Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [121]
Had Longhi ever had an argument with the said Ranuccio? If so, when had he quarrelled with him, and over what?
No, sir, I’ve never had any words with Ranuccio Tomassoni from Terni. Even if he is a little related to the said Stefano, he is my friend and we’ve never had any disagreements in the past.
Had he ever tried to attack Ranuccio, alone or in company?
No, sir, no such thing, because, as I said, Ranuccio is my friend. We ate together only a few days ago. And I’ve never had any arguments or attacked him.
A swordfight on a tennis court; the painter barely able to walk, ‘convalescing’ probably not from illness but from injuries sustained in some fight or other; an argument involving testicles; a rivalry with a group of men from Terni. These events would soon enough be replayed – low farce turning to tragedy – in the lives of Caravaggio and Ranuccio Tomassoni. Stirrings of the trouble that lay ahead between the two men can be sensed behind the evasive testimony of Onorio Longhi.
Longhi did know Ranuccio Tomassoni well enough to be on first-name terms, as he had claimed. Just two weeks after the investigations of late October 1600, he was up before the magistrates again. The case at hand was his alleged assault of Felice Sillano, which by then had rumbled on for more than two years. Part of the investigation turned on whether a particular witness could possibly have recognized Longhi at night. When challenged, the witness turned to him and said ‘I know you by your voice, because I’ve heard you talking with Messer Ranuccio at the Rotonda [the Pantheon], and seen you playing tennis in the Vicole de’ Pantani.’21 Longhi may once have been on good terms with the philandering, tennis-playing pimp. But their friendship had soured by the summer of 1600, perhaps because of Caravaggio’s relationship with Fillide Melandroni, or perhaps because Ranuccio had taken the side of Stefano Longhi in the brothers’ long-running battle over their inheritance.
In the archives of the tribunal of the Governor of Rome is another illuminating document, in effect an early seventeenth-century restraining order. On 17 November 1600 a sculptor called Hippolito Butio, of Milan, gave his pledge that Longhi would neither attack, nor cause to be attacked, a whole host of people.22 The list included the long-aggrieved Felice Sillano as well as Stefano Longhi and Flavio Canonici (sic), whose hand Caravaggio had marked with ‘a permanent scar’, and Ranuccio Tomassoni.
There is a strong sense, in all this, of battle lines being drawn. A dangerous pattern of alliances was forming, a web of personal and patriotic rivalries. Caravaggio and Onorio Longhi stand on one side of the street, while Tomassoni and his henchmen from Terni gather on the other.
TWO PAINTINGS FOR TIBERIO CERASI
Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1600 Caravaggio had been offered another important commission. Two more lateral pictures were required, this time on the subjects of The Conversion of St Paul and The Crucifixion of St Peter, for a chapel that had been acquired by Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. It was another exceptional opportunity for the artist to excel on a public stage. The Augustinian foundation of Santa Maria del Popolo, at the northern edge of Rome, marked the start of one of the principal routes of pilgrimage through the city. Caravaggio was well aware that over the years millions of pilgrims would see his depictions of Peter and Paul, the beloved Princes of the Apostles. With the help of Cardinal del Monte, he was becoming famous.
Caravaggio’s new patron, Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi, was a rich man. Born in 1544, he had made his fortune practising law at the papal court. Since 1596 he had been Treasurer-General to the Apostolic