Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [214]
Most Holy Father, the Grand Master of the [Order of the] Hospital of St John of Jerusalem wishes to honour some persons who have shown virtue and merit and have a desire and devotion to dedicate themselves to his service and that of the [Order of the] Hospital and does not have at the present moment any more suitable way of doing so; he therefore humbly begs Your Holiness to deign to grant to him, by a Brief, the authority and power for one time only to decorate with the habit of a Magistral Knight two persons favoured by him and to be nominated by him; despite the fact that one of the two had once committed homicide in a brawl and despite that it is prohibited by the Chapter General of the Order that the habit of a Magistral Knight can be conceded any further. He begs to receive this request as a very special favour, because of the great desire he holds to honour such persons who have shown virtue and merit. And may the Lord preserve you for a long time.58
The request was granted at once. Papal permission was given in a missive of 7 February 1608, spelling out that ‘It has pleased the Most Holy Father to approve for Aloph de Wignacourt Grand Master of the [Order of the] Hospital of St John of Jerusalem authority to present the habit of a Magistral Knight to two persons favoured by him despite the fact that one of the two committed homicide in a brawl.’ On 15 February the letter reached Malta. Wignacourt had secured for Caravaggio his much coveted knighthood.
There were two conditions. Like any other novice, he could not be dubbed knight until he had spent a full year on the island, so he would have to stay until mid July to receive the honour. He would also have to pay a tribute known as the passaggio before he could be allowed to enter the brotherhood. Being a fugitive from justice, Caravaggio had little money, but Wignacourt had a solution to that as well. The Oratory of St John, attached to the co-cathedral of St John in Valletta, had only recently been completed. It was one of the most important buildings in Malta’s new capital. But it had no altarpiece. If Caravaggio would supply one, the picture would be accepted in lieu of his passaggio.
The subject specified for the work was The Beheading of St John, which also meant a deadline before the end of summer. Wignacourt wanted to unveil the work on the Feast Day of the Decollation of St John – the day that marked his beheading – which was 29 August. Ideally the artist would have finished the work by July, so he could receive his knighthood exactly a year after his arrival on the island.
It is intriguing that Wignacourt should have omitted Caravaggio’s name from his letter to the pope. Perhaps he had been tipped off that there were those in Rome who would lobby against the petition if they knew that it was to benefit Caravaggio; or perhaps he worried that Paul V might himself object, because conferment of a Maltese knighthood automatically commuted a capital sentence to one of exile. The reference to a man ‘who had once committed homicide in a brawl’ was a smokescreen: the phrase made it hard for anyone in Rome to connect the candidate for a Maltese knighthood with Caravaggio, who had killed a man not in a brawl but in a premeditated duel, which was a very different matter. It is possible that Caravaggio himself had lied about