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in 1548. By the 1570s relations between Spain and the papacy had somewhat improved, but Europe remained the same fractious place described in the emperor’s world-weary anatomy of the continent’s political and religious divisions. And Milan, important enough to get two mentions in his long memorandum, remained vital to Spanish interests. Charles V always regarded the city as ‘the key to Italy’, and his son Philip II never deviated from that view. To lose Milan would not only expose the whole of Spanish rule in southern Italy to danger; it would also separate Spain from its territories in the Low Countries. The caution of Milan’s Spanish rulers was exacerbated by their knowledge that the city’s defence was in the hands of no more than around 5,000 soldiers. Any hint of trouble – the merest suggestion that the French were fomenting revolt in Genoa, the chance appearance of a group of gypsies from Venice – and a state of emergency was liable to be declared.

On the surface, the city where Caravaggio spent much of his youth was run as it had been during the era of Sforza rule. The Duchy of Milan might have become a vassal of Spain, but its bureaucratic apparatus remained unchanged and the same magistracies held the reins of power. The most significant difference was that the Consiglio Segreto, or ‘secret council’, that had once advised the Sforza dukes now reported to the Spanish governor. The Senate continued to exercise supreme judicial and administrative authority in the city, but was obliged to do so with a careful eye to Spanish interests.14 The members of the Senate were jurists drawn from the Milanese patriciate, men with a strong sense of Milanese legal traditions, whereas the governor of the city was one of the highest representatives of the Spanish sovereign, who was naturally disposed to act in accordance with Spain’s larger strategic aims. Milanese politics was a balancing act, a fragile equilibrium of occupier and occupied.

Institutional continuity under Spanish rule was mirrored by a continuity of approach to the balance of secular and religious powers. The Sforza had pursued a gradually consistent policy of strengthening civil authority and weakening that of the Church. One of their main aims had been to establish control over ecclesiastical nominations in the Duchy of Milan, so that those whom they considered politically undesirable, or outright hostile, could be excluded from powerful positions such as that of bishop. Under Spanish rule, this strategy was pursued to the point where many other traditional powers of the Church were usurped by the state. Frequently, it was the civil, rather than the religious, authority that tried those accused of heresy, that took responsibility for discipline in the duchy’s convents and monasteries, and that assumed the right to punish clerical abuses. This naturally reinforced Spanish power over all areas of life in Milan, but, though its aim was to limit ecclesiastical powers and privileges, it was never intended to weaken the Catholic faith itself.

In his instructions to his viceroys and governors, the fervently devout Philip II constantly stressed that the defence of Catholicism was his absolute priority. He had inherited a medieval Spanish conception of his role as monarch, according to which his first duty was servicio de Dios. He was brought up to believe that as king he had been singled out as the instrument of divine will. So, by a self-perpetuatingly circular logic, his policies were held to be those decreed by God and those best calculated to advance the holy mission of Catholicism. Spain’s cause was the cause of God; and this was true even if Spanish policies clashed directly with those of the supreme ecclesiastical authority, the pope. That was exactly what happened in Milan during the years immediately before and after the birth of Caravaggio. Other circumstances besides conspired to create a mood of incendiary religious fervour, often bordering on hysteria, in the city where the artist spent his formative years.

CARLO BORROMEO

The dominant figure in Milan during