Editing Caravaggio (section)

=== Exile and death (1606–1610) ===
{{main|Exile of Caravaggio}}
==== Naples ====
Following the death of Tomassoni, Caravaggio fled first to the estates of the [[Colonna family]] south of Rome and then on to Naples, where Costanza Colonna Sforza, widow of Francesco Sforza, in whose husband's household Caravaggio's father had held a position, maintained a palace. In Naples, outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities and protected by the Colonna family, the most famous painter in Rome became the most famous in Naples.
[[File:Caravaggio - Sette opere di Misericordia.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|''[[The Seven Works of Mercy]]'', 1606–1607, [[Pio Monte della Misericordia]], Naples]]

His connections with the Colonnas led to a stream of important church commissions, including the ''[[Madonna of the Rosary (Caravaggio)|Madonna of the Rosary]]'', and ''[[The Seven Works of Mercy]]''.<ref>Costanza's brother Ascanio was Cardinal-Protector of the Kingdom of Naples; another brother, Marzio, was an advisor to the Spanish Viceroy; and a sister was married into the important Neapolitan Carafa family. Caravaggio stayed in Costanza's palazzo on his return to Naples in 1609. These connections are treated in most biographies and studies—see, for example, Catherine Puglisi, "Caravaggio", p.258, for a brief outline. Helen Langdon, "Caravaggio: A Life", ch.12 and 15, and Peter Robb, "M", pp.398ff and 459ff, give a fuller account.</ref> ''The Seven Works of Mercy'' depicts the [[Works of Mercy#Corporal works of mercy|seven corporal works of mercy]] as a set of compassionate acts concerning the material needs of others. The painting was made for and is still housed in the church of [[Pio Monte della Misericordia]] in [[Naples]]. Caravaggio combined all seven works of mercy in one composition, which became the church's [[altarpiece]].<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/23753234.2017.1287283 | title=Caravaggio's 'Seven Works of Mercy' in Naples. The relevance of art history to cultural journalism | year=2017 | last1=Bühren | first1=Ralf van | journal=Church, Communication and Culture | volume=2 | pages=63–87 | s2cid=194755813 | doi-access=free }}</ref> Alessandro Giardino has also established the connection between the iconography of "The Seven Works of Mercy" and the cultural, scientific and philosophical circles of the painting's [[commissioners]].<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15700593-01600100 | doi=10.1163/15700593-01600100 | title=The Seven Works of Mercy | year=2017 | last1=Giardino | first1=Alessandro | journal=Aries | volume=17 | issue=2 | pages=149–170 }}</ref>

==== Malta ====
Despite his success in Naples, after only a few months in the city Caravaggio left for [[Hospitaller Malta]], the headquarters of the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights of Malta]]. Fabrizio Sforza Colonna, Costanza's son, was a Knight of Malta and general of the Order's [[galley]]s. He appears to have facilitated Caravaggio's arrival on the island in 1607 (and his escape the next year). Caravaggio presumably hoped that the patronage of [[Alof de Wignacourt]], Grand Master of the [[Knights of Saint John]], could help him secure a [[pardon]] for Tomassoni's death.<ref name="sammut">{{cite journal|journal=Scientia|last=Sammut|first=E.|date=1949|title=Caravaggio in Malta|url=http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/Scientia%20(Malta)/Scientia.%2015(1949)2(Apr.-Jun.)/03.pdf|volume=15|issue=2|pages=78–89|access-date=23 February 2017|archive-date=8 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008090746/http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/Scientia%20(Malta)/Scientia.%2015(1949)2(Apr.-Jun.)/03.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Wignacourt was so impressed at having the artist as official painter to the Order that he inducted him as a Knight, and the early biographer Bellori records that the artist was well pleased with his success.<ref name="sammut"/> Wignacourt reportedly gifted some slaves to Caravaggio in recognition for his services.<ref name="lanfranco2007">{{cite journal|last1=Lanfranco|first1=Guido|title=Xogħol tal-Iskjavi fost il-Maltin|journal=Programm Tal-Festa|date=2007|url=http://www.kappellimaltin.com/XogholTasSkjaviFostIlMaltin.pdf|publisher=Għaqda Mużikali San Leonardu|location=[[Kirkop]]|language=mt|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160415104337/http://kappellimaltin.com/XogholTasSkjaviFostIlMaltin.pdf|archive-date=15 April 2016}}</ref>
[[File:The Beheading of Saint John-Caravaggio (1608).jpg|alt=|left|thumb|[[The Beheading of St John the Baptist (Caravaggio)|''The Beheading of Saint John'']] (1608) by Caravaggio ([[Saint John's Co-Cathedral]], Valletta, Malta)]]
Major works from his Malta period include the ''[[The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Caravaggio)|Beheading of Saint John the Baptist]]'', his largest ever work, and the only painting to which he put his signature, ''[[Saint Jerome Writing (Caravaggio, Valletta)|Saint Jerome Writing]]'' (both housed in [[Saint John's Co-Cathedral]], [[Valletta]], [[Malta]]) and a ''[[Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page]]'', as well as portraits of other leading Knights.<ref name="sammut"/> According to Andrea Pomella, ''The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist'' is widely considered "one of the most important works in Western painting."<ref name="CaravaggioPomella2005">{{Cite book|last=Pomella|first=Andrea|title=Caravaggio: an artist through images|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JDH4lOa8qRgC&pg=PA106|access-date=28 June 2010|year=2005|publisher=ATS Italia Editrice|isbn=978-88-88536-62-0|page=106}}</ref> Completed in 1608, the painting had been commissioned by the Knights of Malta as an [[altarpiece]]<ref name="CaravaggioPomella2005"/><ref>Varriano (2006), pp. 74, 116.</ref> and measuring {{Convert|370|x|520|cm|in|round=5}} was the largest altarpiece Caravaggio painted.<ref name="Patrick2007">{{Cite book|last=Patrick|first=James|title=Renaissance and Reformation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i6ZJlLHLPY8C&pg=PA194|year=2007|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|isbn=978-0-7614-7651-1|page=194}}</ref> It still hangs in [[St. John's Co-Cathedral]], for which it was commissioned and where Caravaggio himself was inducted and briefly served as a knight.<ref name="Rowland2005">{{Cite book|last=Rowland|first=Ingrid Drake|title=From heaven to Arcadia: the sacred and the profane in the Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yke1Kx4v9sYC&pg=PA163|year=2005|publisher=New York Review of Books|isbn=978-1-59017-123-3|page=163}}</ref><ref name="Patrick2007"/>

Yet, by late August 1608, he was arrested and imprisoned,<ref name="sammut"/> likely the result of yet another brawl, this time with an aristocratic knight, during which the door of a house was battered down and the knight seriously wounded.<ref name="sammut"/><ref>{{cite journal|first=Keith|last=Sciberras|title=Frater Michael Angelus in tumultu: the cause of Caravaggio's imprisonment in Malta|journal=The Burlington Magazine|issue=CXLV|date=April 2002|pages=229–232}} and {{cite journal|first=Keith|last=Sciberras|title=Riflessioni su Malta al tempo del Caravaggio|journal=Paragone Arte|volume=LII|issue=629|date=July 2002|pages=3–20}} Sciberras' findings are summarised online at [http://caravaggio.com/preview/attach/data01/D000199.htm Caravaggio.com] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060310151813/http://caravaggio.com/preview/attach/data01/D000199.htm |date=10 March 2006 }}</ref> Caravaggio was imprisoned by the Knights at [[Valletta]], but he managed to escape. By December, he had been expelled from the Order "as a foul and rotten member", a formal phrase used in all such cases.<ref>The senior Knights of the Order convened on 1 December 1608 and, after verifying that the accused had failed to appear, although summoned four times, voted unanimously to expel their ''putridum et foetidum'' ex-brother. Caravaggio was expelled, not for his crime, but for having left Malta without permission (i.e., escaping).</ref>

==== Sicily ====

[[File:Room of caravaggio, regional museum od of messina.JPG|thumb|''[[The Raising of Lazarus (Caravaggio)|The Raising of Lazarus]]'' and the ''[[Adoration of the Shepherds (Caravaggio)|Adoration of the Shepherds]]'', [[Regional Museum of Messina]], Sicily, Italy]]

Caravaggio made his way to [[Sicily]] where he met his old friend Mario Minniti, who was now married and living in [[Syracuse, Italy|Syracuse]]. Together they set off on what amounted to a triumphal tour from Syracuse to [[Messina]] and, maybe, on to the island capital, [[Palermo]]. In Syracuse and Messina Caravaggio continued to win prestigious and well-paid commissions. Among other works from this period are ''[[Burial of St. Lucy (Caravaggio)|Burial of St. Lucy]]'', ''[[The Raising of Lazarus - Messina (Caravaggio)|The Raising of Lazarus]]'', and ''[[Adoration of the Shepherds (Caravaggio)|Adoration of the Shepherds]]''. His style continued to evolve, showing now friezes of figures isolated against vast empty backgrounds. "His great Sicilian altarpieces isolate their shadowy, pitifully poor figures in vast areas of darkness; they suggest the desperate fears and frailty of man, and at the same time convey, with a new yet desolate tenderness, the beauty of humility and of the meek, who shall inherit the earth."<ref>Langdon, p.365.</ref> Contemporary reports depict a man whose behaviour was becoming increasingly bizarre, which included sleeping fully armed and in his clothes, ripping up a painting at a slight word of criticism, and mocking local painters.

Caravaggio displayed bizarre behaviour from very early in his career. Mancini describes him as "extremely crazy", a letter from Del Monte notes his strangeness, and Minniti's 1724 biographer says that Mario left Caravaggio because of his behaviour. The strangeness seems to have increased after Malta. Susinno's early-18th-century ''Le vite de' pittori Messinesi'' ("Lives of the Painters of Messina") provides several colourful anecdotes of Caravaggio's erratic behaviour in Sicily, and these are reproduced in modern full-length biographies such as Langdon and Robb. Bellori writes of Caravaggio's "fear" driving him from city to city across the island and finally, "feeling that it was no longer safe to remain", back to Naples. Baglione says Caravaggio was being "chased by his enemy", but like Bellori does not say who this enemy was.

==== Return to Naples ====

[[File:CaravaggioSalomeMadrid.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (Caravaggio, Madrid)|Salome with the Head of John the Baptist]]'', [[Royal Palace of Madrid]]]]

After only nine months in Sicily, Caravaggio returned to Naples in the late summer of 1609. According to his earliest biographer, he was being pursued by enemies while in Sicily and felt it safest to place himself under the protection of the Colonnas until he could secure his pardon from the pope (now [[Paul V]]) and return to Rome.<ref>Baglione says that Caravaggio in Naples had "given up all hope of revenge" against his unnamed enemy.</ref> In Naples he painted ''[[The Denial of Saint Peter (Caravaggio)|The Denial of Saint Peter]]'', a final ''[[John the Baptist (Caravaggio)|John the Baptist (Borghese)]]'', and his last picture, ''[[The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (Caravaggio)|The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula]]''. His style continued to evolve—[[Saint Ursula]] is caught in a moment of highest action and drama, as the arrow fired by the king of the [[Huns]] strikes her in the breast, unlike earlier paintings that had all the immobility of the posed models. The brushwork was also much freer and more impressionistic.

[[File:David with the Head of Goliath-Caravaggio (1610).jpg|thumb|upright=.8|''[[David with the Head of Goliath (Caravaggio, Rome)|David with the Head of Goliath]]'', 1609–1610, [[Galleria Borghese]], Rome]]
In October 1609, he was involved in a violent clash, an attempt on his life, perhaps ambushed by men in the pay of the knight he had wounded in Malta or some other faction of the Order. His face was seriously disfigured and rumours circulated in Rome that he was dead. He painted a ''[[Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (Madrid) (Caravaggio)|Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (Madrid)]]'', showing his own head on a platter, and sent it to Wignacourt as a plea for forgiveness. Perhaps at this time, he also painted a ''[[David with the Head of Goliath (Caravaggio, Rome)|David with the Head of Goliath]]'', showing the young David with a strangely sorrowful expression gazing at the severed head of the giant, which is again Caravaggio. This painting he may have sent to his patron, the unscrupulous art-loving Cardinal [[Scipione Borghese]], nephew of the pope, who had the power to grant or withhold pardons.<ref>According to a 17th-century writer, the painting of the head of Goliath is a self-portrait of the artist, while David is ''il suo Caravaggino'', "his little Caravaggio". This phrase is obscure, but it has been interpreted as meaning either that the boy is a youthful self-portrait or, more commonly, that this is the Cecco who modeled for the ''Amor Vincit''. The sword-blade carries an abbreviated inscription that has been interpreted as meaning Humility Conquers Pride. Attributed to a date in Caravaggio's late Roman period by Bellori, the recent tendency is to see it as a product of Caravaggio's second Neapolitan period. (See Gash, p.125).</ref> Caravaggio hoped Borghese could mediate a pardon in exchange for works by the artist.

News from Rome encouraged Caravaggio, and in the summer of 1610, he took a boat northwards to receive the pardon, which seemed imminent thanks to his powerful Roman friends. With him were three last paintings, the gifts for Cardinal Scipione.<ref>A letter from the [[Bishop of Caserta]] in Naples to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in Rome, dated 29 July 1610, informs the Cardinal that the Marchesa of Caravaggio is holding two John the Baptists and a Magdalene that were intended for Borghese. These were presumably the price of Caravaggio's pardon from Borghese's uncle, the pope.</ref> What happened next is the subject of much confusion and conjecture, shrouded in much mystery.

The bare facts seem to be that on 28 July, an anonymous ''[[avviso]]'' (private newsletter) from Rome to the ducal court of Urbino reported that Caravaggio was dead. Three days later, another ''avviso'' said that he had died of fever on his way from Naples to Rome. A poet friend of the artist later gave 18 July as the date of death, and a recent researcher claims to have discovered a death notice showing that the artist died on that day of a fever in [[Porto Ercole]], near [[Grosseto]] in [[Tuscany]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Drancourt|first1=Michel|last2=Barbieri|first2=Rémi|last3=Cilli|first3=Elisabetta|last4=Gruppioni|first4=Giorgio|last5=Bazaj|first5=Alda|last6=Cornaglia|first6=Giuseppe|title=Did Caravaggio die of ''Staphylococcus aureus'' sepsis?|date=17 September 2018|journal=The Lancet|volume=18|issue=11|page=1178|doi=10.1016/S1473-3099(18)30571-1|pmid=30236439|doi-access=free}}</ref>