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also a pair of compasses, so I took him and put him in prison at the Tor di Nona.’ The following day, after a night in jail, Caravaggio was in court. Asked to account for his actions, he replied with righteous indignation. ‘I was arrested last night … because I was carrying a sword. I carry the sword by right because I am Painter to Cardinal del Monte. I am in his service and live in his house. I am entered on his household payroll.’55 Unusually, the notary transcribing the day’s evidence capitalized the word ‘painter’, perhaps in an attempt to capture the self-important stress that Caravaggio had placed on the word. Because he had such powerful contacts, the magistrate had no choice but to release him. The case was dismissed.

Joachim von Sandrart, a German etcher and art historian, wrote a brief account of Caravaggio’s life that contains a short but telling paragraph about the painter’s years in Rome. According to Sandrart, Caravaggio liked to go about ‘in the company of his young friends, mostly brash, swaggering fellows – painters and swordsmen – who lived by the motto nec spec, nec metu, “without hope, without fear”.’56 A number of those friends can be identified from contemporary sources. Prospero Orsi and Costantino Spata seem to have been among his more peaceable companions. Caravaggio’s Sicilian friend, the painter and occasional model Mario Minniti, must also be included. He was no stranger to violence but he lacked Caravaggio’s positive relish for it. According to his biographer, Francesco Susinno, Minniti was close to Caravaggio during his early years in Rome but eventually abandoned him; ‘he settled down and got married, because he found the turbulent adventures of his friend too much to stomach.’57

Orazio Gentileschi was among the more volatile ‘painters and swordsmen’ with whom Caravaggio kept company. Orazio was a gifted artist in his own right, but a difficult man with a short temper, whose reputation was under a cloud. In 1615 Grand Duke Cosimo II of Tuscany – son and heir to Cardinal del Monte’s patron, Ferdinando de’ Medici – considered bringing Orazio to Florence as an artist and asked his agent in Rome, Piero Guicciardini, to file a report on the painter’s character. The resulting reference was less than favourable: ‘he is a person of such strange manners and way of life and such temper that one can neither get on nor deal with him.’58

Some ascribed the fiery temperament of painters to the toxic qualities of the materials that they used. Lead white and vermilion were particularly poisonous. The mere touch or smell of either might cause a variety of symptoms including depression, anxiety and increased aggressiveness. Those suffering from ‘Painter’s Colic’, as it was called, also tended to drink heavily. While wine alleviated some symptoms, it exacerbated others, and was itself the catalyst for innumerable brawls and scraps in the artist’s quarter. Most of the people around Caravaggio were involved in some kind of violent incident at one time or another. Orazio Gentileschi’s own daughter, Artemisia, herself a painter, was raped by another artist. His name was Agostino Tassi. The enraged Orazio subsequently accused Tassi of ‘repeatedly deflowering’ his daughter. Artemisia’s matter-of-fact testimony, given at Tassi’s trial on 9 May 1611, gives a very clear view of the real violence that stalked the lives of so many of Caravaggio’s contemporaries.

Artemisia told the court that she was with her sister, Tuzia, when the attack took place:

After midday dinner the weather was wet and I was painting a portrait of one of Tuzia’s children for my own pleasure, when Agostino came by. He was able to get inside because there were masons in the house and they had left the door open. When he found me painting he said, ‘Not so much painting, not so much painting,’ and he took the palette and brushes out of my hand and threw them around, saying to Tuzia, ‘Get out of here.’ When I said to Tuzia to stay and not leave me with him as I had motioned to her before, she said, ‘I don’t want to stay and argue, I want to be off.