We joined Philip Campbell on his EWTN Radio Program Faith Matters to talk about the Early Renaissance. We discuss the Early Renaissance in Italy and the Netherlands.
Today we turn away from the world’s troublesome events, and call our attention to the patrimony of culture in the Western Tradition. In past art posts I have focused mostly on the Baroque. Today, however, we go back to the very beginning of the Renaissance, to the great painter Giotto.
One of the things that is normally said about Giotto, is that he threw out the Byzantine tradition, in order to invigorate art with more realism and thus kicked off the “Renaissance” in art. This narrative begins in Georgio Versari’s Vite Degli Artisti, where he makes this claim. Continue reading
The Raising of Christ on the Cross – Peter Paul Rubens
Rubens is perhaps one of the greatest artists of all time. We spoke a little bit of Rubens before in my book review of Master of Shadows: the Secret diplomatic life of Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens is one of the greatest genre painters, because of his Catholicism, his stoicism and sense of order, his love of the classics, and his diligence and hard work. Today I want to look at one of his best early works, which took his budding fame and made it immortal. Michaelangelo Buonarotti reckoned that Flemish artists were good for nothing but landscapes, which was not strictly true, particularly if we consider Van Eycke or Jos van Cleve, or even Bosch, but it is Rubens who will put to rest this bias forever. Continue reading
Jan Vermeer, Self Portrait
I have mostly covered art in Italy, and for good reason, Italy is seemingly unbeatable. Yet, there is another art tradition, whose Renaissance predates Italy’s, that might be the sole rival in classic European oil painting, and that is the Netherlands.
Previously, I talked a little about Rubens (here), but today we are going a little more north. While Rembrandt was trying to retrench himself in Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter, another artist was making his mark on Dutch history.
Jan Vermeer is a curious artist. Dutch, but Catholic, of moderate impact in the art market, yet remembered for his characterizations of Dutch life. In the case of Rubens we could say he is distinct from Rembrandt by his southern Flemish style, or his adherence to the Catholic faith, his vibrant colors, as opposed to Rembrandt van Rijn’s darker views, personal rather than mythological subjects, etc. But ultimately the difference between Rubens and Rembrandt is that Rubens gave the clients what they wanted, Rembrandt painted what he saw, the light of truth without the social graces to touch it up, and increasingly he displeased clients, most famously in his revolt of Claudius Silvius, originally destined for Amsterdam’s town hall. That same difference can be placed between Rembrandt and Vermeer. Vermeer knew how to paint to please his clients.
Interestingly, if we look back to what we said about artists previously, we noted that:
a) artists were craftsmen, who sometimes arose to a more noble bearing working for royalty, particularly in the 17th century
b) other artists where highly charged with political or philosophical ideas and made social and political commentary, as well as ending up in court frequently and are thus celebrated by modern art, albeit only in so much as they start the road to the collage of insanity that sells for millions in London, Paris and New York.
Therefore more has been written on Rembrandt than perhaps any other artist, even more than some who have made big come-backs recently such as Caravaggio or Tiziano. So while Vermeer’s art doesn’t hit the top, it is still fascinating for the techniques he uses with his brushes to capture the idea of what he is getting across. Obscure after his death (there were bigger things to worry about for a while, as we shall see), he was rediscovered in the 19th century and ranked among the masters of the Dutch Golden Age.
History
Lapis L’Azuli
This stone, coming from Afghanistan, would be hammered down and purified into a blue pigment, and provides for the rich color blue in western art from the 14th century onwards.
It is not known precisely when Vermeer was born, but we do know he was baptized in the year 1632, into the Dutch Reformed Church in the city of Delft. This suggests he was already a few years old, between 8-10 by the Calvinist practices of the time. His father was part of the St. Luke’s guild and operated an art dealing business. It is certain that Vermeer was schooled in art, for, though there is no record of his having been abroad, nevertheless in later life he was one of two men in Delft who was considered an authority to identify Italian paintings. It is not known, however, at what point he took up active painting, but he appreciated bright colors, expensive pigments like lapis lazuli, and as a member of the St. Luke’s guild himself, he was influenced by the Antwerp school of art (Rubens, Caravaggio, etc.). It is perhaps Rubens’ influence that accounts for Vermeer’s use of bright colors, and the influence of Caravaggio’s works that accounts for Vermeer’s use of light and shadow. Yet, like Rubens, Vermeer takes what he found useful from other artists without becoming slavishly devoted to that style, like the networks of Caravaggisti. What Vermeer does well is the sacredness of ordinary things, which is fully within the Dutch spirit.
Holland’s art market at that time was an anomaly when considered in the context of the west of Europe. Normally painting was the provenance of the wealthy, and the trend was for artists to be increasingly noble, or at least seek knighthoods and honors. Baglione, the great rival of Caravaggio, was awarded a golden chain for his talents and was highly respected in his time (except of course, by Caravaggio). Bernini was made a Papal Knight, while his rival Borromini was made a knight of the Holy Cross. Valesquez was knighted by Philip IV of Spain, as was Rubens, who was also knighted by Charles I of England. Rubens’ pupil and later colleague, Van Dyck, was knighted by Charles I, and Jan Breughal, the son of Peter Breughal, received a title of nobility. The trend was nobility, the clients of artists were nobility, the Church, and though there was great competition for artwork, the majority of works were meant for the public to see in a set place, like a Church, to be the focal point of the community, centered around religion.
The problem of the nascent Dutch Republic is that it had no public religion. The great Churches were defaced, and they did not want art in their Churches, because that was to them idolatry. But, of every day things? Thus the Dutch began a celebration of their culture, which was at its height as a world power, and whose navy easily outnumbered Spain, France and England’s navy combined. The order of the day was to celebrate Dutch culture, but the problem was the number of artists far exceeded the demand, so figures like Frans Hals, or Rembrandt had their boom moments when people could not get enough of them, and their bust moments when people had seen enough. So what about Vermeer?
The Jesuit Church on Oude Langendiijk, Delft
Vermeer married a Catholic girl in Delft named Catarina Bolnes in 1653. Her mother Maria Thins required of Vermeer that he become Catholic in order to marry her, and he did so. It is not entirely clear if at first he converted out of conviction or for the girl, but what is certainly clear is that once he had done so he became quite serious, and his art shows this in many ways. His new mother-in law was also considerably wealthier than Vermeer, allowing him the freedom to paint in exchange for a little work in her business. It is often thought that Vermeer painted for the schuilkerk, or secret Church, which was not far from his home in Delft and was run by the Jesuits. Much is made of the Dutch Republic’s famous ‘religious toleration”, but in point of fact it was a sporadic and uneven, depending upon the province. So while Haarlem offered full religious toleration, Amsterdam and Delft were more restrictive. The Mass was illegal in Amsterdam, for example, until the 19th century, but tolerated since a majority of the city’s population was Catholic well into the 17th century. Thus one famous schuilkerk was the Ons’ Lieve Herr op Solder (Our Lord in the attic), which served Catholics for 200 years. Delft was no different.
The Painting
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary was painted in 1655-56, shortly after he was married. It is one of the earliest works to survive, and it is his only painting that is overtly on a religious theme. (In the future we’ll look at some other ones that recall biblical themes). The circumstances of the painting are not known, but it is thought to have been commissioned for a Church, possibly the schuilkerk in Delft. It is now in the National Gallery in Edinburg, Scotland.
Christ in the house of Martha and Mary -TintorettoThe thrust here shows Martha rebuking Mary, as opposed to Vermeer’s image of the two working together.
One of the things we see is the placement of the characters. We have the conforming of the biblical narrative, with Christ seated and Mary Magdalene at his feet, but what is unique about this piece is Martha’s placement. Older images of this scene show Martha a pace or two back, calling out for Mary Magdalene to do something. This takes a different approach, and Vermeer shows off his theological sophistication.
Martha is not here voicing her complaint about Mary’s seeming inaction, when in fact she is in contemplation of Christ. Instead Martha is assisting and contributing to Mary’s action. The placement of Martha next to Mary and Our Lord is meant to show the unity of Faith and Works, with Mary representing the former and Margaret the latter. The reason older artists treating this scene, particularly in the Italian renaissance, would not have considered it important to include Martha and Mary together was that the reformation hadn’t happened, or else wasn’t an issue (or you took the other view, such as in anti-papal Venice). Tintoretto’s Martha rebukes Mary, while Vermeer, a Catholic living in a country where Catholicism is against the law, and the official view of the majority of those in government, as well as in Delft, a Calvinist town has the false notion of faith and works to contend with. The Dutch cultural scene emphasizes work, but outside of its context of faith. Vermeer draws a complete union between the two, as culminating in the blessed Sacrament.
Look at that loaf of bread. This is not just the fruit of windmills grinding flour, this is a symbol of the Eucharist, as the fruit of faith and works. Notice the lines of symmetry, a technique from Italian baroque painting that Vermeer employs several times. If we follow diagonally from the bottom left, we arrive at Christ’s hand, which is in many ways the key to the painting, since it occupies the central place if we draw a diagonal line from any side. Yet here should begin from the left, for in doing so we come not merely to Christ’s hand, but even more to his index finger and thumb. Immediately above the these two fingers we find the bread. These are also a priest’s consecration fingers, and so the Eucharistic symbolism could not be more clear. By faith and good works we live a life by which we can partake of the Eucharist, which is the fruit of a work, united to faith, effected by Christ acting in the person of the priest.
While our Lord is depicted in traditional Holy Land attire, Martha and Mary are dressed like Dutch maidens, one who could be expected to embroider in the parlor, and the other working in the kitchen. It is a device to merge the ancient with the modern into one fabric, that Christ is relevant today, or, we might say contrary to certain churchman, the Gospel is relevant today. It might also be a criticism of others who name their home “St. Martha’s” to emphasize works over faith, as certain people today do, though we won’t name them. Thus, a commentary on faith and works is set perfectly in the context of Dutch art of the golden age.
Epilogue
Vermeer had limited success and seems to have been happy to work for a limited number of clients. In 1672 he went mad, and his life went down hill, until he at last died in 1675, leaving his wife and children with debts. Immediately he was more or less forgotten, until the 19th century when he was rediscovered. Part of the reason for this, and why he went mad in 1672, is because that year was the catastrophic year for the Dutch Republic, which was a world-wide empire. The French and English signed the treaty of Dover (although it was secret in England), by which Charles II promised to help Louis XIV at sea, and convert to Catholicism, while Louis supplied him a subsidy and invaded the Dutch Provinces. William of Orange ordered all of the dykes and levies broken, so that the ocean would flood the countryside and halt the advance of the Dutch troops. It did that, but at a cost. Fortunes and livelihoods were ruined, Vermeer’s savings were wiped out, and even his mother-in-law was going down financially, as were many people all over the country. Thus in the aftermath in 1675, the Dutch had forgotten about many more recent painters, as they were trying to survive the tragedy.
We will look more at Vermeer in the future.
The Contarelli chapel, San Luigi del Francese, Rome.
Author’s collection
The last time I took up Caravaggio’s works, we traced him running from Papal justice and then running from the Knights of Malta, while having painted the biggest painting of his career. In that post, I made allusions to Caravaggio’s devices in the Martyrdom of St. Matthew. Here I have chosen to unpack these for the feast of St. Matthew.
Author’s photo
History
Cardinal Mattheiu Cointrel was a French Cardinal, who had purchased a side chapel in the Church of San Luigi del Francese (St. Louis of the French), where a series of paintings and frescoes dedicated to St. Matthew were to be painted in his honor after his death. This Church, dedicated to St. Louis IX, was the focal point for Frenchmen living in Rome during the middle ages, and even today still has French speaking shops nearby. In point of fact, today it is still considered French territory.
As a side note, there is a pillar in the Church dedicated to the French soldiers who died while liberating Rome from Garibaldi in 1848.
Nevertheless, in 1599, Cointrel’s will had not been effected, in spite of the large sum of money left for the chapel that would bear his name (Italianized to Contarelli). After several artists had failed to produce work laid out in the terms of the will, the commission was won by an obscure Lombard painter with a short fuse, who was known as a client of Cardinal Maria del Monte, but had only recently risen from an obscure existence churning out portraits of heads for a Groat a piece, namely Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. If you want to get an idea of what a Groat was worth, we can look to Austria just prior to the introduction of the Euro, where they had “Groschen”, (which comes from the same linguistic root as a Groat), which was a plastic coinage that was more or less worthless. A Groat was about the same.
Now, however, with the unlikely award of the commission for the Contarelli chapel he would be projected into fame. Yet, Caravaggio would have to overcome significant obstacles to complete the commission. The difficulty for Caravaggio, the same difficulty which had afflicted more seasoned painters who had previously been tapped for this project, such as Giralomo Muzziano, is that the commission called for a historical painting reviving the intense historical drama of Raphael. Idealized saints, a historic holy land scene, angels on clouds, detailed preparatory drawings, careful study and imitation of anatomy, and many other things. For Caravaggio, who had taken up the persona of an artistic realism which celebrated the filthy muck of life, and made gods into men instead of men into gods, this was a huge challenge. But it is not only because he was at war with tradition, as some suggest. (For example, Simon Schama in his documentary series “The Power of Art”, suggests Caravaggio had no interest in producing such things). The way Caravaggio did things tended to precluded this, but both the contemporary evidence and the work he produced shows he was not above painting what is above, it is more about his particular abilities. He didn’t draw, he painted what he saw.
For instance, we’ll look at a few key early paintings.
The Cardsharps -Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
The Cardsharps is a great example of his style. As in all of Caravaggio’s paintings, x-rays have shown there are no pencil lines, and no conceptual drawings have ever been found. He looked and painted. What he gives us, is not merely a photograph by paint, he uses the brush to create distinctions, add drama, and make a point. The cardsharps is celebrated as poor uninitiated noblemam, about to be ripped off by Mr. Cardsharp and his pal. Yet there is a level of humor in this that goes beyond cards. A cheat like this would be rather obvious, and soon to be noticed. No one actually carries things out in this exact manner. It is celebrating instead, the world that Caravaggio lived with every day, being a poor Lombard painter with not too many prospects in a city that can break you in a second. 
Moreover, we can see it again here with the so-called “sick-Bacchus”. Its actually a self-portrait of the painter, painted when he was younger, so probably would have been done in a mirror. He gives us Bacchus, the god of wine, song, binges, youth and beauty. What he does is a complete contravention to the tradition, instead of taking a man and making him look like a god in paint, Caravaggio has taken a god and made him more like a man. Apart from looking like he is in need of Jeeves to come in after a long night of drinking, he looks deathly ill. His fingernails are dirty, and the grapes are rotten. The immortality of youth is drained, even inverted, into the mortality of disease. This is not a vision of paradise, but of reality, the reality which everyone he knows laboring away in the Ataccio, Rome’s embarrassing and dirty underbelly, deals with every day. This is the painting which caught the eye of Cardinal del Monte, and led him to invite Caravaggio to become part of his retinue. Yet, Caravaggio’s experience was in small paintings, with one model in a small space, not to large epic scenes with life-sized figures. His commission required him to paint on the Martyrdom of Matthew on the east side, and the Conversion of St. Matthew on the west side of the chapel. He began on the east side first, but, when it came to the idealized holy lands and the like of St. Matthew’s martyrdom, Caravaggio ran into quite the headache.
X-rays of the Martyrdom of St. Matthew clearly show Caravaggio attempted another sort of painting altogether, attempting to replicate the great scenes of Raphael. There is a text called the “Golden Legend“, a medieval lives of the saints, with stories, some apocryphal, some accurate, that had inspired christians for hundreds of years. Therein, it is told that St. Matthew converted a noble maiden in Ethiopia, Iphigeina, who was betrothed to the king, but now decided to live her life for Christ. In revenge the king ordered Matthew to be killed while he was saying Mass. According to Helen Langdon, Caravaggio’s original:
…began with a a composition in which the figures are comparatively small, occupying the foreground plane in the lower part of the canvas, and in which the action takes place in a grandiose setting of elaborate Renaissance architecture. At first the executioner stood in the center, sword raised, before an upright St. Matthew; to the right stood a nude recording angel, holding the Gospel, and pointing to heaven; in the foreground a soldier, seen from the back, divided the composition in two with the sharpness of a pilaster.” (Langdon, Caravaggio, A Life, pg. 172)
Since this is not what he produced for the chapel, we can only conclude that this didn’t work for him, or that, Caravaggio realized that what he was good at was not the work and style of the Renaissance, but something uniquely his own, and as a consequence, he needed to turn do something different to do it well. It is at this point that he turned to the other side of the wall, the conversion of St. Matthew. There, the light began to flicker.
The Conversion of St. Matthew
What captures Caravaggio’s imagination here, is the circumstances of St. Matthew’s life. It is about a sinner, in a den of sin (a counting house, Telonium in the vulgate), and the subject (Matthew) is a shady dealer. Caravaggio is not just a thug who goes about at night with a sword and dagger abusing rivals, or having carnal relations with his more attractive female models. He is also very sophisticated, in spite of his low birth, and knew Latin at least well enough to read St. Bonaventure’s life of St. Francis (shown in his various works on the saint), the Golden Legend (which wasn’t translated into Italian at that time), and many works of classical literature. You would have to, to be in Cardinal Del Monte’s retinue, in the company of other painters, poets, musicians, philosophers, all renaissance men, all making up a renaissance court focused on the arts. We’ll see this especially with the martyrdom of St. Matthew.
The genius here, the insight that seems so completely counter-intuitive, is that Caravaggio has given us less of Christ, and more of St. Matthew. It is a curious blend, on the one hand Matthew the sinner is depicted in some shady back alley tavern in Rome conducting his business, with those around him dressed as contemporaries (even reusing figures from the Cardsharps), but Christ and
Chi, Io?
St. Peter are dressed in biblical clothing. The light shines from above and behind Christ, like the light of the Holy Ghost, and Matthew’s reaction says everything without words: “Chi, Io?” (who me?) his finger cries out, pointing in stunned astonishment to himself. What, a holy prophet like you wants a lowly creature like me? No saints for this job. At least not yet.
Notice the two fellows to St. Matthew’s right, they do not even look up. On the one hand, we have the man with glasses. The light is right on him, but he doesn’t even notice. The device of the glasses illustrates here is that he is spiritually shortsighted, so much so that he cannot see the purity of the light. Then you have the man counting the money. He does not look up either, because the love of money is the root of all evil, and this man, attached as he is to his money, is so rooted in the world, he cannot look up at the light. There is an exaggeration of his posture, and it is not an accident. He is bowed down as if weighed down by a chain, and the vehicle of the light calls us back to Plato’s notion of the cave, wherein all humanity is chained and cannot escape, and a fire in the background makes shadows on the wall, which people think are real, but are not. The real light they can’t see, and when the philosopher tries to tell them, they do not believe him.
Then let’s look at two details about Christ that Caravaggio has included here. Firstly we see Christ’s foot in the bottom right. It is poised as to leave, yet he has only just gotten there. He already knows he has made his disciple, as if the power were effortless and overpowering, the light accomplished its effect as soon as he walked in. This leads to the second thing, that pointing hand. It is not a forcefully fashioned pointing as one would expect, a sort of “Hey you! Follow me, and I don’t mean on Twitter”. Rather, it is an effortless pointing gesture, as if the power flows through Christ with but a wave on his hand. This is also an aping of Michaelangelo Buonarotti’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel, yet not the gesture of God the Father, but of Adam, drawing the clear link between the first Adam whose sin lost for 
us our original paradise, and the work of Christ, the second Adam, who will take Adam’s place as head of the human race, whose redemptive work in the calling of his Apostles will win for us a new paradise. This gesture, moreover, would have been well known. The paintings of the Sistine Ceiling were even then among the most famous paintings in Christendom, everyone would recognize it. Caravaggio’s first name is Michaelangelo, he is showing everyone that he is the new Michaelangelo, and no mistake. Whether he intended that as the outset or it was an afterthought we can’t know. But it accomplished this affect, as we shall see.
With this revelation, that the painting is about a sinner, Caravaggio turned to the eastern wall, back to the Martyrdom that so vexed him in the beginning.
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew
Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
It is said by some art historians that Caravaggio repeated the motif of a contemporary scene, this time using a back alley in Rome. This ignores the prominent altar in the middle. There is, moreover, a strange positioning of figures around the lower center point, which seems to descend into a pit of sorts. That is because this is actually a Baptismal pool. A basic look at architecture of Rome’s older churches would show that the early Christians baptized adults by immersion.
What Caravaggio has done is to further develop the theme of Matthew’s martyrdom told in the Golden Legend, instead of being after Mass, it is now in the context of a Baptism. This is not mere artistic license, as we shall see. The image is whirling and busy, almost strobe lit. First you have several naked figures, prominent amongst them is the assassin in the middle, several clothed figures on the sides, St. Matthew and his deacon and an angel. Let’s break this down.
We know this is a baptismal scene from the solitary candle on the altar (prescribed in the Traditional rite of Baptism, Traditional Catholics should notice), the naked figures about to be baptized in the pool, and the steps leading down to it. Moreover, as the intrepid, charismatic, scholarly and always informative art historian Andrew Grahm-Dixon has noted:
“The significance of the painting’s architecture was long unrecognized, for the simple reason that hardly any such baptismal chapels survived. But they were once a common sight in Italian Churches, especially in the north. In Rome, where baptism by aspersion was the general practice, stepped pools were not necessary. But in Milan, where they practiced the Ambrosian rite of baptism by full bodily immersion, such chapels contained a deep pool at the base of the altar. The liturgically precise Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Borromeo, writing his Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, described an arrangement that closely corresponds to the setting of the Martyrdom of St. Matthew: ‘a baptistery should be in the center of the chapel. It should be eleven cubits wide and deep enough so that the descent to it from the floor of the chapel consists of at least three steps. By the descent and moderate depth it should resemble a sepulchre.’ It seems that Caravaggio painted the kind of baptismal chapel that he remembered from his childhood in Milan.” (Andrew Grahm-Dixon, Caravaggio: A life Sacred and Profane, pg. 200)
Grahm-Dixon has really hit the nail on the head, and he is the only person analyzing this painting to really get a sense of what is going on. We know (should know), that when one receives the sacrament of baptism, what he receives is death. The death of his old nature, and his being brought into the state of justification by sanctifying grace, into a new nature with Christ. Hence St. Paul says to be “put to death in Christ.” Death then, is the res tantum, the very thing conferred in Baptism, mystically and spiritually to our old nature born in original sin, and made living by sanctifying grace, inhering as a quality of the soul. Death in this world we will eventually meet, some sooner rather than later, and that death, if met in sanctifying Grace, Deo adjuvante, completes the work of Baptism.
This is what Caravaggio is working into this painting. If one looks at St. Matthew, the blood is squirting from his wound into the Baptismal pool. This is where Grahm-Dixon, in spite of his excellent grasp of theology (for a non-believer) makes an error of terminology. He calls this a “Baptism of Blood.” In a certain sense of course, this is true, but it is not what the theologians mean when they use that term. It is a handy in this context, provided that we keep the distinction from that which is meant by Theologians when they use this term, meaning someone with right faith who is martyred prior to his baptism, such as a Catechumen, of which there are several saints whom the Church has always celebrated. Here, what Grahm-Dixon is getting at, is that St. Matthew, now at the end of his life, is receiving the very thing conferred by baptism really in this world, death.
We can see an angel on a cloud, invisible to all but St. Matthew, lowering the palm to him. It is on an exact line of symmetry with Matthew’s hand, which on the one hand, is grasped by the assassin, but on the other, is reaching out to grasp eternal life. The angel on the cloud is also situated just above the cross, in an exact line of symmetry going down into the pool, as a sign that the graces of martyrdom flow from the graces of baptism, united in the blood that is being shed, in imitation of Christ who shed his blood on the cross.
Those catechumens recoil in horror, as the pagan assassin is obviously one who hid in their number and produced the sword to bring St. Matthew down. Those at the left run away, and the furthermost character is a selp-portrait of Caravaggio himself. What is often missed by most is that Caravaggio is here wearing a black garment over a white loin cloth, as though he were among the catechumens to be baptized, but is running away like the rest. As Grahm-Dixon, again, notes:
“The self-portrait, in this instance, reads like a mea culpa. If Caravaggio had actually been there, he suggests, he would have had no more courage than anyone else. He would have fled like the other, leaving the martyr to his fate. According to the logic of his own narrative, he remains unbaptized and therefore outside the circle of the blessed. He is a man running away, out of the church and into the street.” (Grahm-Dixon, loc. cit. pg. 202)
An anecdote from the artist’s later life would appear to justify that interpretation. Coming out of a Church in Naples, a priest offered Caravaggio some holy water, and Caravaggio asked what it was for. The priest replied “It washes away venial sins.” Caravaggio replied “That won’t do any good, all mine are mortal.” Either way there is one thing more we can draw from this. If one draws a diagonal line from the bottom right hand corner, one arrives at Caravaggio’s face in the painting. This is not just a sort of signature, but again, the artist attempting to prove himself as superior to his namesake. If we look at Michaelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, we can find the same detail.
Michaelangelo Buonarotti Last Judgment If you follow a digonal line from the bottom right up, you will see Michaelangelo’s self portrait as a worn out skin.
When the paintings were unveiled they were an instant hit and propelled Caravaggio into immediate fame. It also got him immediate commissions and roused the jealousy and rivalry of other artists, particularly of his later biographer Giovanni Baglione. They also began the course of inspiring European art and would influence artists as far away as France and the Netherlands, as we see in how Rubens and Rembrandt adopted his style, although both were able to incorporate it into their styles without becoming slavish copiers of it. However in 1602 the executors of Cardinal Cointrel’s will had yet another set-back, in that the artist whom they had commissioned to carry out the altar piece had failed to produce anything, so they turned again to Caravaggio. We might notice that in the above paintings there are a lot of feet. Well, this had become an issue for Caravaggio, as he attempted frequently to include dirty feet to show the poverty of people in his paintings, but this was more and more being considered to be in bad taste. So when he prominently displayed St. Matthew’s dirty feet in the “Inspiration”, the painting was rejected and he had to do it again. The first attempt (which I do not have the rights to put up here) is preserved only in a photograph because it was in a museum in Berlin when it was blown up by the Allies during the second world war. (Thank you, by the way, US and UK, for obliterating so much priceless art in your mad rush to bomb all of Europe in the 40s). The second attempt, nevertheless, won their approval and was unveiled late in 1602.
The Inspiration of St. Matthew
St. Matthew and the Angel
-Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
The second Inspiration of St. Matthew is a more toned down version of the original. He presents Matthew the saint as a scholar, a long way from the rich and splendid origins in the Calling, listening attentively as the airborne angel dictates the verse as he copies it down. The feet moreover are in profile and not pointing at the viewer, and thus it pleased the executors of the Contarelli chapel, and it still hangs there today.
In a certain way, this work looks a lot like sculpture, particularly the figure of Matthew. There is less movement than in the other two pictures. This has much to do with the fact that the piece originally intended for the chapel back in 1599 was a marble relief, and thus Caravaggio has attempted to keep the spirit of the original intention. He maintained some of the austerity of his original, clearly gives St. Matthew an intellectual air. He wears a red pallium, which is similar to the pallium worn by philosophers in the 2nd century, and as he writes, the angel counts the verses, being at number two since Italians count starting with their thumb, even today.
There is an element in the way of biblical inspiration here that one can’t miss, namely the connection between the angelic inspiration and the human element. While I admire Caravaggio’s first attempt, (which again I can’t show you thanks to draconian copyright laws, although the photograph is reproduced in both books referenced in this article) ultimately it made Matthew too plebeian, unused to writing, which would not be the case for a tax collector who needed to keep special records, one for the government, and one for himself, the former being fixed, the latter showing his actual embezzlement. Depicting Matthew as a sage or philosopher in the Greco-Roman tradition actually helps convey the vehicle of biblical inspiration. Matthew had been with Christ, he had seen the events unfold which led to the formation of the Church, and he writes his account, with the angel’s directing, for in counting the verses the Angel is not necessarily telling him what to write, but guiding his writing in the direction of God’s providence with the aid of His inspiration.
Stepping back from the Contarelli chapel and taking it all in as a whole (as you reach in your pocket for more euros to feed the machine that keeps the lights on the thing), there is a sense of power and motion in these images, particularly in the Calling and Martyrdom of St. Matthew. It almost feels as though if you pushed the play button the figures would begin moving. This is no accident, it is one of the effects baroque artists sought to convey in their art, the illusion of movement, the figures coming back to life, and this had been the goal of oil painters since the time of Van Eyck, who in his Ghent altar piece painted Adam so realistic (for the standards of the 15th century) that it seemed as though Adam would begin to move. Van Eyck’s fame was such that Versari thought he had created oil paint, though this was not true, Van Eyck was the one to perfect the medium. Caravaggio took it to a new level, with his use of the light and darkness, chiarascuro, using the contrasts and the strokes of the brush to create a drama unfolding before you. Martin Scorsese, as immoral as he and his movies might be, got it right when he said that Caravaggio was the father of cinematography.
Today when we think of artists, we often think of emotionally or psychologically disturbed individuals, staking out radical positions, challenging authority, championing unpopular issues, or in general just being rebels. This however, is not what artists were in the 17 and 18th century, with the exception of notable figures like Caravaggio and Rembrandt, or we might add in the 19th century Van Gogh, who have, arguably, created the melancholy temperamental view of the artist.
Artists, historically, were viewed as craftsmen, who were given their talents by God to bring beauty and light into the world, to raise man up to God, by the medium of art. It is in the Netherlands that oil painting first became the supreme art by the genius of Jan van Eyck. It is in the Netherlands that an artist obtained nobility, fame, and wealth by respectability virtue and above all his devotion to the Catholic faith. That artist was Peter Paul Rubens.
There are a number of good works about Rubens’ art, and no biography can do without talking about it. However, Master of Shadows, by Mark Lamster, is about another, less known side of Rubens, not as painter, but as a diplomat and spy. He couldn’t have been born at a better time for it either. Spain and the nascent Dutch Republic were at war, and Spain, the greatest empire in the world, was on the losing side it seemed. The real losers were the inhabitants of the Spanish Netherlands (modern day Belgium) who were ruled by a foreign power that did not understand them, prevented from making peace with their Protestant neighbors, and their greatest city, Antwerp, turned into a ghost town on account of the Dutch blockade of the Schlect, the main river leading to it from the English channel. It was his native Flanders that Rubens loved, and he would devote his life to bringing it, and the rest of Europe, peace.
What is fascinating about this biography, is that we find Rubens continually involved with the great men of his time. Not just the Duke’s of Mantua, his first big patron, but the Spanish regents of the Netherlands, the Empress Maria and the Count of Lerma Philip IV’s chief counselor, Philip IV himself, the scheming Count Olivarez, the kind and upright general Spignola, and conversely, Marie de Medici, Chrales I of England, and many other contemporary artists and poets. He clashed swords, diplomatically speaking, with Cardinal Richelieu and won, he was knighted by Philip IV of Spain and also by Charles I of England. His correspondence was enormous, and his art production in the thousands of works, and even more copies of other great masters. What I have always particularly admired in Rubens, is his staunch Catholicism, married to his love of the pagan classics. Like Raphael or Michaelangelo in the 16th century, for Rubens, classical and mythological themes were often used as an expression of Christian virtue, and they saw no particular contradiction in it. This was of course, the luxury of a christian age that had survived and long since vanquished the old paganism. Nevertheless, that pagan inheritance is the key to understanding most of Rubens’ art, as well as his life.
Flemish by birth, in a city where one could speak either Flemish or French, Rubens chose to speak Italian, which at that time was the mark of an educated and intelligent man, as opposed to the 19th century where British culture popularized the Italian as thief and pirate.
What Lamster brings out about Rubens in this work is two-fold: a) His work ethic and discipline b) his moral integrity, manners and discretion. For instance, Rubens’ wife died while he was in his 30s, but he re-married in his 50s, and was celibate for the entire 20 years he was single. One of the reasons we know this, is because Richelieu wanted all dirt possible dug up on Rubens, because he knew that the later was a Spanish agent, but his vast spy network came out empty handed.
The work traces Rubens’ career, from birth in strained circumstances in Flanders, to his education at a grammar school, where he learned Latin and Greek, French and Italian. He then embarked for Italy, where he spent several years in the retinue of the Duke of Mantua, at the same time as the great composer Claudio Monteverdi was also composing for the duke. He busied himself with the normal jobs of a young artist, copying the great masters, and innovating his own techniques. He was heavily influenced by Caravaggio, and it is apart of Rubens’ genius that he was able to appropriate elements of Caravaggio’s painting, but not become a slavish copier as many of the continuators of the painter, the Caravaggisti, would later be known for. He went to Rome shortly after Caravaggio had been condemned in absentia for murdering Rannucio Tommasoni in a duel, and was able to acquire a number of commissions this way.
While in the Duke of Mantua’s retinue, he was entrusted with the job of bringing a number of paintings to Spain which were to be presented as a gift to the highly influential Duke of Lerma, the chief counselor to King Philip IV, at that time considered the greatest monarch in the world. In this first visit to the Spanish court, Rubens would be able to see up close the Spanish court and its workings, which would help him appreciate later how the Spanish work.
The Adoration of the Magi, -Peter Paul Rubens The painting was made to commemorate the 12 years truce between Spain and Holland.
While back at Rome, however, received news that his mother was dying, and hastened back to Flanders. He narrowly missed his mother’s passing, but was fortunate in that around the same time, the Spanish and the Dutch were celebrating the twelve years truce (circa 1609), and were the city council of Antwerp wanted a painting to commemorate the event. Lucky for them, they had a young painter who had already acquired fame in Italy. How better, than to have a son of Antwerp paint a work celebrating a truce which would free the city economically? Thus, Rubens painted the first of his works on the theme of the Adoration of the Magi.
The painting’s meaning is clear, the kings of the earth adore the infant Jesus, bearing gifts, the gifts are the fruits of the peace, presented to the prince of peace. A man in gold fabrics kneels before the Christ child, who represents the Spanish, the man in a simple red garment represents the Dutch Republic, rich but austere. One thing that has baffled art historians, is the presence of an oriental figure standing just behind the main action, wearing glorious blue robes. Many times in depictions of this scene, oriental figures are depicted like Europeans, or depicted looking somewhat dumb, or lacking majesty. Rubens dresses him in rich blue garments and with jewels. The reason for this, is he is depicting the gifts of the orient (at that time called the East Indies), which could now flow freely while the Spanish and Dutch are not fighting each other at every corner of the world.
The work was a hit, and launched Rubens onto the international stage. It was at this point that he was invited by the Empress Isabella, the Spanish regent of the Netherlands, to undertake diplomatic work for Spain. In spite of Rubens’ many duties, his busy life in his workshop, the constant demands for his work, he nevertheless through himself into this energy and alacrity. His decorum made him trusted by Isabella, even though he was seriously mistrusted by the Spanish court for being a commoner who “worked by his hands” (something despised by the old nobility, which looked at privilege and position as something more noble than work). Philip IV would rectify this by knighting him, but he nevertheless, could not escape the veneer of a mere workman in the eyes of the Spanish aristocrats, no matter how polished his manners and splendid his decorum.
Lamster’s narrative takes us into Holland, France, and even distant England, where Rubens painted the famous Apotheosis of King James which even today adorns the ceiling at Whitehall. It is here, that Rubens, solely through his tact, decorum and discretion, outwitted Richelieu’s over-reaching and tactless ambassador’s, and prevented an alliance of England and France against Spain. What is glorious about it, is if one is not familiar with history of this period, Lamster’s narrative is simple and explanatory enough that one does not feel lost or amiss following Rubens around Europe.
At the end of his life, Rubens gave up his stardom and ambassadorial life, to retire in Flanders where he married again. He began, at this juncture, to carry out a number of landscaping works, depicting a peaceful life at home. He had labored his whole life for peace, through his art, and through his perilous missions, and it was peace he most longed for now. The twelve years truce had lapsed, and the Dutch and Spanish would be at it until the end of the Thirty Years War. That war, so destructive and pointless, tore Europe apart and left millions in misery. Thus we have one of Rubens’ last works, a picture of the Flemish landscape.
Landscape with a rainbow. -Peter Paul Rubens
The shepherds and farmers sit at ease with their wives, another is playing music, within easy site of their habitations. Its an idyllic day, with the sun shining, yet a storm which provides a cool breeze. The reality is behind that rainbow is a terrible storm on its way. On this side of the rainbow, is Flanders as it ought to be, while on the other side, is the dark stormy reality of war, both religious and political. The sad thing is the history of the Spanish Netherlands would turn out as the image of the storm, not the peaceful scene in the country. Conquered alternatively by French and Dutch, it would not know peace until the modern era.
Rubens however, is one of the greatest of painters, but understanding his works requires, like with the renaissance masters, an understanding of both the Christian world and the classical tradition which gave them birth. Understanding Rubens the man, however, requires knowing his century, and “Master of Shadows”, is a fantastic biography to start with.
The Beheading of John the Baptist – Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
This image, while certainly the largest of Caravaggio’s works, is also in many ways the most disturbing. There is a great power in it, but it is also very dark without any apparent redemption. Like some of Caravaggio’s other works, it is a motif on violence, without any positive resolution, much the same as with violence in the real world. Judgment is for the next life, in this world, evil often seems to be unpunished. This is completely different from the same painter’s martyrdom of St. Matthew (Contarelli Chapel, St. Luigi dei Francesci, Rome), where as the center figure, a pagan who has masqueraded as a catechumen, is about to finish off St. Matthew, an angel, invisible to all but the saint, through a cloud lowers the palm branch, the victory of the martyr. Not so here.
History
This painting hangs in St. John’s co-cathedral in La Valetta, Malta, which in Caravaggio’s time was under control of the old crusading order, the Knights Hospitalers of St. John, and was their chapter house. The knights ruled Malta (whose inhabitants were mostly knights, a handful of European traders, and the local Maltese population) by a strict military code, and the grand master was the final authority of the island, against which there was no appeal. In this time, around 1607, the Knights enjoyed a new renown, for their victory over the Turks in 1565, which prevented an Ottoman invasion of western Europe. They christened the western part of the island La Valetta, after the name of the French Grand Master La Valette, who had engineered the defense against the Turks. It was considered very prestigious to be a knight, and many noble families placed children in the order (who were often ill-suited to it).
Alof de Wignacourt -Caravaggio
In 1607, the Grandmaster, Alof de Wignacourt had a major problem. La Valetta was a bit of a backwater. Malta was not considered a place of culture at the time, and people did not tend to frequent it that often, being a barren military outpost. What does an artist normally want when he paints a masterpiece? In an age where there is no tv, the way to reach people is to have them walk inside a church and see it. Not many people will do this in Malta. Thus Wignacourt had been unable to get artists to come to Malta, let alone become knights. Enter Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
There are some artists whom we know quite a bit about because they wrote their lives (such as Michaelangelo Buonarotti), or because others wrote a good deal about them (Such as Versari in his Le Vite degli artisti), or because they were dodgy characters who were always in court, such as the goldsmith Cellini or Rembrandt. Of the third class is Caravaggio. His violent temper and difficulties with other artists frequently got him into legal trouble. In 1606, he killed another ruffian in a duel, Ranuccio Tomassoni, by the Tennis Courts on the via della Scroffa (today, a mechanic’s shop) which, ironically, was on the same street as St. Luigi of the French, where his St. Matthew series had made him famous. Now he was to become infamous, as dueling was illegal in the Papal States, and Caravaggio, having fled, was given the sentence in absentia of abunde capitale, authorizing anyone to kill him on behalf of the state (The Pope) and then claim their reward by bringing in his head. Caravaggio had fled first to Naples, where patrons kept him afloat, then to Sicily, and at last to Malta. At first he had attempted to buy his reconciliation from Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V and administrator of Papal Justice, by painting for him. He had done this in the past to get out of trouble, and tried again with his famous David and Goliath depicting his self-portrait as the decapitated monstrous Goliath, with the obvious implication that Borghese could have his head in paint if he could but keep it in life. This particular painting is incorrectly dated to the end of Caravaggio’s life (as in Simon Schama’s otherwise powerful documentary, The Power of Art, where he overlooks the fact that the David and Goliath enters the Borghese collection in 1606, the same year as the duel, not 1611 when he died. It made for great drama, but it simply wasn’t historically accurate).
Tomassoni’s family, however, was too strong for him to grant a pardon. With that having failed, it was now presented to him that he could gain a pardon by becoming a knight of Malta. This was a tricky business because a convicted murderer did not normally get considered for entrance into the Knights, and approval would have to come from the Pope.
As soon as Wignacourt heard about Caravaggio’s arrival and intentions, he was delighted. He saw immediately the solution to his problems. He would at last have a painter, and one who was considered the greatest at that, and he would be able to keep him. That was the trick really, he understood well that Caravaggio wanted a pardon so he could return to Rome, as well as the prestige that being a Knight of Malta would give him, and Wignacourt knew that once Caravaggio became a knight, he could not leave without his permission. Problem solved. At least it appeared that way. Events would prove otherwise, as we shall note later.
Caravaggio buttered up Wignacourt with two excellent portraits, (one above, the other is St. Jerome writing) which the latter was pleased with. He also painted portraits for other Knights and royal patrons of other knights (like the Sleeping Cupid, or the Annunciation for the Duke of Lorraine). The prudent Grandmaster petitioned Pope Paul V (whose name is on the front of St. Peter’s) for a pardon for Caravaggio, but he took care not mention the name of who it was, and this was received in May of 1608. The last test Wignacourt laid before Caravaggio was to paint the altar piece of the St. John for what is today the Co-Cathedral, at that time the Knights’ Chapter house in La Valletta, depicting the Church’s titular saint John the Baptist, which was to be ready before the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, when it would be unveiled.
The Painting
The figures are life-sized, to give the knights the sense that this is a real life drama happening before them. Oil painting became the supreme art in the late 15th century after painters like Van Eyck in the Netherlands were able to accomplish what oils had not to that point, make the dead come to life. What Caravaggio does, is not merely make the pictures look lifelike, but to act life-like as well, with a strength and intensity that had not been seen before in European art.
The beheading of John the Baptist, as we noted is very dark. It is certainly the masterpiece of Caravaggio’s later period, and it is the only one to be signed by him in name. It depicts, of course, St. John, his executioner, a soldier, Salome with a golden platter to receive the head of St. John the Baptist and an old woman. The interpretation of the old woman differs amongst art historians. Some think it is actually Herodias, the wife that Herod Antipas had forced his brother to divorce so he could marry her. This interpretation is interesting, and we will take it up later. The other is that she is a bystander who sees the horror of the act, and thus represents us, standing inside the painting and yet outside too, demolishing the barrier between the painting’s space, and our space.
There is a lot to look at here. The space creates a paradox, like a sudden silence in a noisy place, which seems louder than the previous noise by its contrast. The space fills the painting, though it is empty, with foreboding, and horror. This is the point of the two prisoners in the corner who are doing their utmost to have a look. The atmosphere is so terrible, that men of that sort are attracted to it, so that they might see the dirty work carried on.
Judith beheading Holofernes
-Caravaggio
Barberini Palace Museum, Rome
Caravaggio painted a number of beheadings, among which are a Medusa’s head, his own in the famous David and Goliath, which is often incorrectly dated to after this period, when in fact it enters the Borghese collection in 1606, two years before this. The only thing that compares is his beheading of Holofernes by Judith, which explores the pathos between sex and violence. This painting, however, explores the connection, on the one hand, between the state and violence in the person of the soldier, on the other, the fair and innocent who partake in violence in the person of Salome, to which we can add our mixed reaction to it, in the person of the old woman.
Take the Soldier, he is the embodiment of authority, but he is commanding an atrocity, the execution of an innocent man, something authority is supposed to prevent (in a way, in Caravaggio’s own head at least, it is an allusion to his own treatment in life). At least it seems that way, and many modern art historians have liked to find a commentary on the death penalty here, as they are given to reading modern issues into older works. The reality is, it is not state violence as such that Caravaggio presents, but the violence of infidels. The soldier is a Turkish soldier, and since the Fall of Constantinople a century and a half earlier, the word Turk had replaced Saracen in the European lexicon for brutality and barbarity. The executioner goes to his task like to some simple mechanical work. He has made a mess of the job, and so he reaches back to grab a sharp knife, lifting St. John’s hair to finish separating the head, which is half off and bloody. This messy scene is so because this Church, the chapter house, is where new entrants into the Knights of Malta will be initiated into its harsh discipline, and prepared for the fact they could die in such a cruel manner in some distant land for the faith. It also recalls the struggle against the Turks in 1565, a reminder that the enemy was still on the sea, and this could be reality, even here (as the jail scene looks like one of the Knight’s jails in Castel Sant’Angelo.
Next, let’s look at Salome, with her pure white arms carrying a golden plate. Normally, a woman is depicted with fair white skin, because a) the modern craze for wearing less than underwear to the beach or pool hadn’t taken hold yet, b) women of noble birth were protected in the houses of royalty, to be prepared for the soft trappings of noble life. Any woman who was tan was a peasant who worked in the sun. A woman as Salome is depicted, would be expected to be a warm, innocent lady who should have no place in this scene. We know, however, from the biblical account, that she has been complicit in the crime since the first, and she does not bat an eye or even twitch as this gruesome act is carried out.
Now the old woman. Some have suspected it is Herodias, and if so it would be very interesting, as an image of contrition, now that it comes to seeing the blood, she can’t quite bring herself to accept it, wanting to scream, like so many royal killers who normally stand back from their handiwork. But I don’t think this is what Caravaggio is depicting. If we look at, for example, Judith and Holofernes (above), there is an old woman present, almost urging Judith on. This is her maid. Likewise, Salome would have a maid present, since a woman of the status of Salome would have had a maid with her at all times, particularly when going into a dingy prison with dodgy soldiers and executioners. More than likely she is assisting Salome, but she can’t quite aid in such an appalling task. What startles her is the blood gushing from the jugular of a St. John that, in this painting, never really dies, that is in an everlasting agony. Yet there is another detail, she is aghast at the sight, but she covers her ears, not her eyes. This is curious as the medium is to be looked at. It is on the one hand, a way of expressing the gurgling scream that must come forth from such a brutal beheading, by expressing the scream. The other fact is it does what Caravaggio is famous for, demolishing the barrier between us and the painting. As Andrew Graham-Dixon notes, “She stands for Christian pity and prayer.” (Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane, pg. 379).
At last, the figure of St. John himself. He has a read cloak draped over him haphazardly, and beneath him is sheep’s wool. The former symbolizes martyrdom, and the latter the innocent lamb led to the slaughter, which is a type of Christ. Although this is ostensibly depicting the martyrdom of St. John, the saint is not the center-point of the painting, rather the executioner is. This calls to mind, again, Caravaggio’s The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, which he painted for the Contarelli chapel many years before, mentioned above. In that painting, the assassin, not St. Matthew is the center of the paining, because sin dominates this world, yet there is still salvation. Caravaggio shows St. Matthew’s blood flowing into a baptismal pool, which we see in theology, the Res tantum, the very matter of baptism, is death. Mystically we’re being put to death to sin, and brought back to life with Christ, but the actual fulfillment of baptism is death in a state of grace. Caravaggio has masterfully depicted baptism of blood, as it applies to the martyr. He has signed his name, F Michaelangelo, “F” standing for Fra (Brother) in St. John’s blood. In a spiritual sense,
the theological merit of the martyr allows for Caravaggio’s forgiveness for a murder, and materially the painting of his martyrdom, of his blood in which Caravaggio has signed his name, has made him reborn, as a man liberated from his death sentence, automatically commuted when he will have entered the ranks of the Knights of Malta, which this painting earns for him.
Epilogue
It would make a fantastic story if that was how it all went, but tragically it did not. At first it turned out well, Caravaggio was made a knight of Malta, and declared the greatest of all painters. He now had prestige as a knight, and the 17th century would witness artists receiving marks of status, such as Valezquez, who was made a knight of Santiago, Boromini would become a knight of the Holy Cross, Rubens would be knighted both by Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England, Bernini who was made a Papal knight. Though it is not recorded, we can safely assume that at this point Caravaggio discovered that he would not be able to return to Rome as soon as he had hoped. This disappointment would fester, and within a month of his being a Knight of St. John, he and some other knights assaulted a high ranking knight, and in the code of manhood of the day defaced his door, as well as kicking in the door of a musician. For a long time this detail was not known, and numerous wild theories about Caravaggio’s crime circulated amongst researches, ranging from acts of sodomy to some form of satanic worship. We now know it was none of this, that it had entirely to do with assaulting a brother knight, thanks to Maltese historian Keith Scribberas, who in 2002 took the step of X-raying some old documents which had been smeared with pitch to hide their contents. (Caravaggio, Dixon, pg. 387) The Knight was Brother Giovanni Rodomonte Roero, an administrator of the Knight’s Justice, and we can be certain that he is the one who assaulted Caravaggio in Naples, which left him badly disfigured, and ultimately led to his death. For unknown reasons Caravaggio and 6 other knights made the assault, which also included a pistol. It could be Caravaggio figured out he would not be allowed to leave Malta, and his irritation had concord with the grievances of these other knights who had issue with this particular Justice.
Nevertheless, the assault proved embarrassing for Wignacourt, as on 29 August he unveiled the painting for the feast of the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Caravaggio, who had painted it, was thrown in prison, the guva, a deep underground prison which was thought to have been filled in by the British, but was discovered to still be there in all its terror in the 1970s. High ranking as well as low ranking knights were in jail, one of the assailants was even a deacon and had to be laicized. At the same time, the broken door of the Maltese choirmaster was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the musicians went on strike over pay, and other matters. Thus neither was there a solemn Mass or a Solemn Vespers, on the patronal feast of the Knights of St. John. The whole event was a disaster for Wignacourt, guaranteeing he would not be merciful. No one had ever escaped from the guva, but that was no obstacle for Caravaggio. It would have been all but impossible without the aid of someone else, involving as it did scaling high walls, lowering himself into the harbor and finding a boat. His escape, no matter how it happened, made him a fugitive from the Knight’s justice, and they formally expelled him from the order. He fled to Sicily where he painted a number of paintings, and was an instant celebrity wherever he went, and then back to Naples, where he was beaten and left for dead, almost certainly by Roero. Not long after, he would attempt to go to Rome with the promise of a pardon from the Pope’s nephew, Scipione Borghese, but he died on the way there, which we will take up in a discussion of another of Caravaggio’s paintings.
Athanasius Contra Mundum 