Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [110]
A BROTHERLESS MAN
Many of Caravaggio’s pictures of the later 1590s look like demonstration pieces. Each new work shows a new difficulty overcome. But with the St Catherine of 1599 Caravaggio had reached a higher level of mastery and assurance. He painted the picture for del Monte, who had a special devotion to the martyr, probably because she was the patron saint of scholars. Perhaps this was the work that persuaded the cardinal that his protegé was ready for bigger commissions.
It was at this otherwise propitious time, for reasons unknown, that Caravaggio finally severed all links with his family. In 1594 his sister Caterina had married a ‘maestro Bartolommeo Vinizzoni’ – ‘maestro’ indicating that he was an artisan of some kind. Caravaggio had not attended the wedding. He had also been avoiding his brother, Giovan Battista, the priest, who was in Rome studying moral theology with the Jesuits from the autumn of 1596 to the winter of 1599. Before Giovan Battista went back to Lombardy, to be ordained as a subdeacon in the province of Bergamo, he decided to call on Caravaggio. Giulio Mancini tells the strange story of what happened when the two brothers met:
Caravaggio had an only brother, a priest, a man of letters and of high morals who, when he heard of his brother’s fame, wanted to see him and, filled with brotherly love, arrived in Rome. He knew that his brother was staying with Cardinal del Monte, and being aware of his brother’s eccentricities, he thought it best to speak first to the Cardinal, and to explain everything to him, which he did. He was well received by the Cardinal, who told him to return in three days. He did so. In the meantime, the Cardinal called Michelangelo and asked him if he had any relatives; he answered that he did not. Unwilling to believe that the priest would tell him a lie about a matter that could not be checked, and that would do him no good, he asked among Caravaggio’s compatriots whether he had any brothers, and who they were, and so discovered it was Caravaggio who had lied. After three days the priest returned and was received by the Cardinal, who sent for Michelangelo. At the sight of his brother he declared that he did not know him and that he was not his brother. So, in the presence of the Cardinal, the poor priest said tenderly: ‘Brother, I have come from far away to see you, and thus I have fulfilled my desire; as you know, in my situation, thank God, I do not need you for myself or for my children, but rather for your own children if God will do you good as I will pray to His Divine Majesty during my services, as will be done by your sister in her chaste and virginal prayers.’ But Michelangelo was not moved by his brother’s ardent and stimulating words of love, and so the good priest left without even a goodbye.81
Mancini neither comments on the story nor explains it in any way. But the structure of his telling, which is like a fable, may contain clues about what he believed was going on. Three times Caravaggio is asked to recognize his brother, the priest, and three times he refuses him. Like St Peter denying Christ three times ‘before the cock crows twice’ (Mark 14:66–8), Caravaggio denies his brother, himself Christ’s servant on earth. The implication is that religion, somehow, lay at the heart of the matter. Was Caravaggio ashamed to look his pious brother in the eye? Mancini may have thought so.
Ottavio Leoni drew a portrait of Caravaggio at around this time. He has the dark, dishevelled hair and bushy eyebrows described by Luca, the barber-surgeon. But it is his expression that seems most striking. His mouth is set and sullen. There is determination and truculence in his eyes, but there is sadness there too – a look of profound loneliness, and abandonment.
PART FOUR
Rome, 1599–1606
THE ST MATTHEW CHAPEL
For the priests at San Luigi dei Francesi, the Contarelli Chapel had