Personality of the Month: Caravaggio's Dark Past comes to Light

The BBC have reported that the celebrated Caravaggio's life was not all light and luminosity, as it unveiled a rediscovered police record of the artist from the early 17thC, which is now on display, among others, in an Exhibition of Documents in the State Archives in Rome.

The exhibition; 'Caravaggio in Rome. A Life from Life' is described by the State Archives in Rome's website as consisting of 'Unpublished documents, paintings and evidence gathers so far never on display in the State.'

An artist known for his brilliant use of chiaroscuro, Caravaggio's signature paintings displayed his talent in using a dramatic depth of darkness pared with the sharply piercing luminosity of pure light. He seems however, to have known what lay in such darkness as we hear of tales of madness and murder from the documents on display.

The BBC reports;

Caravaggio's friendships, daily life and frequent brawls - including the one which brought him a death sentence from Pope Paul V - are described in handwritten police logs, legal and court parchments all bound together in heavy tomes - and carefully preserved in this unique repository of Rome's history during the Renaissance and after.

The picture the documents paint is that of an irascible man who went about town carrying personal weapons - a sword and dagger, and even a pistol - without a written permit, boasting that he enjoyed the protection of the ecclesiastical authorities who commissioned some of his most famous works.

Among other misdemeanors, the documents report of Caravaggio's skirmishes with the police, being sued by his land lady for hiding his paintings in her ceiling and having a penchant for carrying around personal weapons with him, which included a dagger, a sword (not unreasonable for the times) and even a pistol.

The main attraction to the documents on display however are the manuscripts describing Caravaggio's more serious crime, when in May 1606, he murdered Ranuccio Tommassoni. The eye witness accounts detail how the seemingly impetuous brawl was actually carefully planned between eight, now named participants, who arranged the meeting. Also it is clear that the brawl was not over a lovers quarrel but the more likely gambling debts of the impassioned Caravaggio;

Caravaggio and his three companions, one a Captain in the Papal army, met their rivals at a pallacorda court in the Campo Marzio area, where the artist lived. (Pallacorda was a game played with a ball with a string attached - an early form of tennis, which some older Romans still remember seeing played in the streets of the capital in the mid-20th Century.)

Some biographers have suggested that there may have been an argument over a woman, but the text of the court report suggests the quarrel broke out over a gambling debt. Caravaggio killed Ranuccio and fled the city.

As well as enlightening the reader on Caravaggio's murder charge, the documents also illuminate the circumstances behind his early death at Porto Ercole in 1610. At 38 years old, Caravaggio was returning to Rome on the understanding that his friends had managed to secure a pardon for him from Pope Paul V and was believed to have died alone on a beach escaping his perusing creditors and the police. These manuscripts however, now seem to shed new light on Caravaggio's death.

After careful scrutiny the documents reveal that Caravaggio actually died in a hospital bed;

Only 38 years old, he was on his way back to the city from the south in the belief that his powerful friends had secured a pardon for his offences.

The artists life seem to have been well documented, not only by fellow artists and patrons alike, but by the Police also. A statement written by a waiter present at one scene of Caravaggio's temper is recorded in Police records;

Statement to police by Pietro Antonio de Fosaccia, waiter, 26 April 1604:

About 17 o'clock [lunchtime] the accused, together with two other people, was eating in the Moor's restaurant at La Maddalena, where I work as a waiter. I brought them eight cooked artichokes, four cooked in butter and four fried in oil. The accused asked me which were cooked in butter and which fried in oil, and I told him to smell them, which would easily enable him to tell the difference.

He got angry and without saying anything more, grabbed an earthenware dish and hit me on the cheek at the level of my moustache, injuring me slightly... and then he got up and grabbed his friend's sword which was lying on the table, intending perhaps to strike me with it, but I got up and came here to the police station to make a formal complaint...

The Police documents themselves of their dealings with Caravaggio are numerous;

Police Dossier - Artist Behaving Badly

• 4 May 1598: Arrested at 2- 3am near Piazza Navona, for carrying a sword without a permit
• 19 November 1600: Sued for beating a man with a stick and tearing his cape with a sword at 3am on Via della Scrofa
• 2 October 1601: A man accuses Caravaggio and friends of insulting him and attacking him with a sword near the Piazza Campo Marzio
• 24 April 1604: Waiter complains of assault after serving artichokes at an inn on the Via Maddalena
• 19 October 1604: Arrested for throwing stones at policemen near Via dei Greci and Via del Babuino
• 28 May 1605: Arrested for carrying a sword and dagger without a permit on Via del Corso
• 29 July 1605: Vatican notary accuses Caravaggio of striking him from behind with a weapon
• 28 May 1606: Caravaggio kills a man during a pitched battle in the Campo Marzio area

For more information on the tempestuous dark side to the master of light, please see the links below!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12497978

http://www.archiviodistatoroma.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/22/archivio-eventi/69/mostra-su-caravaggio-a-roma-una-vita-dal-vero-documenti-inediti-dipinti-e-testimonianze-sinora-mai-raccolte-in-mostra-allarchivio-di-stato