Caravaggio: A Passionate Life (12 page)

XX

The Killing of Ranuccio Jommasoni, May 1606

I
f you listen to the ringing martial music of Monteverdi’s
Combat Between Tancredi and Clorinda
, you may catch a faint echo of the secret approval Caravaggio’s contemporaries felt for men who fought duels. It is not surprising that Monteverdi found inspiration for his warlike “dramatic dialogue” in a battle scene from the
Gerusalemme Liberata
for, although Tasso was the reverse of a duelist, he was famous for realistic descriptions of single combat. Montaigne, in his essay “Cowardize, the Mother of Crueltie,” also recognized Tasso’s gift for describing a fight to the death, quoting a stanza in which the poet explained just what it felt like to fence for one’s life with a mixture of rage and fear. Every literate man and woman in Rome read Tasso. Even if they admired the duelists, they can have had no illusions about the lethal, often vicious nature of dueling. The Roman authorities had no illusions either. They regarded duels as an unmitigated nuisance, and, if caught, survivors went to the scaffold.

An
avviso
of 31 May 1606, reports the event that ruined Caravaggio’s life and very nearly ended it, after his refusal to pay Ranuccio Tommasoni a bet of ten scudi, lost over a game of tennis. Until recently, all we knew about Tommasoni was that he came from Terni and was “a young man
with very good manners” in Baglione’s opinion. Caravaggio sounded like a savage bully picking a fight with a callow teenager. But from recently discovered evidence, the reverse was true. Ranuccio, who called himself “Captain Tommasoni,” was a swaggering thug whose brother, Giovan Francesco, was
caporione
, or nominal captain, of the Campo Marzio district
(rione
) and therefore its local gang boss. Giovan Francesco and his two brothers appear to have terrorized the Campo Marzio by night. Only the year before, the three, unlawfully “armed with sword, dagger and pistol,” had led the Campo Marzio “guard” against the
sbirri
, disputing the arrest of some criminals who were probably under their protection. In the ensuing brawl, several men had been wounded and at least one killed.

On the evening of Sunday, 29 May, Caravaggio and some friends were passing Tommasoni’s house in Via della Scrofa when Tommasoni suddenly emerged with his cronies, challenging him to fight. During the ensuing combat, says the
avviso
, “the painter was wounded and Captain Petronio came to his rescue. Ranuccio’s brother, a captain too, was on the other side with several more friends, so that as many as a dozen took part. Finally, Tommasoni lost his balance and fell over, a sword thrust leaving him dead on the ground.”

Mancini’s version is that “Caravaggio killed his enemy, helped by Onorio Longhi,” while Baglione reports that “after Caravaggio had wounded him in the thigh, Ranuccio fell down, and he killed him as he lay on the ground.” Bellori, clearly less well informed, states that “during a game of tennis with a young man who was a friend, they began hitting each other with their rackets and then drew their swords, so that he killed the youth, but was himself wounded.” Sandrart, still more imaginative, believes the duel had its origins in Caravaggio’s quarrel with the Cavaliere d’Arpino.

Another account, only recently discovered and dated 3 June 1606, confirms the story in the
avvisi
, together with the details given by Mancini and Baglione. “Because of some game near the Grand Duke’s palace, a quarrel broke out between a son of the late Colonel Lucantonio [Tommasoni] da
Terni and the celebrated painter, Michelangelo da Caravaggio, in which Tommasoni fell dead from a thrust delivered when he had fallen to the ground. His brother Gio. Francesco and Captain Petronio, a Bolognese friend of Caravaggio, joined in the affray, during which the said Gio. Francesco mortally wounded Captain Petronio and Caravaggio in the head, after which he and Caravaggio fled, and Petronio was put in prison, where he remains under guard.”

The most plausible reconstruction of what took place is that Caravaggio and Tommasoni both had five seconds. Those on Ranuccio’s side included his brothers, Alessandro and Giovan Francesco, the latter being the gang boss of the Campo Marzio, with two unknown friends. On Caravaggio’s there were Onorio Longhi, Captain Petronio (otherwise known as “Antonio da Bologna”), and perhaps Aurelio Orsi. (The historian Maurizio Calvesi suggests that Mario Minniti may have been one of the others.) They fought separate combats with each other until they had disabled their opponents, then went to their comrades’ aid. After disposing of his own enemy, Longhi rushed to help Caravaggio, knocking Tommasoni’s rapier aside with his sword, or throwing a cloak over it, so that Caravaggio was able to bring Tommasoni down and give him a final thrust as he lay prostrate. Having finished with Petronio, Giovan Tommasoni ran up to avenge his brother, giving Caravaggio a thrust in the head. At that point, the
sbirri
appeared, and the combatants left hastily.

Ranuccio Tommasoni appears to have been the only man killed outright in the duel, although Petronio was fatally wounded and Caravaggio badly injured. It is only fair to point out that Caravaggio did not start the fight.

Everyone who had taken part fled from Rome as soon as possible. Prevented from doing so by his wound, Petronio was arrested, although no record has been discovered of his fate; he probably died in prison. Onorio Longhi succeeded in reaching his Lombard homeland, where he was later joined by his wife and children. Despite eloquent pleading that he had not
killed anybody and had tried to restrain Caravaggio, Longhi’s petition to be allowed to return to Rome was not granted for several years.

It was very different for Caravaggio, who most certainly had killed somebody. Slaying Ranuccio was murder and meant the death penalty. Already well known to the
sbirri
, if caught he would have been immediately brought before a police magistrate, and his head would swiftly have joined those rotting on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo. Too badly wounded to escape from Rome at once, he hid in the Palazzo Giustiniani, sheltered by Vincenzo, until he regained enough strength to be able to travel. For the moment, the
sbirri
did not dare break into a palace with such important owners, and clearly the Giustiniani brothers were ready to protect him.

Fortunately, some very influential and powerful people were determined to see that he got away. If his patrons were distressed by his private life, irritated by his difficult temperament, and shocked by the news of the duel, they had no wish to see the end of a man who painted such wonderful pictures. Significantly, Cardinal Borghese bought the
Madonna dei Palafrenieri
less than three weeks after the duel, paying a hundred scudi, although he could easily have confiscated it. Nor is it beyond the bounds of possibility that the cardinal secretary discreetly warned the chief of police that he would not be overjoyed if the
sbirri
succeeded in making an arrest in this particular case. Apparently it was the agents of the painter’s old friend the Marchesa di Caravaggio who told him where he could find refuge after leaving the city.

He soon recovered his strength, escaping from Rome on the Wednesday after the duel. He dared not go back to his lodgings to collect money for his flight, so obviously someone supplied him with funds. Eluding the
sbirri
, he managed to get away safely; like William Lithgow, dodging the Inquisition three years later, he may have “leapt the walles of Rome” at midnight, since the guards at the gates would have been looking out for him. Bellori says he was followed, but, if he was, he quickly threw his pursuers off his trail. Then he disappeared.

Among the reasons for such a successful escape was the fact that the
sbirri
did not know where he was making for, or where he was hoping to find shelter. The countryside immediately around Rome was an uninviting choice for a hiding place, the Roman Campagna being plagued by malaria, and in any case they would have been able to track him down there through their contacts with the
banditti
. Their first reaction was to expect that, as a Lombard, he would head north. On 31 May, the day of his escape, the Modenese agent at Rome reported rumors that Caravaggio had fled “in the direction of Florence and may perhaps go to Modena.” In reality, he had gone to ground at a much safer haven, only a few miles away.

Five minutes of swordsmanship, probably less, had ended not only in the death of Caravaggio’s challenger but in his own ruin. Few turning points in the career of a great artist have been so dramatic. The idol of Rome’s younger artists, the favorite of cardinals, the man who had painted the pope’s portrait, had suddenly become a hunted murderer with a price on his head.

XXI

Outlaw in the Roman Hills, Summer 1606

C
aravaggio spent the summer of 1606 in the hills east of Rome. He was perfectly safe, hidden away in the strongholds of people who could be trusted. But he dared not forget for a moment that he was an outlaw on the run and a bounty would be paid for his head.

There is no record of where he first found shelter’ after escaping from Rome at the end of May. He seems to have gone north, though not in the direction expected by the
sbirri
. Leaving no trace, he disappeared northeastward into the Sabine Hills, staying in impregnable mountaintop castles, and then, quite soon, moved farther south. Probably, he was never more than thirty miles from Rome. The Marchesa di Caravaggio, or someone close to her, had swiftly found secure refuges for him, in particular at her Colonna kinsmen’s hill towns of Palestrina, Zagarolo, and Paliano. It is also likely that some of his patrons—del Monte, the Giustiniani brothers, Ottavio Costa, and perhaps even Scipione Borghese—provided him with money.

Luckily, he had had plenty of opportunity to renew his acquaintance with the Marchesa Costanza. Since the jubilee of 1600, she had often been in Rome, staying with her family at the Palazzo Colonna in the Piazza Santi Apostoli, where he must have visited her. If she was away at the time of the
Tommasoni duel, in Lombardy or at her new palace in Naples, her family could be relied on to help him, fulfilling a feudal obligation to the son of a valued retainer.

Modern roads have brought the Colonna hill towns within a short drive of Rome, but in those days they were dauntingly remote, approached with difficulty along steep mountain paths. During his summer in exile, a forlorn Caravaggio must have ridden from one to another. Naturally, he took very good care to conceal his tracks, so that no record of his itinerary survives. What little we know about his movements has been confused by Mancini and Bellori, who both claim, mistakenly, that he began by hiding at Zagarolo. In reality, his first refuge was probably Palestrina, where his host may have been the new bishop, Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, the marchesa’s nephew.

An English tourist, Augustus Hare, visited Palestrina in the 1870s, when it still looked much the same as it had in Caravaggio’s day. The huge castle where he stayed was high on a bare hillside where, says Hare, “the sun beats so pitilessly upon its white rocks that it is best to put off the ascent till near sunset.” From the summit, Rome and the sea could be seen. Just below the castle was a squalid village, where, according to local legend, St. Peter had lived for a while as a hermit. The town beneath was full of Roman remains, with fragments of classical pillars in every house. It had a minute piazza and a small cathedral. The plain below, Hare recalled, was so rich that it looked like a vast garden of fruit trees. Baglione tells us that Caravaggio painted a
Mary Magdalene
at Palestrina. Only copies survive. They show the Magdalen as penitent and exhausted, rather than ecstatic, no doubt the painter’s own frame of mind.

Zagarolo, a mere twenty-one miles from Rome, sounds more comfortable. Only a few years before, the palace had hosted a papal commission working on the text of the Vulgate. Mancini says that here Caravaggio “was secretly entertained by the Prince.” This was the marchesa’s cousin, Don Marzio Colonna, Duke of Zagarolo. Although a great Roman noble who lived in splendor, he was bankrupt, a victim of inflation. His reputation was
slightly sinister. He had had close links with the Cenci; the castle where Count Francesco was murdered belonged to him, while Giacomo Cenci’s decision to kill his father may have been prompted by being in debt to the duke. He was also a man of taste, a collector of Antique sculpture. He may be the donor in his guest’s
Madonna of the Rosary
, bald, wary-eyed, and commanding. To produce such a likeness, Caravaggio must have met him several times.

Mancini and Bellori state that while Caravaggio was at Zagarolo he painted his second
Christ at Emmaus
. Subtler than the first version, the wise and sensitive Christ is most impressive, while the old woman holding a dish is almost as memorable. Nobody seeing her at the Brera in Milan can deny Caravaggio’s compassion for the poor and weak. Mancini believed that the
Supper at Emmaus
was bought by Ottavio Costa, who somehow kept in touch.

It is possible that Caravaggio painted other pictures during his time in the hills. Painting was his only cure for loneliness. Apart from one or two Colonna retainers, the company consisted of peasants, whom Hare described two and a half centuries later as “savage, lawless, violent and avaricious.” Ahead lay the dismal prospect of autumn rain and winter snow. He had to move on, and the obvious place to go was Naples.

Even before his flight from Rome, he may have discussed entering the Order of Malta with a senior knight, Fra’ Ippolito Malaspina, Prior of Naples. Fra’ Ippolito had come to Rome in 1603, to take command of the pope’s galleys, and became a prominent figure at the papal court, his dress as a Grand Cross making him an eye-catching figure. Another contact among the Knights was Fra’ Ainolfo Bardi, who acted as Caravaggio’s surety after the Baglione case. The Giustiniani brothers had a cousin in the Order, Fra’ Orazio Giustiniani, while the Marchesa Costanza had a son who was a knight.

More than mere social climbing was involved in Caravaggio’s decision to enter the order. Joining meant becoming a monk as well as a knight, and he must have known that he would have to make real sacrifices. It is quite
possible he was moved by a desire to atone for his disreputable life, a desire reinforced after the killing of Ranuccio Tomassoni.

His ambition to become a Knight of Malta was apparently his main reason for going to Naples, where he could discuss the idea further and, hopefully, take ship for Malta. He may have heard that Fra’ Ippolito was leaving Rome and returning to his priory. He would also be able to find commissions for pictures, ammassing funds to finance his new life in the order.

Reaching Naples would not be easy. The usual route from Rome went along the Via Appia, through the Campagna with its ruined aqueducts and haunted tombs, through the malarial Pontine marshes to Terracina, and from there through Formia, Gaeta, and Capua. But although it was the main road and the most used, it was notoriously unsafe. Fynes Moryson, who went this way in 1594, says that for fear of the
banditti
, no one would risk making the journey alone but rode beside the mail coach, which was always escorted by sixty mounted musketeers. Travelers had to rise before dawn, not daring to go any faster than the coach and the mule train that accompanied it. When an inn came in sight, the musketeers let them gallop ahead and “eat a morsell, or rather devoure it,” but as soon as the coach caught up, they had to remount. Captured bandits were beheaded and quartered on the spot; while their heads were sent to Rome to get the bounty, their quarters were hung from trees by the roadside, a sight that added nothing to the gaiety of the journey. More than once,
banditti
managed to overwhelm the musketeers, robbing and killing the travelers.

At the end of September or beginning of October, 1608, Caravaggio left his final refuge in the Roman hills. This was the castle at Paliano, even more inaccessible than Palestrina and Zagarolo, whose walls made it seem still grimmer when seen from far below. The town’s feudal lord was the young Don Filippo Colonna, Duke of Paliano, another of the marchesa’s nephews. Caravaggio may have traveled to Naples with the mail coach; he could have done so in disguise, joining the coach after it had left Rome. It is more likely,
however, that he took some lonely road through the hills, although he would have been in scarcely less danger from
banditti
, who were everywhere. Anxious to be rid of such a well-known fugitive, Don Filippo or his steward may have given him an escort of Colonna men at arms.

Despite managing to avoid the bandits, Caravaggio had every reason to feel apprehensive when he came in sight of the largest and most sinister city in Christendom. Just what sort of a welcome was an outlaw going to receive? Although he had powerful friends in Naples, the Neapolitans might arrest and execute him as a murderer, and claim the money for his head.