Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [204]
The final judgement of the case is unknown. Two of the accused, Saraceni and Borgianni, made unusually large donations to the Accademia di San Luca on St Luke’s feast day in the following year, which suggests that the affair may have been settled out of court.40 Baglione’s accusation was potentially very damaging for the absent Caravaggio: at the moment of his arrival in Naples, just as he was taking what he hoped would be the first steps on the way to a pardon, his name was once more associated with violence and murderous intent.
But behind the scenes it seems efforts were being made on Caravaggio’s behalf by the Colonna and his other allies. In May 1607, some six months after the assault on Baglione and just as Rubens was packing up The Death of the Virgin for transport to Mantua, it was again rumoured that he would soon be returning to Rome. The Este agent, Fabio Masetti, still fretting about the 32 scudi he had advanced to him sixteen months earlier, had remained alert for new developments. Reporting back to Modena from Rome on 26 May, he sounded a distinctly hopeful note: ‘It has not been possible to recover the money because of a homicide committed by the said painter, on account of which he has been banished. However, as the said homicide was accidental and the painter was badly wounded too, a reprieve is being negotiated and a pardon is hoped for. So, when he is back, I shall not fail to recover the said 32 scudi.’41
‘The said homicide was accidental’ and ‘the painter was badly wounded too’ – Masetti was no doubt repeating the same arguments, perhaps even the very same phrases, that were being used in Caravaggio’s defence. By the start of June, Masetti was sufficiently optimistic to let the painter himself know that he would be waiting for him when he got back to Rome. ‘I have written a letter to Caravaggio the painter for the restitution of the 32 scudi,’ he informed his superiors in Modena, ‘although it was not the first one, and the other time he failed to send a reply.’42
Yet again the hapless Masetti was to be disappointed. Caravaggio, painting The Crucifixion of St Andrew, once more failed to reply. By the end of June, unpredictable as ever, he had left Naples by boat and was travelling ever further away from the city of Rome. His destination was the island of Malta, southernmost bastion of the Christian faith against Turks and Corsairs, and home to the military Order of the Knights of St John.
Just why Caravaggio took the extraordinary decision to go to Malta is one of the many puzzles of his later years. Piecemeal clues in the historical archive suggest that he went in the hope of finding freedom and forgiveness. He appears to have believed that by allying himself with Malta’s formidable militia of warrior knights he might win permanent redemption for his crimes. But in the tough world of the Christian soldier he would be undone, once again, by his own volatility.
THE FRIARS OF WAR
To become a Knight Hospitaller of the Sovereign and Military Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, Custodian of the Poor of Jesus Christ and Servant of the Sick, was to join one of the most venerable and powerful organizations in the Christian world. The order’s roots lay deep in the medieval past, when the religious zeal of the pilgrim and the aristocratic ethos of chivalry became closely interwoven. In the year 1070 a group of noblemen from Amalfi, in Italy, founded a hospital in the city of Jerusalem to care for fellow Christians weakened by the long pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After the First Crusade, and following the capture of the Holy City, they were formally constituted as a nursing and military order. ‘The Friars of War’, as they became known, were dedicated both to the service of the