Caravaggio, nickname of Michelangelo Merisi, marked a before and after in the history of art by inventing a new style, tenebrism. But his life was not limited to brushes. The Italian painter had a passionate and conflictive temperament, enough to create a best seller or to sweep the box office.
Caravaggio was what was called a “ruffian” in his time. Lacking a sword, he struck with whatever was at hand. He saw himself as a valent’huomo, which in Spanish would be a gentleman. It was a diffuse notion, which did not necessarily imply having noble blood, but rather being a man of merit and honor.
In fact, he had contacts with the illustrious Colonna family since his childhood. The Marchioness Costanza Colonna protected him throughout his life, even in the most desperate moments.
His childhood was not easy. He lost his father at the age of six. Within a few months of each other he also lost an uncle, a grandfather and a grandmother. All, probably, victims of the plague.
At the age of thirteen, his mother sent him to Milan to train as an apprentice in the workshop of a fresco painter, Simone Peterzano. Everything indicates that he was a very bad student and that he started to get into trouble very early.
After losing a little brother and his mother, Caravaggio takes his share of the inheritance and leaves for Rome without looking back. The artist’s early days in Rome were extremely hard. After spending that inheritance in a flash, he moved from one workshop to another and even worked as a servant.
His fortune begins to improve when he meets his first great patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, who bought him two paintings about life in the underworld, Fortune Telling and The Gamblers. These paintings would end up projecting an enormous influence on future Dutch, Flemish and French genre scenes.
At that time, Caravaggio’s themes were groundbreaking. He did not paint himself on certain environments. These are themes that we would never have found in a Raphael or a Leonardo.
According to gossip, the cardinal was also a lover of young and attractive boys. As for the Lombard painter, much has been said about his possible homosexuality. One of his biographers, Giovanni Baglione, spread a rumor that Caravaggio had a male lover. But Baglione was a staunch enemy of Caravaggio, so it is difficult to know how much truth there was in his words.
Rumors pointed, above all, to his servant and only apprentice, Cecco Boneri, who posed in several of his paintings. On the other hand, he is not known to have female nudes. What there is no doubt is that his paintings radiate sensuality when he paints naked or semi-naked young men, like Cupid, Bacchus or even Saint John the Baptist.
On the other hand, there is much evidence that closely links Caravaggio with at least three well-known Roman prostitutes, who posed for him on more than one occasion. But, once again, it is difficult to know if he frequented them only as an artist or also as a client.
There is even a theory, plausible but never proven, that he may have earned extra money from these women, as a pimp. This could explain, in part, her habit of keeping bad company, walking around with her sword at her belt at night, and getting involved in brawls.
In Rome at the time there were also strong aesthetic rivalries. In contrast to mannerism, which tends to sweeten the classicism of the Renaissance, Caravaggio’s naturalistic tenebrism emerges, with sober colors, extremely realistic figures and simple compositions illuminated by a single light source.
In that environment where art was mixed with violence, it has been suggested that the irritability of the artists could be due, in part, to the toxicity of the pigments they handled. Caravaggio was involved in various incidents.
His most serious crime was the murder of a known pimp. Costanza Colonna facilitates his escape to Naples, but he is increasingly unfocused and his only desire is to be able to return to Rome.
Caravaggio’s work is liked by some sectors of the Church and fascinates many artists, but it also scandalizes a lot of people. They accuse him of being vulgar. Furthermore, his ability to get into trouble surpasses even his immense artistic talent.
In July 1608, he was ordained a knight in Malta and became Brother Michelangelo Merisi. In August of that same year he seriously injured a monk… and found him in prison. After a spectacular escape, he falls wounded in an ambush. He survives, but with profound physical and psychological consequences. His final is near.
To learn more about the character, Isabel Margarit, director of History and Life, and journalist Ana Echeverría Arístegui recommend, as a leading biography, Andrew Graham-Dixon’s, Caravaggio: a sacred and profane life (Taurus, 2011, 2022) . For those who prefer a good documentary, Caravaggio in Body and Soul, from 2018, winner of an Italian Golden Globe.
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