Florentine Renaissance – The Artistic Adventure of Mankind

A French cardinal, Matthieu Cointerel (1519-1585), known to Italians as Contarelli, bought a chapel in the church of the French community in Rome (San Luigi dei Francesi, ‘Saint Louis of the French’) in order to dedicate it to his patron saint: Matthew. Cointerel was named cardinal by Gregory XIII in 1583, and when he died two years later he left an endowment for the completion of the chapel. At first it was thought to decorate it with frescoes, later Jacob Cornelisz Cobaert was commissioned to create a group of sculptures that would have been placed on the main altar. In 1591, the Cavaliere d’Arpino (who had not yet achieved his title, one of Caravaggio’s patrons, and whom we met in the previous essay), was set to paint the chapel’s frescoes and executed only those in the vaults. For several years, as a consequence of succession problems, the works were interrupted.

Valentin de Boulogne, one of the art dealers in Rome and a frequent visitor to the Cavaliere d’Arpino workshop, took a deep interest in the work of Caravaggio, and over the years after learning first-hand of his artistic qualities, he got him a prestigious commission for one of the most fashionable churches in Rome at the time, San Luigi dei Francesi. Four centuries have already passed, and these magnificent paintings for San Luigi dei Francesi remain exactly in the same place where they were hung in the presence of Caravaggio and still arouse the admiration of visitors and pilgrims to the church today.

View of the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of *San Luigi dei Francesi* (Rome), with Caravaggio’s paintings *in situ.*

When Caravaggio began to paint for this commission at the end of 1597, he didn’t know that he would end up doing four canvases. The third will be rejected due to the way in which he represented the characters: it was a version of Saint Matthew and the Angel, which ended up in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin and was later destroyed in 1945 during the Second World War. The painting was curious because of the strongly volumetric, almost tangible element that it represented. Saint Matthew looks almost illiterate, with the appearance of a peasant, bare legs and dirty feet: a stubborn, strong, bald man who doesn’t manage to draw a sign if an angel doesn’t come to his aid; this last, a boy of about 10 or 13 years wrapped in his wings and guiding the saint’s hand.

***St. Matthew and the Angel***, destroyed in 1945, known by an original photo, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1602, 295 x 195 cm (photo in the Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC). This is the first version of the St. Matthew and the Angel, executed for the Contarelli Chapel. For the decoration of the Chapel’s high altar, a statue of St. Matthew and the Angel was commissioned to Flemish sculptor Cobaert who delivered the statue on 7 February 1602, but it was considered unsatisfactory by the patrons. Caravaggio then was entrusted to paint a canvas for the high altar with the same theme, which he delivered on 31st May, the Feast of the Pentecost. This painting was rejected, and Caravaggio made another one (see picture below) in a surprisingly short time as was his custom, on 22 September. This painting was destroyed in Berlin during the Second World War and is known only from black and white photographs.

In the second version —which was hung in the chapel— the scene is very different: to begin with, the composition is vertical and not almost square as in the first case, there is no physical contact between the Evangelist and the Angel who inspires him. The Saint —who has won a halo— is now an intelligent and opportunistic old man who takes advantage of the presence of the angel, who appears to him from above, to transcribe his words. This time Matthew is standing with one knee on a stool, listening and writing what the Angel tells him on a table.

***The Inspiration of Saint Matthew***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1602, 292 x 186 cm (*Cappella Contarelli, Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi*, Rome). This is the final, accepted version that was hung over the chapel’s altar. Contrary to the first version (see picture before), the angel descends from above within a whirlwind of drapery and is shown counting on his fingers, in the traditional scholastic fashion, the arguments that Saint Matthew should annotate and develop. From his part, the saint balances on his bench, which is depicted in precarious equilibrium, like any schoolboy; but this time with a less peasant-air than the previous version.

The other two large canvases were even more demanding, at once different and complementary to each other. The Calling of Saint Matthew is a marvelous interior painting that innovated in all orders. We are in a closed room with a blind, frontal window. An almost square composition in which, on the one hand, the upper third remains empty. We already know that the main theme is that of an irresistible “call”; what is apparent, however, is a table inside a tax office around which five characters, dressed in the style of the time, are crowded; thus, we witness a scene taken from contemporary Roman life. Christ enters from the right with an outstretched hand—not peremptory but sensitive—pointing to Saint Matthew. But Christ is not alone: he is accompanied by Saint Peter, who was possibly included to balance the right part of the composition. Everything is bold and “modern” in the painting: the abandonment of the sacred conception is replaced here by a representation that is not only contemporary but even vulgar; it is also the preponderant role of light: a yellowish ray that comes from an invisible source and makes faces, doublets, and sleeves shine. Not for this reason the scene lacks the drama that constitutes the irruption of a sacred universe in the enclosed space of a gloomy and almost smelly tax office. The whole inspires a quality that we would now call “suspense.”

***The Calling of Saint Matthew***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1599-1600, 322 x 340 cm (*Cappella Contarelli, Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi,* Rome). This painting commission was particularly appropriate to both place and time, for at the time Rome’s French community had something to celebrate: Henri IV, heir to St. Louis, had recently converted to the faith of his ancestors. The painting depicts the story from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 9:9): “Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, “Follow me”, and Matthew rose and followed Him.” Caravaggio’s take on the topic represented the event as a nearly silent, dramatic narrative. The tax-gatherer Levi (Saint Matthew’s name before he became the Apostle) was seated at a table with his four assistants, counting the day’s proceeds, the group lighted from a source at the upper right. Christ enters with Saint Peter from the right. With a gesture of His right hand, he summons Levi. Surprised by the intrusion and perhaps dazzled by the sudden light coming from the door that has just been opened, Levi leans backward and gestures toward himself with his left hand as if to say, “Who, me?”. The two men on the left are so concerned with counting the money that they don’t even notice Christ’s arrival. The two boys in the center do respond, the younger one drawing back against Levi as if seeking his protection, the older one, who is armed, leaning forward and curiously. The dramatic point of the painting is that for this moment, no one does anything, and its particular power resides in the cessation of action.

By contrast, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew proposes a violent action instead of a contained one. A superb study of the human nude, the x-rays taken on the canvas allowed us to verify a series of earlier versions (the pentimenti, of the Italians) that demonstrate how, despite the speed of the execution, Caravaggio was a perfectly conscious artist and that in each case he tried to find the optimal formula even without making preparatory drawings. Caravaggio changed his mind several times during the course of painting the Martyrdom. The first sketch (on which the final version has been repainted) featured a large male character with his back turned to the axis of the composition; the Saint was on his feet and the henchmen rushed at him with their knives drawn. The painting we see today is very different: the center is occupied by the large nude of a hit man who faces us in broad daylight. The Saint lies horizontal on some steps. A series of curved lines depart from the significant knot of bodies formed by the main characters, a true centrifugal whirlwind that is never monotonous due to the contrasting effects of light and shadow. An angel supported by a robust cloud erupts from above to bring —opportunely— the palm of martyrdom. The foreshortenings are violent and arrogant: there is an unforgettable boy with his mouth open in a scream, terrified, a naked man’s back in the lower right corner, a group of elegant gentlemen (including a self-portrait of the painter), everything bathed in an ultra-earthly clarity, golden on bituminous backgrounds. If the Calling appealed to silence, in the Martyrdom the clash of weapons seems to be heard, of the running feet, of the great body that collapses.

***The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1599-1600, 323 x 343 cm (*Cappella Contarelli, Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi*, Rome). This painting hangs on the right wall of the Contarelli Chapel and is lit from the left, as if from the window behind the altar. The painting shows the martyrdom of Saint Matthew the Evangelist and the scene is set on the steps up to a Christian altar, identifiable with a Greek cross. In the background on the left, we can just barely notice the shaft of a column in the darkness. On the left, a half-naked man leans against a step while other two youths crouch in the foreground on the right, all staring at the main action. The picture’s main figure at the center of the composition, is also half-naked, he is Matthew’s executioner. He has just thrown St. Matthew, a bearded old man, to the ground who’s wearing the traditional priestly attire. St. Matthew is helplessly lying on the ground, while the Herculean young executioner seizes him by his right hand wrist, to hold him to release the death-blow. From above, among clouds, an angel extends a martyr’s palm-leaf to Matthew’s open hand. What seems to be an altar-boy flees screaming to the right. To the left-center of the painting, near the executioner’s right shoulder, is a self-portrait of the artist.

The most plausible is that these last works were executed between 1599 and 1601 or 1602. By then, Caravaggio had other religious commissions of great responsibility. These are the paintings for the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo: the Crucifixion of Saint Peter and the Conversion on the Way to Damascus (also known as the Conversion of Saint Paul). Once again, Caravaggio was to renew what had been done with dignity and certain frigidity in the 15th and 16th centuries. He offered us a very close view of the episodes, putting us almost “on top” of the protagonists and their companions. In the case of the Crucifixion, we see an old man with a white beard with his hands and feet already nailed to the cross and represented at the very moment when three rough men with shaggy hair prepare to raise the cross to plant it inverted on the ground. The scene has all the brutality of a real event that surprised us around a corner. Although everything is sublimated and is resolved in the beauty of a blue cloth, in the impeccable drawings of arms, hands, feet… Dirty, vulgar feet, the likes of which no Italian had ever dared to paint to date, much less to represent a saintly scene. The executioners, as well, smell bad, so strong are our impression of life in the contemplation of this painting. By contrast, the white head of the Saint is imposed on us as a model of sensitivity, intelligence and sacredness.

***Crucifixion of Saint Peter***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1601, 230 x 175 cm (*Cappella Cerasi, Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo*, Rome). This painting depicts the martyrdom of St. Peter: according to tradition, Peter, when he was condemned to death in Rome, requested to be crucified upside-down because he didn’t think that a man was worthy to be killed in the same manner as Jesus Christ. In this large canvas, Caravaggio shows the three executioners struggling to straighten the cross. Peter is already nailed to the wood, his hands and feet are bleeding. The Apostle is practically naked, emphasizing his vulnerability. Though Peter appears as an old bald man, with a gray beard, his aging body is still muscular, suggesting strength. He rises from the cross with effort, turning his whole body, as if he wants to look towards something that is out of the picture. One of the executioners pulls the cross up with ropes while the other two try to help with their arms, back and shoulders. The man wearing yellow-breeches who is crouching under the cross, grabs a shovel that was used to dig a hole into the rocky ground for the stake. Though the background is dark, it seems the action takes place on a cliff of rock. Caravaggio innovative vision of St. Peter resides in that he is not depicted here as a heroic martyr, but as an old man suffering pain and in fear of death. Fine, ‘banal’ details like the yellow rear and filthy feet of the foremost figure, reminds us that the death of the Apostle was not a heroic drama, but a wretched and humiliating execution. The color here is given by the executioners’ clothing, each wearing a different hue.

The other painting is equally shocking, although in a different way: the audacity in this case is due, above all, to the presentation. The Conversion on the Way to Damascus is thus reduced to the portrait of a Gentile who has fallen to the ground with open arms and, more than anything, to the “portrait” of a magnificent horse, a bay horse spotted with white, which a groom holds by the reins. A prelate from the church of Santa Maria del Popolo seems to have asked Caravaggio in exasperation when he delivered the painting: “Why did you put the horse in the middle and Saint Paul on the ground!” To which the artist replied: “Because.” The prelate asked again: “Is the horse God?” Caravaggio replied: “No, but he is standing in the light of God.” In this painting, we cannot hear the celestial voice, but a very vivid light is almost its equivalent. This immediacy —both in time and space— pleased Caravaggio, an absolute master in his genre, and still disturbs us today. It will be necessary to imagine what could happen with the normal educated public of the time, accustomed to a respect that turned into boredom in the face of stereotyped conventions.

***The Conversion on the Way to Damascus***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1601, 230 x 175 cm (*Cappella Cerasi, Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo*, Rome). According to the Acts of the Apostles, on the way to Damascus Saul the Pharisee, once a persecutor of followers of Jesus and soon to be Paul the Apostle, fell to the ground when he heard the voice of Christ saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ and temporarily lost his sight. It was assumed that Saul had fallen from a horse. For Caravaggio, Saint Paul is a muscular young man, his garment looking like a Renaissance version of a Roman soldier’s attire. His plumed helmet fell off his head and his sword is lying by his side. The red cape almost looks like a blanket under his body. The horse is passing over him and it’s led by an old groom, who points his finger at the ground. The scene is lit by a strong light but the three figures are engulfed by an almost impenetrable darkness; thus Caravaggio internalized the drama within the mind of fallen Saul.

Because it is perhaps the moment for us to consider the great dilemma of that historical moment: on the one hand, the Bolognese Carracci; on the other, his rival Caravaggio. The painters of Bologna were to “systematize” the artistic achievements of the great Renaissance artists of the 1500’s, they were the true inventors of the new “classicism” and those who best accommodated themselves to the artistic dictates stipulated by the Council of Trent. Against that decorative art —in the best meaning of the term— that imposed the “ideal landscape” and figuration without compromise, a madman and violent like Caravaggio rose to his full stature. Without intending to, he would be one of the inventors of pictorial “baroque”, the antithesis of the innate classicism of Bologna. It seems incredible —and that is what makes Italy incomparable— but these two tendencies were contemporary, they were opposed, they had their faithful and their exalted, and what is even stranger: in an obscure way they complemented each other. If the entire 17th century was impressed by the work of the Carracci, there is no doubt to recognize that the greatest painters of the time —with the exception of Poussin and Vermeer— emerged in one way or another from the example of Caravaggio: Velázquez and Zurbarán in Spain; Rubens and Rembrandt in Northern Europe, Artemisia Gentileschi in Italy itself… Caravaggio was the “purge” of Mannerism, just as the Bolognese artists constituted the overcoming of it within coldness and composure.

Let’s go back to Caravaggio’s life and artworks. We have left the painter at the beginning of the 17th century, after the great commissions for San Luigi dei Francesi and Santa Maria del Popolo. A Flemish treatise writer, Karel van Mander, in his monumental Book of Painters (1604), when speaking of Caravaggio, described his disorderly conduct and confessed that, ‘despite his talent, he is a person with whom it is difficult to befriend’. Around 1604-1606 scholars place the painting of the Madonna of Loreto (Chiesa di Sant’Agostino). In 1604 the great canvas of the Entombment of Christ was placed in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (today hangs in the Vatican Museums). However, not a year goes by that doesn’t bring up a shady affair or a serious encounter of Caravaggio with the police.

***Madonna of Loreto***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, ca. 1604-606, 260 x 150 cm (*Cappella Cavalletti, Chiesa di Sant’Agostino*, Rome). In this painting, two pilgrims kneel in prayer before a statue of the Virgin and the Child beside a pillar. The Madonna and Child, who are living to the eyes of faith, look down on the pilgrims in quiet attention. The uproar that this painting caused at the time was not surprising: the Virgin Mary, like her admiring pilgrims, is barefoot. The doorway or niche which she and baby Jesus occupy is not an exalted cumulus or altar, but a partly decrepit wall of flaking brick. While beautiful, the Virgin Mary could be any woman emerging from the shadows. The pilgrim woman has a wrinkled bonnet, while the man’s feet have dirty soles. Caravaggio here depicted a sacred scene as a moment where an ordinary person encounters the divine, the divine beings also appearing ordinary.

***The Entombment of Christ***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1603-1604, 300 x 203 cm (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City). This painting is one of Caravaggio’s most admired altarpieces. It has been copied by artists such as Rubens, Fragonard, Géricault and Cézanne. Jesus’ dead body is one of a muscled, veined, thick-limbed laborer rather than the usual, bony-thin depiction of the dead Christ.
Two men carry the body. John the Evangelist, with youthful appearance and red cloak, supports the dead Christ on his right knee and with his right arm, inadvertently opening the side wound. Nicodemus holds the knees in his arms, with his feet firmly planted at the edge of the burial slab. The grieving Mary of Cleophas hysterically gesticulates to Heaven. Mary Magdalene, on the opposite, dries her tears with a white handkerchief, her face shadowed. And although tradition sustained that Virgin Mary must be depicted as eternally young, here Caravaggio paints her as an old woman. Her right hand hovers above Saint John’s head as if she is reaching out to touch him. Seen together, these three women constitute different, complementary expressions of suffering. The figures of Christ and Virgin Mary seem to be inspired by Michelangelo’s *Pietà*.

In 1605 he served a prison sentence. After coming out of prison, he wounded a man, escaped from Rome and took refuge in Genoa. He later returned and reconciled with his victim. That life of violence didn’t prevent him from continuing to paint. Around 1604 he began the Death of the Virgin (Louvre) the largest altar painted by Caravaggio, which will be completed in 1606. The final destination of the painting was the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Santa Maria della Scala. As the setting for the painting, Caravaggio chose a rented room, divided by the large red curtains that hang from the wooden beams of the ceiling and bared of any furniture except a simple bed, a chair and a basin. The Carmelites, as was to be expected, rejected the painting. There were rumors that the artist chose a prostitute as a model; on the other hand, the body of the Virgin suggested a disease and the bowl with vinegar in the foreground, ready to cleanse the body as it used to be done with ordinary people, was clearly seen as an offense against sacred and traditional iconography of the scene and of the Marian doctrines of the church. However, the young Rubens (an admirer of the artistic qualities of Caravaggio) during one of his trips bought it for his Italian patron, the Duke of Mantua. Cardinal Borghese acquired some other paintings with which Caravaggio has had difficulties: for example, the so-called Madonna di Palafrenieri (Galleria Borghese) which was to have gone to the Vatican, as well as the Saint Jerome and the David (both at the Galleria Borghese).

***Death of the Virgin***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1604-1606, 369 x 245 cm (*Musée du Louvre*, in Paris). Under a red canopy hanging from the ceiling, the disciples are grouped to the left around Mary’s corpse. Light seems to come from a window high on the left illuminating their foreheads, and falling on the upper part of the Virgin’s body. Above her stands the young and pensive St. John the Evangelist; at the foreground of the painting, the seated Mary Magdalene is lamenting, drained of emotion. Mary lies reclined, clad in a simple red dress: her reclining head, the hanging arm, the swollen, spread feet depict a raw and realistic view of the Virgin’s mortal remains. Caravaggio here completely abandoned the iconography traditionally used to indicate the holiness of the Virgin. In this body, we note nothing of the respectful representation found in other paintings of the same topic. The only sign of the holiness of the Virgin is seen in her thread-like halo.

The protection of Prince Colonna brought Caravaggio several commissions, one of which would be key to his position in the high artistic spheres of the time. Cardinal Scipione Borghese persuaded his uncle, Pope Paul V, that despite his reputation, Caravaggio should be commissioned a painting of the Madonna for St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Let us understand that painting for the largest church in Christendom was the dream of every artist in Rome. The commission consisted of a painting for the altar of the Palafrenieri (the altar of the Archconfraternity of the Papal Grooms), whom Paul V held in high esteem. The Cardinals reluctantly agreed and Caravaggio received this commission and, as was his custom, delivered the canvas in a matter of days. The result was interpreted as a complete disaster by the Cardinals. It seems as if Caravaggio, when faced with these important, ambitious commissions, was impelled to execute the most brutal (and honest) interpretations that his genius created. Despite the fact that Caravaggio knew that the painting was linked to the symbol of the Immaculate Conception, the predominant tone in its canvas is totally plebeian. He represented Saint Anne as an old gypsy, the Virgin has her skirt rolled up as if she were a washerwoman, and Christ, no longer a baby, appears totally naked as on the day of his birth… An ordinary family that finds itself on the brink of a stable (of the Palafrenieri, the Ostlers), to chase a harmless snake… Caravaggio here, again, put everything at risk. With the rejection of the Madonna dei Palafrenieri, the doors of St. Peter’s and of any other official commission were closed to him. Scipione Borghese bought the painting for his personal collection, and to this day it hangs on the walls of the Galleria Borghese in Rome. This was the last painting executed by Caravaggio during his period in Rome.

**Madonna dei Palafrenieri**, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1605-1606, 292 x 211 cm (*Galleria Borghese*, Rome). Traditionally in Christian iconography, Saint Anne (Virgin Mary’s mother) was praised as a symbol of Grace. Caravaggio here depicted her as if she was just an ordinary older woman standing next to Mary and Jesus. The representation of the Virgin Mary was also atypical for its time, her cleavage is too revealing, her clothing is that of an ordinary woman and she wears it in the same fashion. Both Mary and Jesus are barefoot, and Jesus (not a baby anymore) is fully naked. Although the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne are depicted with thin gold halos, Jesus does not have a halo when he is supposed to have the brightest one… We see here the Virgin Mary, with the aid of her son, trampling and crushing on a serpent, the emblem of evil or original sin, while St. Anne stands alongside witnessing the scene.

***Saint Jerome***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, ca. 1605-1606, 112 x 157 cm (*Galleria Borghese*, Rome). In pre-Reformation days Saint Jerome was shown with a pet lion and a cardinal’s hat. Now Catholic reformers wished to pare religious art down to its essentials to rival the new iconography being produced by the Protestant Reformers. The old and fragile Saint Jerome sits reflecting on a codex of the Bible while his right hand is ready to write. Whereas in the Renaissance, Antonello da Messina and Dürer had represented St. Jerome as a wealthy scholar, Caravaggio reduced Jerome’s possessions to a minimum. The text he holds open, a second closed one and a third kept open by a skull are lying on a small table. Harsh lighting emphasizes the muscles of Jerome’s tired arms and the parallel between his bony head and the skull can be interpreted as ‘man is born to die, but the Word of God lives forever’.

***David with the Head of Goliath***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, ca. 1610, 125 x 101 cm (*Galleria Borghese*, Rome). Caravaggio here decided to portray David as pensive rather than jubilant, which helps create a kind of psychological bond between him and Goliath. The face of Goliath is indeed a self-portrait of Caravaggio, and it has been thought the David is a younger version of himself. The light shows David to look like a boy from the street, whose sword has just a drop of blood on it to show that he knows what it is to have just killed a man. Another drop of blood in the midst of Goliath’s forehead confirms that he has been felled by a stone.

That year of 1606 will be definitive in the life of the painter. Caravaggio returned to his nocturnal escapades, and soon found himself involved in a heated argument, but this time it ended up in murder. A court sergeant seemed to have questioned him in the middle of the night and as a consequence received a fatal blow to the head. Caravaggio went to prison, where he was interrogated and fiercely tortured. His friends then helped him escape. Two guards were bribed with the complicity of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, and Caravaggio was able to get out of jail, but now he was on the “wanted” list. Sometime later, on May 29, 1606, during a gambling night, Caravaggio accused his opponent of cheating. A fight then ensued and Caravaggio fatally wounded the other man with his sword, he died that same night. Caravaggio was also injured, but was able to escape. A pamphlet from May 31 issued by the city announced that Michelangelo Merisi, a painter from Caravaggio, was sentenced to death and ‘banished’, which meant that any member of the Court could carry out the sentence at any time without further ado. Terrified, Caravaggio looked for his protectors, but many were traveling or sick, others were already tired of his wanderings. Caravaggio fled Rome, at night and in disguise, but this time he took refuge in the house of Marzio Colonna, brother-in-law of the Marquis of Caravaggio, in what was the Paliano in Latium. In need of money, he painted a Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy for his protector (private collection) and a Supper at Emmaus (Pinacoteca di Brera) and with the proceeds from the sale he continued on his way to Naples.

***Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1606, 10.5 91.5 cm (Private Collection). According to a legend, after Christ’s death his faithful female disciple Mary of Magdala moved to southern France, where she lived as a hermit in a cave. There she was transported seven times a day by angels into the presence of God. In this painting, Caravaggio made this supernatural event an entirely interior experience, with the Magdalen alone against a dark background, caught in a ray of intense light, her head reclining back and eyes drowned with tears. This totally novel interpretation of the legend allowed him to capture the ambiguous parallel between mystical and erotic love, in Mary’s semi-reclining posture and bared shoulders. The painting was deeply influential for future treatments of the theme by artists such as Rubens, and of Bernini’s exquisite *Ecstasy of St Theresa*.

**Supper at Emmaus**, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1606, 141 x 175 cm (*Pinacoteca di Brera*, Milan). An elderly innkeeper and an elderly maid wait anxiously on the three men who have arrived in the small village. The disciple to the left turns his face away towards Christ, the one on the right is seen in three-quarter profile. Christ, with a tranquil gesture, blesses the bread. Caravaggio’s effect here was intended to emphasize presence more than drama: the precise moment when the astonished disciples recognize Jesus as the risen Christ.

While his influential friends went to Rome to obtain a pardon, Caravaggio continued painting tirelessly. He thus finished a Resurrection of Christ and a Saint Francis receiving the stigmata (both lost), the Seven Works of Mercy (Church of Pio Monte de la Misericordia) and a Flagellation of Christ (Museo di Capodimonte). Around the same time, the Madonna of the Rosary (Kunsthistorisches Museum) and a Judith Beheading Holofernes (Collection of J. Tomilson Hill) went on sale, all in Naples.

***The Seven Works of Mercy***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1607, 390 x 260 cm (Church of *Pio Monte della Misericordia*, Naples). The painting depicts the seven corporal works of mercy of the Catholic belief, which are compassionate acts concerning the material needs of others. These acts of mercy represented on the painting are here described. On the right appear the (1) burial of the dead and the episode of the so-called *Carita Romana* (Cimon’s daughter giving her father her breast’s milk in prison), which includes at once the two charitable acts of (2) visiting prisoners and (3) feeding the hungry. (4) Dressing the naked appears in the foreground, symbolized by St. Martin and the beggar. Next to this scene, the host and St. James of Compostela allude to the (5) offering of hospitality to pilgrims. (6) Relieving the thirsty is represented by Samson drinking from the ox jaw to the left. The youth on the ground behind the beggar of St. Martin may also represent the merciful gesture of (7) caring for the sick.
In this painting we can appreciate Caravaggio’s power of synthesis, which concentrates quite dispersive concepts in the model behavior of a few figures. This large canvas was widely copied and studied by 17th-century Neapolitan painters, who took ideas and formal devices from it.

***The Flagellation of Christ***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1607, 286 x 213 cm (*Museo di Capodimonte*, Naples). In front of a pillar within a dense and dark atmosphere, Christ is being whipped by three torturers, the figures arranged rhythmically across the canvas. Christ is in a drooping pose, not to make the painting graceful, but because the torturer on the right is kicking the back of his knee while that on the left holds his hair tightly in his fist. Caravaggio’s own experience being tortured in Rome may have influenced this canvas.

***Madonna of the Rosary***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1607, 364.5 × 249.5 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). The subject-matter of this canvas is Dominican in its conception. St. Dominic and his friars spread the devotion of the Rosary. In this painting, the Madonna, as Queen of Heaven, orders to St. Dominic to her right, who clutches a rosary, and the Dominican St. Peter Martyr to her left. Beside St. Peter Martyr stands the most famous of Dominican theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas. Kneeling at the front of the composition and wearing classical costumed, the suppliants pray with arms outstretched to St. Dominic, while at the left of the canvas a donor in contemporary ruff and doublet looks directly at the viewer. The column to the left and the heavy red curtain overhead add to the formality of the scene.

***Judith Beheading Holofernes***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio [others attributed it to Louis Finson], ca. 1606–1607, 144 × 173.5 cm (Collection of J. Tomilson Hill). For this topic, Caravaggio chose to represent the moment of greatest dramatic impact: the decapitation of Holofernes itself. The figures are placed in a dark space and framed by heavy drapery as in a stage, the scene theatrically lit from the side. Judith’s old maid Abra stands beside her mistress to the right as Judith lifts the sword right after severing Holofernes’s head who turns his head in pain towards his assassin.

In 1608 there were traces of the presence of Caravaggio on the island of Malta, where he seemed to paint two portraits: one of the Master Alof de Wignacourt (Louvre) and the other of Fra Antonio Martelli (Palazzo Pitti). From that stay also came: a Sleeping Cupid (Palazzo Pitti), a Saint Jerome Writing and a great Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, both in the Oratory of St. John’s Co-Cathedral, in Valletta, Malta. All these works must have been elements of Caravaggio to be named Knight of the Order of Malta. But once he succeeded, news of his Roman trial arrived on the island: he was arrested, escaped and, in doing so, was excluded from the Order that had just admitted him. His destiny took him this time to Syracuse, where he was going to paint a Burial of Saint Lucy (church of Santa Lucia al Sepolcro). A little later — already in 1609 — we still find him in Sicily, but this time in Messina where he executed another large painting of the Raising of Lazarus (Museo Regionale di Messina). Although he is moving away, it seems that even in Messina he feared the revenge of the Maltese: the next stage in his flight will be Palermo. With the fame that he already has as a painter, he immediately finds employment and it is there that he painted, for the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, a Nativity which was stolen in 1969.

***Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1607-1608, 195 x 134 cm (*Musée du Louvre*, Paris). Alof de Wignacourt joined the Order of the Knights of Saint John (the Knights of Malta) in 1564. He was elected Grand Master of the Order in 1601. This famous portrait shows the Grand Master, about 60 years old at the time, wearing gleaming formal armor, holding his baton of command. De Wignacourt surrounded himself with young pages, imitating the fashion of the princely courts. The young page is placed to the right, his lively expression and alert gaze made him an attractive subject in his own right: he was several times copied by later artists visiting Malta.

***Portrait of Antonio Martelli, Knight of Malta***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1608, 118.5 x 95.5 (*Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina*, Florence). Antonio Martelli, from Florence, was another prominent member of the Knights of Malta. Caravaggio portrayed the sitter resting his left hand on his sword in its sheath, while he holds a Rosary in his right hand. We can think that Caravaggio here dramatized the contradiction between piety and brutality by the use of lighting and the fact that his subject is avoiding the viewer’s eyes.

***Sleeping Cupid***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1608, 72 x 105 cm (*Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina*, Florence). This painting was commissioned for Fra Francesco dell’Antella, the Florentine Secretary for Italy to Alof de Wignacourt. The subject of a sleeping Cupid, his bow broken and arrows put aside, usually meant the abandonment of worldly pleasures. The painting was probably aim as a reminder of dell’Antella vow of chastity. Here Cupid is affectionately observed as if he was a mere mortal child asleep. We can notice his wings in the darkness. Cupid here is not in charge of deciding fate or aiming at a specific target. Even though he sleeps, his bowstring broken, his weapons placed aside, he still has ammunition (his quiver and arrows), with which he can fight again.

***Saint Jerome Writing***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, ca. 1607-1608, 117 x 157 m (Oratory of St. John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta). The composition conveys an idea of simplicity. St. Jerome has no halo, his workbench is rudimentary, he doesn’t have any codices or books, we only see one candle, a crucifix, a stone to beat against his chest, and a skull to remind him of his mortality. The saint is partly naked because he lives a hermit life in the desert of Judaea. A light from the left falls on his torso and illuminates the red cloak over his legs. Is the light source Christ, Light of the World? The coat of arms in the bottom right corner of the painting is that of Ippolito Malaspina, Prior of the Order of the Knights of Saint John (the Knights of Malta) in Naples, who commissioned the painting.

**The Beheading of St John the Baptist**, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1608, 370 x 520 cm (Oratory of St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Malta). This canvas is widely considered to be Caravaggio’s masterpiece and some have expressed that it is one of the most important works in Western painting. It is the only work by the artist to bear his signature, which he placed in red blood spilling from the Baptist’s cut throat, it reads: “*f. Michelang.o*“. The painting depicts the execution of John the Baptist, with a servant girl standing holding a golden platter to receive his severed head. Another older woman stands by in shock, while a jailer gives instructions to the executioner who draws his dagger to do the beheading. In the prison’s nearby window, two figures silently witness the scene. The scene is not directly inspired by the Bible, but by the tale as it is told in the *Golden Legend* (1268) by Jacobus de Voragine. For this work, Caravaggio was probably inspired from his memories of the time he spent in a prison of the Knights of Malta. The composition is astounding for the wonderful balance of all its parts, architecture, characters, poses, color. The renown of this painting was almost instantaneous after its completion. In the coming years, northern European painters would travel to Valetta to see it and study it.

**Burial of St. Lucy**, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1608, 408 x 300 cm (Church of Santa Lucia al Sepolcro in Syracuse, Sicily). St. Lucy was a local saint of Syracuse, who had been denounced as a Christian by her former suitor and had died under torture in 304. In his interpretation of the subject, Caravaggio didn’t represent the Saint with her head severed, but just at the moment she received a slit in front of her neck. He placed the scene in a cavernous space, thus dwarfing the characters and taking the viewer back to the age of the Church of the Early Christian Catacombs. The heavily-muscled grave-diggers emerge from murky shadows, the mourners seem so much smaller and placed some distance away, the officer directing operations beside the bishop is obscured and only the young man above the dead saint stands out in his red cloak.

***The Raising of Lazarus***, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, ca. 1609, 380 x 275 cm (*Museo Regionale*, Messina, Italy). The Gospel of John tells how Lazarus fell sick, died, was buried and then miraculously raised from the dead by Christ. As one of his landmarks, Caravaggio again set the scene against a dark background that towers over the human characters. Light is also an important element in the drama, highlighting crucial details such as Lazarus’ hands (one lax and open to receive, the other reaching towards Christ) and the surprised faces of the onlookers. The figure of Christ reminds us of the Christ who called Matthew to join him in his earlier canvas for the Contarelli chapel (see picture before).

**Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence**, oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1609, 268 × 197 cm (lost). Under the roof of the stable in Bethlehem, whose side walls disappear into total darkness, shepherds and saints gathered to worship the newborn baby Jesus. One figure, the patron, represents the church for which the picture was intended San Lorenzo in Palermo (Archdeacon Lawrence on the left), and the other (St. Francis), the Order to which the church belongs. It isn’t certain who Joseph is. Baby Jesus lies on a bed of straw and some white drapery. Exhausted, the Virgin is crouching on the ground behind him, her eyes fixed upon the Baby, she wears an unusual dress, which has fallen revealing her right shoulder. The ox, behind St. Lawrence, is also looking at the newborn. Above all this, an angel is flying down from heaven looking straight at the Baby. In his left hand he is holding a banner on which the words of the gloria are written. His right hand is pointing upwards, as if he wanted to reassure that this child is really the Son of God.

His restlessness is going to take him back to Naples, with such bad luck that he was attacked there, seriously wounded at the door of the German inn of Ceriglio. His case was so serious that rumors spread in Rome about his death. In reality, he spent the first months of 1610 recovering, while his friends in Rome, especially Cardinal Gonzaga, interceded for him. In July of that year he embarked on a small boat that took him to Porto Ercole, a Spanish garrison on the very border of the Papal States. Arrested by mistake, he missed his boat and persisted, recklessly, in staying all day on the beach under the relentless heat of that summer, still weak from his wounds. He was found seriously ill on the beach and transferred to the Porto Ercole hospital, where he died alone and abandoned on July 18, 1610, before reaching 37 years of a fruitful but stormy life. Without having heard of his death, the pardon from Rome had been awarded to him too late, a few days later, by Pope Paul V.