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Without thinking, I let him…
And an electricity passed between us as his large hand took my much smaller one.
We entered a room filled with magnificent paintings.
“After what I said about Borghese, you know I have a soft spot for scoundrels,” Niccolo joked. “Caravaggio was definitely a scoundrel – probably bisexual, he liked rough trade, got into drunken street brawls, and hung out with prostitutes. He had to flee Rome after he killed a man, supposedly the pimp of a prostitute he fell in love with.
“He died mysteriously in his 30s. Some claimed it was from malaria or syphilis… though others say an enemy from his past caught up with him.
“But, my God, he was agenius.Look at the subtle shading of light to dark!No oneuses light like Caravaggio – not then, and not in the 400 years since his death. He inspired generations of painters after him – and not just painters. When Francis Ford Coppola was about to directThe Godfather,he instructed his cinematographer to look at the paintings of Caravaggio. That was the look he wanted – the interplay of light and dark.”
“If he inspiredThe Godfather,”I said drily, “no wonder you like him.”
“Careful,” Niccolo grinned.
He pointed at a painting of two women with halos. One was dressed in red and held the hands of a naked child about three years old. The little boy stood on her feet, and together they crushed the head of a flailing serpent.
“Caravaggio created an immense scandal when he painted this. It’s said he used a prostitute as a model – a verywell-knownprostitute. When people saw this painting, they didn’t see the Virgin Mary – they saw a harlot they recognized from the streets of Rome.”
“That’sthe Virgin Mary?” I asked in surprise.
The woman wasn’t depicted in the traditional blue robes of the Virgin, but rather in a scarlet red dress – not exactly a chaste color.
“Yes, along with the Christ Child, and St. Anne standing next to them. You can see mother and child are crushing the head of a snake – a metaphor for victory over Satan with the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
“But notice something: theVirginis the one actually doing the crushing. Jesus’ foot rests atop her own. The true scandal was that Caravaggio suggested awomancould be partially responsible for defeating the Devil.
“The Church removed the painting just eight days after it was put on display – and our charming scoundrel, Cardinal Borghese, snapped it up for his own private collection.
“There’s one other painting of Caravaggio’s that I want you to see. Look.”
He pointed at an image of a young man holding a bearded, severed head.
“We saw Bernini’s version of David just as he was about to cast the stone that killed Goliath,” Niccolo said. “This is Caravaggio’s version, after David beheaded the giant. But there’s a hidden meaning in the image.
“When Caravaggio fled Rome after killing a man in a brawl, he spent years wandering from Sicily to Naples… but he longed to come home. However, he could not return without fear of being executed for his crime.
“As a cardinal in the Catholic Church, Borghese was one of the few people in Rome who could formally absolve the painter of his sin and save him from the civil authorities. Borghese was also a great admirer, having purchased several other works by the artist. So Caravaggio created this painting as a peace offering – and a sign of penitence. It’s said that he modeled Goliath’svisage after his own. In fact, you can see from that self-portrait over there that they’re the same face.”
It was true; the face in another painting looked like a younger version of the beheaded giant.
“It was Caravaggio’s way of begging to be allowed to come home. It was said that the Cardinal was so moved by his gift that he was planning to pardon him… but Caravaggio’s past caught up to him first.”
I stared at the painting of David and Goliath – both gruesome and beautiful, with its subtly shaded darkness.
It struck me that I was looking at the same sort of violence I had bought into when I went to work for Fausto.
I’d thought it was all a game, at first… a chess match…
Until I heard Aurelio die on San Michele…
And then watched the murder of the morgue attendant.
I shivered and had to look away.
“Come – there’s something else I want to show you,” Niccolo said. “A work of art 200 years after the Cardinal’s death.”
He led me to another room, one dominated by a marble sculpture of a half-naked woman reclining on a divan. The front of her lower body was concealed by a beautifully carved marble ‘cloth.’