I think that he was wearing a breastplate, or something else of iron. Then some people came up, and we separated.
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Until this attack, things had gone well for Baglione in the autumn of 1606. In September he had been knighted as a Cavaliere di Cristo. In October he had received the further honour of being voted
principe
, or ‘head’, of the Accademia di San Luca. Baglione believed that his success in the elections for that post had provoked the attempt on his life. Three weeks before the attack, he said in his evidence, Carlo Piemontese had come to the academy and attempted to disrupt the vote: ‘As he was not one of the Congregation, was under twenty years of age, and had no reason at all for being admitted, I told him that he should go outside until the
principe
had been chosen. He answered me that he was a painter like the others, and as he was there already he wanted to stay, but he did it in such a way that he was not balloted, and did not vote in the creation of said
principe
, and nothing else occurred.’

That earlier incident had passed off without violence, but Baglione believed his election had continued to gnaw at Carlo Piemontese. The would-be assassin was friendly with two other painters, Carlo Saraceni and Orazio Borgianni, who were themselves close to Caravaggio. Baglione believed that the three of them had formed a cabal, to block his campaign and ensure that a member of Caravaggio’s faction be elected instead. When their plans were foiled, they resorted to violence. He knew this, he said, because on the day of the vote for
principe
, his groom had seen Saraceni and Borgianni standing outside the Accademia with Carlo Piemontese, stirring him up into a frenzy. He had also been told – although he did not say by whom – that the mastermind of the whole plot was Caravaggio himself:

My servant told me that, while he was outside holding my horse, there came out the aforementioned Carlo, Orazio and Carlo Veneziano, and that they incited the said Carlo by saying ‘that prick’ and other insulting words [about me]. They did this because they wish me ill, now and in the past, and are adherents of Caravaggio, who is my enemy. I heard that he gave them something, and someone else another thing, and told them to kill me, and to bring the news to Caravaggio, who would give them a fine reward.

The final judgement of the case is unknown. Two of the accused, Saraceni and Borgianni, made unusually large donations to the Accademia di San Luca on St Luke’s feast day in the following year, which suggests that the affair may have been settled out of court.
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Baglione’s accusation was potentially very damaging for the absent Caravaggio: at the moment of his arrival in Naples, just as he was taking what he hoped would be the first steps on the way to a pardon, his name was once more associated with violence and murderous intent.

But behind the scenes it seems efforts were being made on Cara
vaggio’s behalf by the Colonna and his other allies. In May 1607, some
six months after the assault on Baglione and just as Rubens was packing up
The Death of the Virgin
for transport to Mantua, it was again rumoured that he would soon be returning to Rome. The Este agent, Fabio Masetti, still fretting about the 32 scudi he had advanced to him sixteen months earlier, had remained alert for new developments. Reporting back to Modena from Rome on 26 May, he sounded a distinctly hopeful note: ‘It has not been possible to recover the money because of a homicide committed by the said painter, on account of which he has been banished. However, as the said homicide was accidental and the painter was badly wounded too, a reprieve is being negotiated and a pardon is hoped for. So, when he is back, I shall not fail to recover the said 32 scudi.’
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‘The said homicide was accidental’ and ‘the painter was badly wounded too’ – Masetti was no doubt repeating the same arguments, perhaps even the very same phrases, that were being used in Caravaggio’s defence. By the start of June, Masetti was sufficiently optimistic to let the painter himself know that he would be waiting for him when he got back to Rome. ‘I have written a letter to Caravaggio the painter for the restitution of the 32 scudi,’ he informed his superiors in Modena, ‘although it was not the first one, and the other time he failed to send a reply.’
42

Yet again the hapless Masetti was to be disappointed. Caravaggio, painting
The Crucifixion of St Andrew
, once more failed to reply. By the end of June, unpredictable as ever, he had left Naples by boat and was travelling ever further away from the city of Rome. His destination was the island of Malta, southernmost bastion of the Christian faith against Turks and Corsairs, and home to the military Order of the Knights of St John.

Just why Caravaggio took the extraordinary decision to go to Malta is one of the many puzzles of his later years. Piecemeal clues in the historical archive suggest that he went in the hope of finding freedom and forgiveness. He appears to have believed that by allying himself with Malta’s formidable militia of warrior knights he might win permanent redemption for his crimes. But in the tough world of the Christian soldier he would be undone, once again, by his own volatility.

THE FRIARS OF WAR

To become a Knight Hospitaller of the Sovereign and Military Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, Custodian of the Poor of Jesus Christ and Servant of the Sick, was to join one of the most venerable and powerful organizations in the Christian world. The order’s roots lay deep in the medieval past, when the religious zeal of the pilgrim and the aristocratic ethos of chivalry became closely interwoven. In the year 1070 a group of noblemen from Amalfi, in Italy, founded a hospital in the city of Jerusalem to care for fellow Christians weakened by the long pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After the First Crusade, and following the capture of the Holy City, they were formally constituted as a nursing and military order. ‘The Friars of War’, as they became known, were dedicated both to the service of the sick and to the defence of the Christian faith against the threat of Islam.

Within less than a century, the Knights of St John had established a vast network of hospitals and fortifications along the pilgrim routes leading from Europe to Jerusalem. Over the next two hundred years, they developed into a formidable army of aristocratic Christian warriors, building and defending a long chain of castles to safeguard the land frontiers of the Holy Land, from Asia Minor to Egypt. The Knights of St John were the crack troops of Christendom, but they also bore the brunt of wave after wave of attacks from the armies of Islam. By the end of the thirteenth century they had been made to relinquish almost all of their hard-won possessions. When the Christians were finally forced out of the Holy Land altogether, the knights were the last to leave, finally defeated at the Siege of Acre in 1291.