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[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

[WATER DRIPPING]

[FLUTTERING]

[FLUTTERING]

[MAN] Before I lost it, I never gave a fig for liberty.

- [FLUTTERING] - Liberty, the great unknowable.

Intangible.

Invisible.

Unbreathable.

[RATTLING]

We are born free...

and we think it's forever.

[FLUTTERING]

I took the liberty of dropping the name Michelangelo,

the name my parents baptized me with.

I chose...

Caravaggio...

the name of the place from where my family hails.

A place and a world that I fled...

in pursuit of a dream...

[RATTLING]

the dream of liberty.

I have not protected that dream from my own true self, from my own excess.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

And now that my liberty has been taken away from me,

liberty is all I can think of.

[FLUTTERING]

Only now, would I be able truly to feel it,

to see it...

to love it.

[VIOLENT FLUTTERING]

Only now, could I defend my liberty tooth and nail...

even at the cost of life itself.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

[SOFT PIANO MUSIC]

[FOOTSTEPS]

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio's life has always been cloaked in mystery.

In 2007, an extraordinary discovery shook the art world.

The birth certificate of Michelangelo Merisi

was discovered in the Diocesan Historical Archive in Milan.

He was baptised on the 30th of September, 1571

in the church of Santo Stefano in Brolo, Milan,

not in Caravaggio, as was previously believed.

He was born the day before, on the 29th of September,

the feast of St. Michael the Archangel...

hence his name "Michelangelo."

[WATER RIPPLING]

At six years old,

Caravaggio had the first traumatic experience of his life.

To escape the plague, the Merisi family left Milan,

and returned to his parents' birthplace, Caravaggio.

But his father, grandfather, and uncle did not survive.

All three died.

At the end of the epidemic, in 1584, Caravaggio returned to Milan

to study painting in the workshop of Simone Peterzano,

an illustrious master who had been Titian's pupil in Venice.

Caravaggio was just 13 years old.

With Peterzano he learned to paint in the typical style of Lombardy,

a region in northern Italy,

inspired by the Venetian School, with its focus on light,

and the depiction of reality.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

He studied under the master for a number of years,

but nothing is known of his works of that period.

However, recent research has uncovered a remarkable event.

A previously unpublished manuscript by Gaspare Celio, dated 1614...

recounts that the painter fled Milan, after killing a man.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

[TENSE MUSIC]

[PERCUSSION HITS]

[CARAVAGGIO] People say there is no need to reproduce reality as it truly is.

Perhaps the opposite is true.

I can do this.

Reality is my lifeblood.

I know of nothing beyond reality.

From eye to mind, from mind to hand, from hand to heart...

reality, like painting, often thrives on deception,

or, better, on creating illusion.

[STRINGS CLASSICAL MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] As an artist,

Caravaggio spent his formative years in Milan.

He must have studied Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Peterzano probably advised his pupils to draw inspiration from this masterpiece.

A few years later, when Caravaggio painted The Basket of Fruit,

now at the Ambrosiana in Milan,

he took inspiration from the still life on the table of The Last Supper,

which today, has sadly almost entirely faded from view.

The Basket of Fruit, painted for Cardinal Federico Borromeo,

is an example of Caravaggio's early style of painting.

It is a serene scene...

a wicker basket filled with fruit and vine leaves

is set against a completely neutral background,

almost a non-place.

It already indicates what later became a fundamental characteristic of his work,

the elimination of the surrounding environment.

Caravaggio neutralises the space around what he depicts,

as if the images were in a metaphysical space.

He creates a contrast in our perception,

nothingness against the dramatic presence of the painted subject.

We could almost reach out and touch those apples,

those bunches of grapes, those figs and leaves.

The basket protrudes slightly and, in seeming to move towards us,

invites us to move closer to it.

His art is seductive...

it acts like a magnet.

[CHURCH BELL RINGING]

It was in Rome that the 25-year-old Caravaggio got his breakthrough.

His early days there,

as a penniless young man, can't have been easy.

Giovanni Pietro Bellori, an early biographer,

described him as "bisognoso et ignudo," "needy and naked."

He found a place to stay with Monsignor Pandolfo Pucci, a priest at St Peter's,

in the hope of making contact with the Papal Court.

"Monsignor Salad," as Caravaggio called him,

referring to the meagre, monotonous diet he was served...

made him paint devotional copies, works of scant importance,

and treated the artist with condescension.

Caravaggio couldn't bear this, and left.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

Now living in poverty,

he became so ill

that he ended up in the Hospital of Consolation.

Could that be his face

in the Young Sick Bacchus, today in the Galleria Borghese?

[SOFT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

For his debut on the Roman scene,

Caravaggio chose the ancient god of wine and revelry.

This is an ambivalent subject

which can be interpreted as a pagan image, the god Bacchus...

or as a Christian image...

the prefiguration of Jesus Christ.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

The grapes in his hand recall the wine drunk by Jesus at The Last Supper...

while the ivy may allude to the cross and the Passion.

The work is intimate yet, at the same time, disquieting.

It feels as if we could reach out and touch

this looming figure, but the evasive expression in his cold eyes

pushes us away.

Today, we picture Caravaggio as the typical solitary genius,

always focused on his work, far removed from everyday life.

Yet this is far from accurate.

In reality,

Caravaggio was very much involved in society and life at the time

and enjoyed close relationships with his colleagues.

Then, when he came to Rome,

he tried to carve out a place for himself on the city's art scene.

Rome was the capital of the arts, and Caravaggio went to work

at the most important studio in the city,

the workshop of Giuseppe Cesari, the Cavalier d'Arpino.

He set the young artist to work

painting flowers and fruit, but Caravaggio

was very unhappy about this,

as we know from detailed contemporary accounts.

[TENSE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] Without good fortune, willpower has no power.

Is it not true that success seeks the helping hand of fortune?

[CARAVAGGIO SIGHS] Fortune...

fleeting as a sudden bolt of lightning against a blackening sky.

Unpredictable. Untameable. Elusive.

I have challenged fortune so many times,

and so many times has fortune defeated me.

[TENSE MUSIC]

I will not give in. I come back to the table and I raise the stakes.

I am not afraid to bet it all against the toughest odds...

in life, and in my paintings.

My art will amaze you.

Its power will change you.

[HEARTBEAT AND CLUNK]

[RAPID PIANO MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] Rome was booming in those years.

Three million pilgrims arrived in 1600, Jubilee year,

and Caravaggio divided his time between painting and revelry.

[LAUGHTER AND GLASSES CLINKING]

"When he had worked

for a couple of weeks,

he then gadded about for a month or two with his sword at his side

and a servant behind him...

going from one game of royal tennis to the next,

much inclined to duelling and brawling."

So recalls Karel van Mander,

a 17th century Flemish historian and art critic, who describes

a dissolute and dangerous Rome.

"I would urge you to go if I did not fear it would lead you astray,

because Rome is the capital of schools of painting,

but also a place where spendthrifts and prodigal sons squander all they have."

Caravaggio navigated this world,

populated by cardsharps, prostitutes and people of ill repute,

with remarkable ease.

A number of documents confirm a certain propensity

for restlessness.

His many legal entanglements include a lawsuit against him

on the 19th of November, 1600, for aggression...

a summons to court by his future biographer,

Giovanni Baglione, on the 28th of August, 1603...

and, a year later,

an accusation made by a serving boy at an inn...

that the painter threw a plate of artichokes in his face.

In the inns and taverns of Campo Marzio, Caravaggio was well-known...

and his sword, hanging from his belt, was his loyal companion.

The city of Rome's underbelly,

so dear to the painter, can be glimpsed in two of his works

that evoke the allure of the slums.

In Cardsharps, the faces of the two young men around the table are remarkable.

They seem to be the same person, but with opposite traits and attitudes.

One is naïve and calm...

the other sly and tense.

The theme of deception is handled with amusement, as described by Bellori:

"He portrayed a simple-minded young man holding some playing cards.

Opposite him, in profile, a fraudulent youth

leans with one hand upon the gaming table...

while with the other, he draws a fake card from his belt.

A third figure, near the duped boy, looks at the markings on the cards

and, extending three fingers, reveals them to his crony."

Another painting on the subject of deception

is The Fortune Teller.

Here, a gypsy charms the hapless youth with her intense and impudent gaze.

And, while reading his palm, robs him by slipping off his ring with impunity.

This is a theatrically constructed painting

where the real action,

that is the deception carried out by the gypsy,

is only apparent on close observation.

[STRINGS MUSIC]

These paintings greatly impressed Cardinal Del Monte,

a discerning collector

and great supporter of the arts.

The Cardinal is so enthusiastic about Caravaggio

that he takes him home to work in his house,

where there is another artist's workshop.

The Cardinal hosted a circle of artists

at his home, with musicians, actors, painters, sculptors...

and documents from the time,

tell us that Caravaggio organised a kind of committee...

a bit like Andy Warhol's so-called "Factory" in New York in the 1960s...

where artists all types and from all walks of life literally came together.

They lived together and worked together,

each producing work to the best of their ability.

[NARRATOR] Under the Cardinal's protection,

Caravaggio seemed to lose some of his restlessness...

but new events would soon shake up his life again.

[SOFT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] I have made so many mistakes.

And I have many more to make.

With each mistake, I learn that life is made of change.

[MELANCHOLIC MUSIC]

Work after work...

the painting helps me...

to improve.

In my paintings, I can see myself, failings and all.

At least, I get to see them clearly.

Like holding a mirror up to myself.

Like a crystalline water jug that reflects its surroundings.

A kind of magic...

because in there it's me.

Always...

always me.

[PIANO AND STRINGS MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio considered his ability to reproduce

transparencies and reflections in water

to be his greatest talent, as one of his first biographers,

Giovanni Baglione, noted when describing his Lute Player,

which Caravaggio himself pronounced "il più bel pezzo che facesse mai"...

"my greatest ever work."

A boy plucks the strings of a lute,

looking towards the viewer with such an emotional expression...

that his eyes seem to be brimming with tears.

Caravaggio masterfully combines reality and beauty.

He brings the astonished viewer right into the scene itself...

while his rendering of transparency...

attracts like a magnet.

This degree of artistic sophistication had rarely been seen.

This is the seduction of art...

according to Caravaggio.

No work by him is more poised

between the sacred and the profane than his Bacchus...

painted for Cardinal del Monte,

and now at the Uffizi.

Bacchus looks directly at the viewer, with a sweetly ironic expression...

proffering a tempting glass of red wine.

[ORCHESTRAL CRESCENDO]

Next to him is a still life and a carafe of almost black wine...

with a few bubbles on the surface...

a touch of realism

that makes the moment captured by the painting seem even more lifelike.

This is a far cry from the setting

that a classical painter would have used to depict Bacchus...

who seems to be sitting on a straw mattress covered by a white sheet.

As if the artist had forgotten to arrange the drapery beforehand.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Baglione gives us a fascinating detail about

Caravaggio's technique:

his first paintings were "drawn from reflections in a mirror."

Caravaggio, he claims, used a mirror.

A device that isolated the subject...

and helped him focus exclusively on reality,

on the space where nothing else exists.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

The god pours the wine with his left hand.

This detail supports the theory that it is, in fact, his right hand,

reflected in a mirror.

It is even more surprising to learn that Caravaggio not only used a mirror,

but actually transformed his studio into a huge pinhole camera.

He arranged his models here, illuminating them with light

filtered through a hole in the ceiling,

then projecting their image onto the canvas using a lens and a mirror.

"An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

'Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt,

and remain there until I tell you,

for Herod is about to search for the child,

to destroy him'."

So reads the Gospel of Matthew...

which inspired The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,

today in the Doria Pamphili Gallery.

This is one of Caravaggio's most fascinating works

because of the presence of this beautiful angel,

with whom the artist seems to have fallen in love.

This really is a central figure

and as such, it represents an important concept in terms of realism,

but also as regards the composition, as it forms the axis of the picture.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio's fame began to spread.

Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani,

an important collector, commissioned the painting

Amor Vincit Omnia.

"Love conquers all.

Let us, too, yield to Love,"

states Virgil in his Eclogues.

It is a strange subject,

a winged Cupid-like boy with a series of objects at his feet:

musical instruments...

arms...

symbols of power.

This audacious subject prompted the marquis to keep the painting

concealed behind a curtain...

partly so as not to diminish

the other works in his collection.

[DRIPPING WATER]

[TENSE MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] They say I am unable to depict action.

Beyond his reach...

slander the envious.

But I have gone further.

I have learned to translate action into pure expression.

To paint faces in which raw reactions depict the seen...

and the unseen.

[DRAMATIC INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

My Medusa says more in one glance than ten books of words.

The pain etched onto her face is pain I have felt so many times.

You can read it in the marks of my very own face.

Medusa and I have much in common.

She can turn the living into granite.

And I can paint the living into eternity.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio's fame grew at the same pace

as the criticism he attracted.

Every success sparked objections...

principally about "action."

The power of his figures was clear,

but they were criticised for their lack of "movement, affections and grace."

These accusations were silenced by his Shield with the Head of Medusa,

now on display at the Uffizi.

Again, this work refers to nature.

The writhing snakes on Medusa's head look truly alive.

The face is choked in a silent cry.

In the moment immediately after decapitation...

captured in the final act of unstoppable vitality.

The gaping mouth shows her wet tongue...

her eyes are wide open,

her muscles contracted beyond all normal limits,

her eyebrows knitted,

and the tangle of snakes twist as if they have gone mad

while spurts of blood ooze from her neck.

[DRAMATIC INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

It is an expression of authentic pain...

like that of The Boy Bitten by a Lizard, in the National Gallery...

of which there is another masterful version in the Fondazione Longhi.

The painting shows the reflex action

of a boy who is drawing back his hand

from the animal that appears in the foreground.

His involuntary response is concentrated in the wonderful expression of his face,

in his half-closed mouth and knitted brow...

an extraordinary detail and a further example of Caravaggio's interest

in depicting fleeting expressions.

[NARRATOR] The boy's expression of shock as he recoils from his hidden assailant

has given rise to an interpretation of the painting as a "vanitas,"

a reflection on the pitfalls encountered by those who give in to worldly pleasures.

This focus on facial expressions is even more apparent

in The Sacrifice of Isaac.

The dramatic nature of the event can be seen in the desperation of

the victim, Isaac, whose father, Abraham, is prepared to sacrifice his son

in order to submit to the will of God.

This remarkable painting is poised between

Caravaggio's younger and more mature phase,

and it also has a rather rare feature.

A significant portion of the work is given over to the landscape.

And landscape is not a common feature of Caravaggio's work.

The overall composition of the painting

is extremely balanced, while remaining highly realistic.

This ability to reconcile

a vivid sense of reality with cultural references is a key element of

Caravaggio's artistic genius.

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio's life continued to veer from success to desperation...

from darkness to light...

constantly tormented by his demons.

He was twenty-eight...

and his greatest opportunity was waiting in the wings.

[UPBEAT DIGITAL MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] I carry the name of an Archangel...

the name of a great artist.

Inside me rages the clash of an imperfect character.

I cannot tame it.

I wish I could break free...

still this rebellious spirit, calm this wild instinct.

If only I could see the light!

[DRUM HIT]

[DRUM HITS]

Light... that sweeps away darkness...

clear light that frees the blind and ravening mind.

A light that I can represent...

and yet cannot see.

[NARRATOR] The 23rd of July, 1599, was a unique day.

Unrepeatable.

Caravaggio signed a contract for two large canvases to be hung on the side walls

of the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi:

The Calling, and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew,

his first public works.

This was a prestigious commission in view of the imminent Jubilee in 1600...

in which numerous artists had been engaged to help bring Rome up to date

and celebrate the triumph of the Catholic Church over Protestantism.

Cardinal Matteo Contarelli had entrusted the executors of his will

to commission the decoration of his private burial chapel

with a series of paintings telling the story of the apostle Matthew,

his namesake.

After various failed attempts by other artists,

Caravaggio was now given the opportunity to prove himself

in the public arena of large-scale religious painting.

He had never painted canvases more than 150 centimetres wide...

and he was now confronted with over three metres from side to side.

[WOMAN]In the Contarelli Chapel, Caravaggio encountered a major problem.

He was commissioned to paint some enormous canvases very quickly.

They had to be populated by a series of characters,

which did not chime with his artistic nature.

What's more,

it was his debut on the Roman art scene, where he was not viewed favourably.

[NARRATOR] In The Calling of St Matthew...

a scene previously immersed in gloom is illuminated by light.

Yet this light does not come from the enormous window,

but it seems to enter the picture as if driven by the arm of Christ...

whose forward gesture reminds us of that of God the Father,

painted by the other great Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

While Christ singles out Matthew, the tax collector...

some of those around the table do not even notice

that he has entered the room with St. Peter.

One of the men sitting at the table looks towards Christ...

and seems to gesture with his hands, as if to say "Am I the chosen one?"

This interpretation has, however, been hotly debated over the years.

Some argue that Matthew must be the young man avidly counting money.

The many differences of opinion about The Calling of St. Matthew,

sparked by admiration and envy, contributed to its status

as perhaps one of the most celebrated of all Caravaggio's works.

In the Contarelli Chapel, Caravaggio developed and refined

a new technique. He substituted the light ground

he had always applied to the canvas with a dark ground,

so now the traditional sketch on the bare canvas he had used as a guide

was no longer visible.

He needed to find another way to outline his composition on a dark canvas.

So, instead of drawing, he developed a kind of etching technique.

He evidently used a pointed tool,

some think he might have used the end of his brush,

to engrave lines in the still fresh ground.

He also used this ground to create the dark background of his paintings...

as well as for all the parts in shadow.

In fact, from the Contarelli Chapel on,

Caravaggio only painted figures in light or half-light.

Anything not in the light or half-light was not there;

it simply no longer existed.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] The canvas of The Martyrdom contains a fascinating detail.

In the background on the left, we glimpse a fleeing figure...

horrified by the violence he is witnessing.

This is a self-portrait of Caravaggio...

who shows his fearful and almost disgusted reaction

to the work he himself has produced.

A unique example in the history of western painting.

Bellori wrote that Caravaggio

painted this Martyrdom twice.

This previously unsubstantiated claim

was only confirmed in the twentieth century,

when researchers used X-ray analysis to show how the artist

continued to change idea about how best to compose this scene.

[LIGHT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

The two Contarelli paintings are authentic figurative clashes.

A reflection of Caravaggio's inner spirit, in a state of permanent agitation.

Caravaggio also painted the altarpiece in the chapel,

which shows St. Matthew writing the Gospel,

guided by an angel who has descended from Heaven.

However, this canvas conceals an unresolved mystery.

[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

Baglione reminds us that Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani

purchased a canvas of a certain St. Matthew

that Caravaggio had previously painted for the altar at San Luigi,

but which no one liked.

This is the first version of St. Matthew and the Angel.

it ended up at the Berlin State Museums

and was destroyed during an air raid in the Second World War.

A photograph of the lost work shows the apostle

curiously characterised as an ancient philosopher or wise Jew...

while the angel is androgynous and very sensual.

We do not know for certain why this first version was rejected,

but it could have been due to its lack of "decorum."

The saint would appear to be illiterate

able to write only what is dictated to him,

and guided by the angelic hand.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

The Contarelli Chapel became a prestigious calling card for Caravaggio.

[DRIPPING WATER]

[KNOCKING]

[CARAVAGGIO] I am a man of value,

and as a man of value, I know a fine painter.

I admire them. I appreciate their art.

I can distinguish the good from those who vainly

claim to be good.

Such men...

simple bores.

To be a man of value is to deeply understand painting, like me...

to be able to reproduce reality...

the natural.

I leave the boast of empty words to others.

I let my works do my talking for me.

[DRIPPING WATER]

[NARRATOR] What we know about Caravaggio does not only come from his works...

but also from written documents...

many of which are court papers.

The invaluable reports preserved in the State Archive in Rome...

give us a vivid sense of

Caravaggio's life and troubles.

[SUSPENSE MUSIC]

The minutes of the Baglione trial in 1603...

describe alliances and envy among artists...

but, above all, reveal Caravaggio's theory of painting.

"A real artist of worth

knows how to paint well and imitate nature."

And Caravaggio knew that in this he was better than anyone else.

Caravaggio was summoned to court by Baglione...

because he and his friends, Onorio Longhi and Orazio Gentileschi,

had circulated a series of offensive verses about his future biographer...

who was also a painter.

At the same time as this latest brush with the law...

he was offered a great opportunity:

to work in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo.

Here, on his arrival in Rome,

Caravaggio had probably admired the frescoes by Pinturicchio...

and the chapel designed by Raphael.

He was commissioned to paint two pictures on wooden panels,

to be placed on either side of the altar in the Cerasi Chapel.

Caravaggio signed the contract while working on the Contarelli Chapel...

which clearly indicates the immediate

and striking success of his first public works.

The Cerasi episode, however, was a very troubled one.

Baglione recalls that these oil paintings on wood

were initially finished in another style,

but because they did not meet with the Patron's pleasure,

they were taken by Cardinal Sannesio.

So, Cerasi rejected the two paintings on wood.

Caravaggio had no other option than to start again...

this time using his favourite technique,

oil on canvas.

The result was surprising.

[UPBEAT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

In The Crucifixion of St. Peter,

the executioners lifting Peter's cross are depicted as if they were frozen,

like blocks of stone.

But The Conversion of St. Paul is the undisputed masterpiece of the chapel.

There is no background scene

and Caravaggio concentrates his artistic focus on the depiction of

the individual figure...

eliminating everything superfluous...

and reducing the canvas to its bare essentials.

The soldier, who has fallen from his horse,

lies with his arms open wide

as if to welcome the heavenly light into his very being.

In the Historia,

the narrative line of the work, there is no action...

because it captures a definitive gesture...

that conveys a sensation of absolute immobility...

giving rise to a powerful contrast between deep shadow...

and blinding light.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Another work for public display, and another absolute masterpiece

is The Deposition from the Cross...

now in the Vatican Museums.

Caravaggio immortalises the moment prior to Christ's burial...

the descent to the tomb.

His death is depicted with implacable realism.

His body is cold and pale,

his limp right arm hangs, lifeless, at his side.

At this moment, Christ is the stone discarded by history.

He is dead, defeated, lost.

His disciples have abandoned and denied him.

His promise of utopia seems to have ended on the cross...

and will now be dissolved forever in the tomb.

[DRIPPING WATER]

[MELANCHOLIC MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] For the women I've met...

For the women by my side...

For the ones who got away...

For the women I've loved...

For those who have hated me...

The ones I've exploited...

For the women I've painted...

For those I am yet to meet...

and those still to come...

For all these women do I live!

[UPBEAT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] An intense yellow drape falls across the legs

of the Penitent Magdalene.

An impalpable shawl, also yellow,

covers the shoulders of The Madonna of Loreto.

This is no coincidence.

Prostitutes were forced to wear yellow garments

in order to identify themselves.

And Caravaggio's models were often prostitutes.

The two he used most frequently

were Anna Bianchini and Fillide Melandroni...

who may well have posed as Martha and Mary Magdalene.

Caravaggio wanted to highlight the difference between the two figures,

the difference in their social status, I mean.

Notice the simplicity of the woman on the left...

and the luxury, the stunning clothes...

and elaborate sleeve of the central figure.

The painting is known as The Conversion of Mary Magdalene,

who is about to mentally step away

from her life of sin, luxury, and pleasure.

She listens to the words of the woman next to her...

and the position of her hands

shows that she is trying to persuade her sophisticated

young companion to change her ways.

[NARRATOR] Anna Bianchini may also have lent her face to The Penitent Magdalene.

Caravaggio must have thought it was opportune

to portray a real-life "sinner" in the guise of the converted saint...

a secular and simple way of interpreting the religious subject.

Yet it turned out to be a very risky move...

the first in a long series.

[TENSE MUSIC]

Fillide, meanwhile, is the model who poses in J udith Beheading Holofernes,

a work of disconcerting violence, now in the Barberini Palace.

The biblical subject is a parable of subjugated virtue

triumphing over tyrannical power.

The Jewish heroine seduces the cruel Assyrian general,

and then, with a sword she kills him.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

Holofernes, lying naked on the sheets, has made a terrible mistake.

Judith brutally grips his hair and pulls back his head...

so that the blade can cut his neck more easily.

Concentrating ferociously, she knits her brow...

while he, waking just in time to realise his fate, lets out a final atrocious cry.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

[ORCHESTRAL ADAGIO]

And perhaps yet another prostitute,

Maddalena Antognetti,

described in many accounts as "Lena, Michelangelo's woman,"

is the model for The Madonna of Loreto...

destined for the Cavalletti Chapel in the Basilica of Sant 'Agostino...

where prostitutes, themselves, often went to pray.

The work caused a real scandal.

It was for public display and, therefore, merited greater "decorum."

Two such filthy, wretched pilgrims had never been seen in painting before.

Caravaggio focused his attention on base humanity.

It was the conditions of the dregs of society, of the dispossessed,

that he found the most worthy subject for painting,

because it was the most real.

[CHURCH BELL RINGING]

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] "And I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall crush your head...

and you shall strike his heel."

This passage from Genesis

inspired The Madonna and Child with St. Anne...

a canvas measuring almost three metres high and two metres wide,

commissioned by the Parafrenieri di Sant'Anna confraternity...

as an altarpiece in St. Peter's Basilica.

The Virgin, in whose face we can once again see the features of Lena,

the Child and St. Anne are engaged in a battle against pure evil.

Together, the Madonna and Christ Child

crush the head of a serpent beneath their feet.

While the heinous creature is twisting in agony...

St. Anne watches the scene in solemn contemplation.

The fascination of the Virgin is evident...

especially if compared to the saint...

who is portrayed as an old, fragile woman.

Caravaggio delivered the work on the 8th of April, 1606...

giving the Dean of the confraternity

the only extant statement written in his own hand,

in which he declares himself "happy and satisfied" with the painting.

The Madonna and Child with St. Anne remained above the present-day altar

in the chapel of St Michael the Archangel in St. Peter's for only a few days.

The verdict came... rejected.

There could be no appeal, and the painting was swiftly removed.

Today, we can only imagine

the great scenic impact the painting would have made...

had it been allowed to remain in its original position.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Rumours soon began to spread that Scipione Borghese,

the nephew of Pope Paul V,

had urged that The Madonna and Child with St. Anne should be rejected,

so that he could buy it for a good price.

Obsessed with art, the cardinal sought to gain possession of the finest works

by any means available.

As he formed what would become the collection now on display

in the Borghese Gallery...

where you can still admire the work today.

[SUSPENSE MUSIC]

The artist's life, at the time of this painful rejection,

became complicated again...

and the courts were required to untangle another knot.

Prudenzia Bruni, owner of the home in the Vicolo del Divino Amore,

complained that the painter had not been paying his rent.

After being summoned to court, all his assets in the house were seized.

These were the objects that can be seen in his paintings...

his "props"... which were listed in a sort of inventory.

During this period,

Caravaggio was working on one of his most controversial pieces,

The Death of the Virgin.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Caravaggio perhaps expected too much of himself.

This happens when people are too successful.

At a certain point, he must have thought that

he was in a position to do things that no other artist had ever dared to do.

That is, to go against his clients' instructions.

Above all, in The Death of the Virgin

he did something terrible,

he omitted a detail that is key to the Church.

On her death, the Virgin was raised up to Heaven, and this is illustrated

in all depictions of the death of the Virgin

produced over the previous centuries.

We see the dead Virgin, the mourning apostles,

and, above, in the Kingdom of Heaven,

we see the Virgin who has entered Paradise,

where she is welcomed by Christ and appointed Regina Caelorum.

But here, the Regina Caelorum is missing from the painting.

And Caravaggio's model for the Virgin,

people rightly said, was the body of a dead woman,

probably a prostitute who had drowned in the Tiber.

In fact, she does look slightly puffy, as if still bloated with water.

He just laid her out on that awful surface,

a morgue slab, and did not add any religious connotations.

And this immediately created a scandal, a real scandal.

- [TENSE MUSIC] - [DRIPPING WATER]

[CARAVAGGIO] I must stop.

Stay thee, hand!

Quell thee, anger!

I cannot hold back the irrepressible

and ever more impetuous forces inside me.

Wrath swelling like waves on a stormy sea,

from my guts to my sword

where it is beyond control.

A hair's breadth to the side,

a less accurate blow,

and my life would have been another.

And now the eternal exile to which I condemn myself...

all my own doing.

[DRIPPING WATER]

[SUSPENSE MUSIC]

[NARRATOR] The rejection of The Madonna and Child with St. Anne

and The Death of the Virgin were bitter blows

to Caravaggio's already tormented mind.

His life was growing ever darker.

It is not difficult to imagine his melancholy state in the morning

as he trained his black dog, Cornacchia,

or painted frantically in the dark room,

or walked from one royal tennis court to another.

It was during a game that something irreversible happened.

The most terrible of days,

the 29th of May, 1606.

In Campo Marzio, an argument,

perhaps about the game itself, ended in tragedy.

- [SWORDS CLINKING] - Caravaggio killed Ranuccio Tomassoni,

with whom he had already argued fiercely in the past.

The consequences would have been extreme:

permanent exile...

or indeed the death sentence and execution...

by beheading.

[RAPID DIGITAL MUSIC]

Caravaggio had to get away.

Costanza Sforza Colonna,

the Marchioness of Caravaggio, came to his aid.

She had already intervened

to save the painter during the most troubled moments of his life...

and now helped him find exile in her fiefdoms in Lazio.

During this short period, the artist painted his second version

of The Supper at Emmaus...

now in the Brera Gallery.

It is a much darker and simpler scene...

with the few objects on the table casting long shadows.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Hopeful of being absolved from capital punishment,

Caravaggio headed for Naples.

We are in the autumn of that fateful and inauspicious year, 1606.

He is 35 years old.

[EERIE MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] "For I was hungry and you gave me food...

I was thirsty...

and you gave me drink...

[WATER DRIPPING]

I was a stranger and you welcomed me...

I was naked and you clothed me...

I was sick and you visited me...

I was in prison and you came to me."

A lost man seeks refuge. He yearns for comfort,

an embrace.

I flee to find a new home.

Do not call me murderer, ruffian or hot-head.

I am a man. A man looking for help.

An artist in search of mercy.

[NARRATOR] Having left Rome as a dangerous delinquent...

in Naples Caravaggio discovered how far

his fame had spread outside the Papal State.

Here, he was renowned as a great master.

The Pio Monte della Misericordia,

a charitable company that still exists today,

commissioned him to paint

an emblematic picture of the company itself:

The Seven Works of Mercy,

which Caravaggio was asked to illustrate in a single painting.

Caravaggio had strong feelings about the issue of mercy

at that particular time...

as he himself was in great need of it.

He was certainly well protected in Naples and no one would have dared touch him...

but the painting he produced is, in effect,

a grandiose elegy, a great epic poem in which he depicts the works of mercy.

Caravaggio depicted the terrible inner rage

he wanted to show the world,

and he most certainly succeeded.

[MELANCHOLIC MUSIC]

Caravaggio used a completely new system

to represent the works of mercy.

Rather than illustrating individual or isolated events...

he painted a group of ordinary people

in the characteristically narrow streets of Naples...

each of whom represents one of the works of mercy.

"Feed the hungry...

give drink to the thirsty...

clothe the naked...

house the pilgrims...

cure the infirm...

visit the imprisoned...

bury the dead."

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Perhaps the most beautiful and moving image

is of a woman who looks down from the top of a building.

She looks down, and watches the life of the city

as it unfolds below her.

This is a life inspired by mercy.

It is not clear that this is the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus Christ.

They appear simply as mother and son, as he returns again to this great theme:

mother and son and maternal love.

Before her are two angels...

two angelic figures of truly outstanding beauty...

and above all of great significance.

They represent good and evil...

according to a wonderful interpretation which has emerged this century.

They are combatants...

two angels fighting for the life of humankind.

The angel of evil wants to descend into the human world...

while the angel of good wants to push him away.

While this sublime metaphysical clash unfolds in the sky,

the pulsating life of the city unfolds below.

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio received

the considerable sum of 400 scudi for the painting.

The value of his public works had doubled over the previous six years,

a clear sign of his growing fame.

But there is more.

The minutes of the Pio Monte meeting of the board of governors

in 1613, state that the painting must not be removed for any reason...

or sold for any sum.

With this new success...

it seems that Caravaggio's restless spirit could finally find some respite.

[SOFT MUSIC]

A few weeks after the installation of The Seven Works of Mercy,

the artist was perhaps once again at work on The Flagellation of Christ,

today at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples.

In this composition, the artist focuses on the sinister mechanisms of evil...

highlighting the cruelty and suffering...

and bringing the viewer much closer to the baleful act of torture.

The tormentors who attack Christ

are arranged in a circle around him,

as in a macabre dance,

an evocative and tension-filled choreography.

Jesus is immersed in light, as if representing truth countering error,

emphasised by the half-light that envelops his attackers.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

When this work was displayed to the public,

it drew the eyes of all the onlookers to it.

"The new manner of that terrible style of shading and the realism of those nudes

left one in suspense,"

wrote the Neapolitan historian, Bernardo de Dominici.

[MUSIC CRESCENDO]

However, the apparent calm of his Neapolitan stay

began to concern Caravaggio...

who was worried that his rise was coming to an end.

Just one year after his arrival in Naples,

another great opportunity came his way...

perhaps again due to the intercession of Costanza Colonna:

the chance to go to Malta...

a hotbed of art and culture at the time.

He was welcomed to the island as a great master.

But things did not stay quiet for long.

[DRIPPING WATER]

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] Since I killed him,

no night can bring me sleep.

Every night I am preyed on by worry.

Every night, I'm on the alert.

An image sears itself into my mind's eye:

my head, detached from my body...

borne on a tray like a trophy.

My own future, perhaps?

Fear is worse than death.

[DRIPPING WATER]

Caravaggio arrived in Malta on the 12th of July, 1607.

The Marquise Costanza had already made arrangements with Alof de Wignacourt...

Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of Malta.

He had been looking for an artist to decorate

the new cathedral under construction...

and Caravaggio seemed the perfect choice.

Caravaggio is welcomed with great honour.

The Grand Master of the Order of Malta,

Alof de Wignacourt, receives him as a man of great merit,

as clearly indicated in the decree

in which Caravaggio is knighted for his merits.

Caravaggio did not have friends in high places,

he is one of the most deserving men of his time,

and paints a portrait of the Grand Master, now conserved in the Louvre in Paris.

Alof de Wignacourt was thrilled.

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio also painted

a likeness of the Grand Master in another work,

St. Jerome Writing...

still conserved today in the Co-Cathedral of St. John.

But the work is destined to leave an eternal mark on Malta

and on the history of art was another.

Caravaggio painted his absolute masterpiece in Malta,

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.

[RAPID STRINGS MUSIC]

Caravaggio depicts the most terrible moment in the tragedy of John the Baptist,

who is beheaded...

although in the artist's imagination, the executioner's first strike

fails to sever his head completely from his body,

and so he takes up a short-bladed knife,

known as a misericorde,

to deliver the "mercy stroke"...

and ensure that the condemned man did not suffer

any more than necessary.

He uses it to inflict the final mortal blow,

which freed the victim from further torment, from pain.

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

was a resounding success,

and was considered one of the greatest artworks of all time,

which it is.

But his life was about to change dramatically.

Sources indicate there was a fight between the painter and another Knight.

A Knight of Justice, that is, a rank above his own.

[NARRATOR] Caravaggio was arrested and imprisoned in a guva...

one of the underground cells in Forte St. Angelo...

a claustrophobic, dark frightening place.

In this most terrible moment of his life, he was stripped of everything.

His knighthood was revoked, and a decree was issued that described him as

a "putrid and fetid man," a gross insult...

especially when levied at a man

who had just been placed on the altars of fame and glory.

[NARRATOR] Alof de Wignacourt placed his seal

on the order the revoke his honours.

Caravaggio was no longer a Knight of Malta.

[RUNNING FOOTSTEPS]

But he was already far away. Someone had helped him escape to Sicily.

A chronicler of the time records Caravaggio's arrival in Syracuse.

He was commissioned to paint a new great work of art

worthy of the masterpiece he had so recently produced in Malta.

The commission was to celebrate the patron saint of the city, St. Lucy,

an early Christian martyr.

After she converted to Christianity she refused to give herself

to her betrothed,

and he, made nervous to say the least by this situation,

still longed to possess her.

And, when unable to do so, killed her or had her killed.

The work, once again, is a titanic feat,

on a canvas over four metres high.

In reality, Caravaggio's final works all focus on this dream,

one could say, of breaking away from normal proportions

to produce immense works that give the viewer

a sensation of infinite space and time.

Most of the painting,

The Burial of St. Lucy, is practically empty,

there's nothing there.

Her body is on the ground,

with the bishop behind her, blessing crucial moment...

and the people around her are looking on with abject horror

and total desperation.

But the interesting thing is that he probably drew inspiration

from certain monuments in Syracuse,

archaeological monuments a bit like catacombs, called "latomie."

Caravaggio seems to have depicted one of these places.

Above the heads of the figures is a very tall, dark wall,

totally impenetrable to the eye...

as if Caravaggio had in some way

already understood the fact that, as an art form,

painting does not necessarily have to represent what we see.

It can capture the visible world, yes...

but it can also show what we cannot see.

[NARRATOR] But his restlessness and desire for freedom were still too strong.

It was time to leave Sicily.

His next stop was, once again, Naples.

[DRUM HIT AND EERIE MUSIC]

[CARAVAGGIO] For those whose wounds lie deep within...

bodily wounds are easy to bear.

There is no logic to rage.

There is no logic, perhaps, to hope either.

And yet, the power of both dwells in my breast.

[TENSE MUSIC]

The time has come to seek peace.

To regain my liberty.

The time, perhaps, to die.

Caravaggio returns to Naples.

It seems he has found a refuge, a safe harbour.

Finally, life is moving along smoothly.

He goes to Chiaia, to live in Costanza Colonna's palace.

He is honoured, revered and treated very well.

Illustrious collectors contact him

and he seems to be experiencing something of a renaissance.

Life flows pleasantly by.

What's more, there is a tavern popular with the intellectuals of the time,

the so-called Locanda del Cerriglio.

Caravaggio frequented this place which was,

one could say, very fashionable, to use a modern term.

And there, something happens, yet again, that should not have happened.

A fight breaks out.

[CROWD HOWLING]

We don't know how or why,

but we do know for certain

that Caravaggio was involved

in a real attack...

with his face black and blue, beaten to the point

that a rumour began to spread across the city that he was dead.

In fact, he hadn't been killed.

But, to judge from a painting with an Old Testament theme,

namely David with the Head of Goliath,

we can get an idea of what happened.

In this memorable painting, perhaps his final masterpiece...

he portrays himself in the decapitated head of the giant Goliath.

The young David holds the decapitated head of Goliath...

and he shows it to the public...

to us.

It is the gesture of a victor.

But he looks at it with an expression of, how can I put it...

melancholy...

of compassion.

In effect,

Caravaggio still had a capital sentence hanging over him...

and this could have led to his own decapitation.

by showing himself in the head of Goliath,

it is as if he is imagining the execution of his own death sentence...

as if he himself had been decapitated.

Should we inflict the death sentence on others?

Is it worthy of man, of human nature?

It's as if Caravaggio's painting is an answer to this eternal dilemma.

And the answer is that we cannot condemn others to death...

because death is not a punishment.

The real punishment is life.

[DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

[DRIPPING WATER]

[NARRATOR] The artist, disfigured and partially blind after the attack,

felt under siege.

The thought of death haunted his every waking moment and gave him no peace.

In Caravaggio's life

something significant and wonderful happened.

He received a message suggesting that his capital sentence

was about to be lifted.

Finally, Caravaggio could return to the dominions of the Church.

He boarded a felucca, a small boat that would take him to Rome.

But in fact, the real tragedy began here.

[MELANCHOLIC MUSIC]

The master loaded some paintings onto the boat...

his most recent ones.

But when he got to Porto Ercole,

he was stopped and detained, and the felucca left.

[WATER GURGLING]

Legend has it

that the desperate master, abandoned on the beach,

tried to follow this boat, which he could never reach.

[WATER GURGLING]

Then, historians tell us, he was ravaged by malaria.

His body disappeared without a trace, and he has no grave.

His life ended suddenly on the 18th of July, 1610.

- [WIND HOWLING] - [PAINT DRIPPING]

[CARAVAGGIO] I see the light.

The light, reawakening after a long sleep.

I understand, at last.

Resist.

Risk.

Live.

Die.

Fight.

Seek peace.

I know now the shadows conceal nothing...

that everything lives in the light.

This light I choose.

[MELANCHOLIC MUSIC]

[SOFT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]