Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [272]
36. See the CD-ROM catalogue entry on the painting in John T. Spike, Caravaggio, for the relevant documents.
37. For Mancini’s correspondence in connection with the sale of The Death of the Virgin, see Michele Maccherini, ‘Caravaggio nel carteggio familiare di Giulio Mancini’, Prospettiva, vol. 86 (1997), pp. 71–92.
38. For Magno’s correspondence with Chieppio, see Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, pp. 308–10.
39. See Sandro Corradini, Materiali per un processo, document 110, 2–4 Nov. 1606.
40. See Maryvelma Smith O’Neil, Giovanni Baglione: Artistic Reputation in Baroque Rome, pp. 166–7.
41. Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, p. 313.
42. Ibid., p. 313.
43. Giacomo Bosio, Dell’istoria della sacra religione (Rome, 1594–1602), vol. 3, p. 574. My attention was called to this and the following quotation by David M. Stone’s article ‘The Context of Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John in Malta’, Burlington Magazine, vol. 139, no. 1,128 (Mar. 1997), pp. 161–70.
44. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 574.
45. Helen Langdon, The Lives of Caravaggio, p. 79.
46. See Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, p. 266.
47. Just a year before, at the start of 1606, Capeci had helped to organize another painter’s journey to Malta. He had provided the artist in question, an unnamed Florentine, with canvases and pigments. He had also arranged his passage to the island via Messina in Sicily. For unknown reasons the painter from Florence never actually made it on to the island, but the episode strongly suggests that Capeci was involved in Caravaggio’s transfer to Malta as well. See Keith Sciberras and David Stone, Caravaggio: Art, Knighthood and Malta (Malta, 2006), p. 22.
48. See Maurizio Calvesi, Le realtà del Caravaggio, pp. 132–3; Keith Sciberras and David Stone, Caravaggio: Art, Knighthood and Malta, p. 20; Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 346.
49. Much of this sequence of events was established by the discovery of a long-overlooked letter of June 1607 in the Farnese deposit in the Naples State Archives, written by Alessandro Boccabarile, agent for Duke Ranuccio Farnese: ‘Eight days ago five galleys of the Religion of Malta arrived here, from Provence, under the command of the Prior of Venice, brother of the Marquis of Caravaggio [i.e., Fabrizio Sforza Colonna]. He brought his mother, who was staying at the Torre del Greco with the Prince of Stigliano … The aforesaid galleys will leave for Malta once the Feast of St John is over, taking with them two unequipped galleys newly made in Provence, and above all slaves …’ This material was discovered by Antonio Ernesto Denunzio and published in the catalogue to the National Gallery’s Late Caravaggio exhibition, p. 49.
50. Keith Sciberras’s second chapter in Caravaggio: Art, Knightood and Malta, entitled ‘Virtuosity Honoured, Chivalry Disgraced’, is an invaluable source of information about Caravaggio’s time on Malta, much of it recently unearthed by Sciberras himself in the Maltese archives. For the documents concerning the journey to Malta, see p. 22.
51. See George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, p. 234.
52. For these documents, see John Azzopardi’s contribution to the catalogue The Church of St John in Valletta 1578–98 and the Earliest Record of Caravaggio in Malta, Fr John Azzopardi (ed.) (Malta, 1978).
53. See George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, p. 230.
54. See Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, p. 345.
55. See Commander Denis Calman, Knights of Durance (Malta, 1963), p. 12.
56. See George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, p. 230.
57. Martelli did not take up his position until 1608, when a Medici agent reported his arrival in the Sicilian port town: ‘yesterday the galleys arrived here from Malta and with them Prior Martelli, who if much aged remains in excellent health.’ For this quotation, see Keith Sciberras and David Stone, Caravaggio: Art, Knighthood and Malta, p. 89. Stone’s account of Caravaggio’s portrait of Martelli is clear and perceptive. The most informative essay on Martelli’s life and career is by John Gash: ‘The Identity of Caravaggio