Caravaggio_ A Life Sacred and Profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon [44]
they carry in front of the criminal a big crucifix covered with a black curtain, and on foot go a large number of men dressed and masked in linen, who, they say, are gentlemen and other prominent people of Rome who devote themselves to this service of accompanying criminals led to execution and the bodies of the dead; and there is a brotherhood of them. There are two of these, or monks dressed and masked in the same way, who attend the criminal on the cart and preach to him; and one of them continually holds before his face a picture on which is the portrait of Our Lord, and has him kiss it incessantly. At the gallows, which is a beam between two supports, they still kept this picture against his face until he was launched. He made an ordinary death, without movement or word; he was a dark man of thirty or thereabouts …12
After the criminal’s death, his body was cut into pieces. At this point, Montaigne notes, ‘Jesuits or others get up on some high spot and shout to the people, one in this direction, the other in that, and preach to them to make them take in this example.’ Such executions were still very much part of life in the Rome that Caravaggio knew.
Religious observance was not a matter of choice. At Easter everyone living in Rome was obliged to take Communion and procure a ticket of evidence from the priest who administered the sacrament. Procuring the ticket – proof of orthodoxy, and necessary to pass muster with the police – was itself part of a system of surveillance and involved a separate visit to the priest, who was obliged to write down the name and address of each communicant. But he also had to write down other details, noting for example who lived where and with whom, and listing their servants. It was, in effect, an annual census. It is because Counter-Reformation Rome was such an intensely controlled society that so much is known about those who lived there.
As in the Milan of Caravaggio’s youth, great importance was attached to the question of what people should see, or be allowed to see. In a world where even the death of a criminal could be orchestrated as a grisly spectacle, religious art was inevitably subject to all kinds of supervisions. At the very start of his pontificate (1592–1605, therefore coinciding almost exactly with Caravaggio’s years in Rome) Clement proved particularly keen to establish himself as a ruthless enforcer of the doctrines laid down by the Council of Trent. On 8 June 1592, some four months after his election, he issued the papal Bull Speculatores domus Israel, declaring a ‘Visitation’ of all churches of the city of Rome. The clergy would be inspected and so would the fabric and decoration of their churches, including works of art.
It was to be no comprehensive survey. The churches Clement actually visited are listed, in order, in the so-called Secret Vatican Archives (Archivio Segreto Vaticano). He started at the top, with St Peter’s itself on 3 July 1592. He then went on to Santa Maria Maggiore, followed by San Giovanni in Laterano. By the time the Visitation had finally petered out, four years later, only twenty-eight churches had been covered. The reason was not dilatoriness but Clement’s meticulous attention to detail. He insisted on visiting every church himself, and interrogating any suspect members of his clergy personally. Even though he surrounded himself with an entourage of four cardinals and three bishops – including Audwyn Lewis, the Bishop of Cassano, a Welsh Catholic who had left England in 1579 – the work of inspection was painfully slow. Its eventual abandonment may be taken as further proof of Clement’s common sense.13 Although deeply concerned for the well-being of the Church, Clement was not a man in the same obsessive mould as Carlo Borromeo. He stopped, perhaps knowing that his point had been made. The mere threat of the Visitation had reminded the Roman clergy to pay close attention to the works of art in their churches, and to use their powers of censorship if necessary. Caravaggio’s career would be directly affected