0:00:11.212,0:00:24.144
Italy. 1610. Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio is on the run. Again.

0:00:24.144,0:00:33.605
No stranger to trouble, this artist's tangled with the law most of his life.

0:00:33.605,0:00:37.842
But this time, it's different.

0:00:37.842,0:00:44.617
This time, he's wanted for murder.

0:00:44.617,0:00:49.451
There's a price on his head - alive or dead.

0:00:49.451,0:00:52.600
So he does what he's always done -

0:00:52.600,0:00:55.451
does what he does best.

0:00:55.451,0:00:59.463
He tries to paint his way out of trouble.

0:00:59.463,0:01:05.658
This is what he paints - David with Head of Goliath.

0:01:05.658,0:01:07.939
It's a self-portrait.

0:01:07.939,0:01:14.236
But why doesn't Caravaggio cast himself as the hero, David?

0:01:14.236,0:01:23.234
Why does he paint himself as the villain of the piece, the monster, Goliath?

0:01:23.234,0:01:32.541
Maybe he hopes that by making this guilty plea in paint he can be spared.

0:01:32.541,0:01:51.998
Perhaps by offering his head in a painting he can save himself in real life.

0:01:53.014,0:01:58.019
We like to think, don't we, that the genius is the hero, that the good guy wins,

0:01:58.019,0:02:04.770
but this is Caravaggio. And the genius is the villain.

0:02:04.770,0:02:28.519


0:02:28.519,0:02:34.698
[choral music]

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Rome. 1600.

0:02:42.686,0:02:58.939
The center of the greatest propaganda campaign Christendom has ever seen.

0:02:58.939,0:03:12.681
The Catholic Church is under siege from the Protestants of Northern Europe,

0:03:12.681,0:03:17.847
who have a new message for those in need of salvation.

0:03:17.847,0:03:24.705
"Just depend on the Word," said the Protestants, "the gospel truth in black and white.

0:03:24.705,0:03:27.929
A printed bible is a Christian's guide.

0:03:27.929,0:03:33.129
Paintings in churches are a distraction, filthy idols.

0:03:33.129,0:03:36.379
Wipe them out."

0:03:36.379,0:03:51.764


0:03:51.764,0:03:55.597
Catholics shot back - what about the millions who can't read?

0:03:55.597,0:03:57.983
Don't they deserve to be saved?

0:03:57.983,0:04:01.655
Shouldn't the poor have a vision of the sacrifice of the savior?

0:04:01.655,0:04:04.013
The life of the virgin?

0:04:04.013,0:04:08.884
In the Catholic churches war for souls paintings were not art objects.

0:04:08.884,0:04:15.498
They were the heavy artillery.

0:04:15.498,0:04:22.521
So churches are repaired, others newly built, all lavishly decorated with paintings,

0:04:22.521,0:04:29.296
the paintings responsible for defending the Catholic faith.

0:04:29.296,0:04:36.514
But away from the Vatican, outside the gorgeously decorated high-walled palaces of the aristocratic cardinals,

0:04:36.514,0:04:44.768
there was a very different Rome.

0:04:44.768,0:04:47.656
The Rome of the sweaty, yelling crowd.

0:04:47.656,0:04:52.459
A hundred thousand of them, jostling in the markets, in the piazzas,

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the Rome of sour wine, old garlic, street urchins,

0:04:57.179,0:05:03.707
shifty part-time soldiers who cut your purse, or your throat, just as soon as look at you.

0:05:03.707,0:05:08.378
The Rome of beggars, buskers, tumblers, quacks and whores,

0:05:08.378,0:05:13.374
thousands of them working away in the ortaggio, the evil Eden,

0:05:13.374,0:05:18.209
down by the River Tiber.

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[no dialog]

0:05:41.188,0:05:43.764
This was Caravaggio's Rome.

0:05:43.764,0:05:48.605
Cheap rooms and drunken nights with other perpetually broke painters.

0:05:48.605,0:06:03.770
Living on their wits and shady credit, art for butter, always on the fly.

0:06:03.770,0:06:12.346
Their motto as they prowled the streets - nec spe nec metu - without hope, without fear.

0:06:31.973,0:06:37.459
Of course, he wasn't born a thug. Just a boy from small town Lombardy.

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The small town of Caravaggio.

0:06:43.901,0:06:47.985
His father looked after the house and the land of a local aristocrat.

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Respectable. Not poor, not rich.

0:06:51.258,0:06:55.465
But plague was the enemy of expectations, even small ones.

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And it killed off Caravaggio's father and his grandpa on the same day, when he was just five.

0:07:02.091,0:07:07.018
When he was 19 his mother died, so the children sold up and got out.

0:07:07.018,0:07:09.937
He put in some time as an apprentice in Milan,

0:07:09.937,0:07:15.841
but anyone who had real talent went to Rome.

0:07:18.303,0:07:25.288
Caravaggio had arrived here in 1593, and had been promptly told what he was supposed to do

0:07:25.288,0:07:30.021
if he was ever to become a great artist.

0:07:30.021,0:07:35.417
First, draw old sculpture. Plenty of that lying around.

0:07:35.417,0:07:40.620
Second, take yourself after the old masters, Raphael perhaps.

0:07:40.620,0:07:44.429
Be humbled. Copy. And learn.

0:07:44.429,0:07:48.019
What you get at the end of it all was the point of art,

0:07:48.019,0:07:52.605
an idea of perfect form and ideal beauty.

0:07:52.605,0:07:57.680
If you could make those celestial mysteries visible using your own brushes,

0:07:57.680,0:08:03.187
then you'd be ready to convey that vision of perfection where it counted,

0:08:03.187,0:08:06.130
in the War for Souls.

0:08:06.130,0:08:09.366
Oh yeah? Caravaggio didn't think so.

0:08:09.366,0:08:12.452
Visions of paradise? Who the hell knew about that?

0:08:12.452,0:08:16.353
What he knew was right in front of his nose, down here on Earth,

0:08:16.353,0:08:24.309
in the studio, the here and now - that would be the point of his art.

0:08:24.309,0:08:29.592


0:08:29.592,0:08:34.095
Drawing - who needed it?

0:08:34.095,0:08:37.093
Caravaggio never drew a thing in his life.

0:08:37.093,0:08:46.441
He just looked. Eyeballed. Then he'd paint.

0:08:51.227,0:08:56.300
When someone asked him what he was going to do for models he pointed at the street,

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"Them," he said, and he brought THEM into his studio.

0:09:03.097,0:09:08.597


0:09:08.597,0:09:18.611
The rough awkwardness of Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit was a long way from the refined beauty of the Renaissance masters.

0:09:18.611,0:09:25.931
From the start, he wasn't going to do things the way they were supposed to be done.

0:09:25.931,0:09:31.702
Here's Caravaggio's response to the slavish copying of the classics.

0:09:31.702,0:09:36.184
His painting of himself as Bacchus, the god of wine.

0:09:36.184,0:09:39.489
Now, bear in mind Bacchus isn't simply the god of binges,

0:09:39.489,0:09:46.544
he's also the symbol of youth and beauty, the inspirer of poetry, song and painting.

0:09:46.544,0:09:51.611
And this is what Caravaggio does.

0:09:51.611,0:09:56.014


0:09:56.014,0:10:00.936
Instead of eternal youth, he gives us something like the exact opposite,

0:10:00.936,0:10:04.908
someone who's really sick.

0:10:04.908,0:10:10.016
The flesh is greenish, the lips are gray, the eyes unslept,

0:10:10.016,0:10:13.848
the mouth curled into a leer.

0:10:13.848,0:10:18.010
Instead of taking a human form and making it into a god,

0:10:18.010,0:10:21.990
he takes a god and makes it all too human.

0:10:21.990,0:10:29.347
The overdressed party animal as a morning-after wreck.

0:10:29.347,0:10:32.620


0:10:32.620,0:10:34.766
And look at those grapes!

0:10:34.766,0:10:40.433
Yes, he's got the bloom just right, but definitely past their sell-by date,

0:10:40.433,0:10:49.987
and they're offered to us in an oily pour, with filth-rimmed fingernails.

0:10:49.987,0:10:54.301
No thanks.

0:10:56.363,0:11:01.542
Now, Northern Italian artists were famous for their technical skill,

0:11:01.542,0:11:05.851
their naturalistic still lives.

0:11:05.851,0:11:10.339
But Caravaggio gives us nature with a twist.

0:11:10.339,0:11:13.518
Never mind art as beauty,

0:11:13.518,0:11:20.429
he takes a basket of fruit and turns it into a life and death drama.

0:11:20.429,0:11:27.764
He's pushing the envelope, challenging the very way the painting was supposed to be.

0:11:27.764,0:11:33.215
It wasn't for the timid, but painting this sharp wasn't going to go unnoticed

0:11:33.215,0:11:36.838
by those with an eye for quality.

0:11:36.838,0:11:46.328
A cardinal, no less - Francesco Maria del Monte -

0:11:48.098,0:11:51.884


0:11:51.884,0:11:54.302
No church mouse, our cardinal.

0:11:54.302,0:12:06.364
He lives in an enormous palazzo surrounded by poets, musicians and paintings.

0:12:06.364,0:12:13.781
Del Monte of the roving eye is the biggest player on the art market.

0:12:13.781,0:12:19.587
At the art dealer's over the road, the cardinal sees something that takes his fancy,

0:12:19.587,0:12:27.273
Card sharks.

0:12:27.273,0:12:31.372
Del Monte takes in the brilliant color, the joky action,

0:12:31.372,0:12:34.461
the wink-wink nudge-nudginess of it all.

0:12:34.461,0:12:38.367
Better still, he feels the presence of these people,

0:12:38.367,0:12:41.072
the rosy-cheeked kid sucker,

0:12:41.072,0:12:44.309
and the cool bravo about to take him down,

0:12:44.309,0:12:49.293
as if they were right in front of him.

0:12:49.293,0:13:09.854


0:13:09.854,0:13:13.627
Hey!

0:13:13.627,0:13:19.536
[laughing]

0:13:19.536,0:13:26.670
The cardinal buys his painting for a song, and then makes Caravaggio an offer he can't refuse.

0:13:26.670,0:13:33.761
"Why don't you move into the palazzo? Smartest company in Rome.

0:13:33.761,0:13:37.610
Poets, philosophers. Terrific kitchen, my dear.

0:13:37.610,0:13:40.335
Never a dull moment.

0:13:40.335,0:13:49.288
And, the music! Well you do like music, don't you?

0:13:49.288,0:13:52.091
Caravaggio liked music, all right.

0:13:52.091,0:13:55.458
And here he is, at the back of this tight little group,

0:13:55.458,0:14:01.501
holding the cornet.

0:14:01.501,0:14:07.008
Do we need Cupid on the left to let us know its love songs are their thing?

0:14:07.008,0:14:08.615
Don't think so.

0:14:08.615,0:14:11.434
The lead singer is crying his eyes out,

0:14:11.434,0:14:16.592
and he's just tuning up.

0:14:16.592,0:14:21.450
Now, there were lots of paintings of young boys with lutes in Baroque Rome,

0:14:21.450,0:14:23.845
but never anything quite like this.

0:14:23.845,0:14:25.931
Nothing this close-up.

0:14:25.931,0:14:27.584
Nothing this fleshy.

0:14:27.584,0:14:29.694
And so close to us!

0:14:29.694,0:14:33.098
It's like - oh yes - four youths in a closet.

0:14:33.098,0:14:36.540
Excuse me, so sorry, don't mean to intrude.

0:14:36.540,0:14:40.766
Oh no, come on in, darling. Pull up a cushion. Join us.

0:14:40.766,0:14:44.134
We're just rehearsing.

0:14:44.134,0:14:48.922
The claustrophobia has a point, and it's not erotic.

0:14:48.922,0:14:55.139
What he's doing is demolishing the safety barrier between the viewer and the painting.

0:14:55.139,0:14:59.508
Caravaggio's art crushes the safety barrier of the frame.

0:14:59.508,0:15:02.203
It tears away the separation.

0:15:02.203,0:15:07.181
It reaches you.

0:15:07.181,0:15:09.541
[choral singing]

0:15:09.541,0:15:12.179
It was one thing painting pretty boys for del Monte.

0:15:12.179,0:15:19.087
It was quite another painting for the great churches of Rome.

0:15:19.087,0:15:26.364
But in 1599, Caravaggio won the commission to paint two scenes from the life of St. Matthew,

0:15:26.364,0:15:32.345
at the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of St. Luigi.

0:15:32.345,0:15:37.225
It would be a test of whether he could make a new kind of art for the public

0:15:37.225,0:15:40.451
in the place that really counted.

0:15:40.451,0:15:48.338
Whether he could move them to faith and salvation.

0:15:48.338,0:15:54.258
But the martyrdom of Matthew, the showpiece for the chapel, turned into a massive headache.

0:15:54.258,0:15:58.339
The commission called for big architectural settings,

0:15:58.339,0:16:01.235
the martyr with his eyes rolled to heaven,

0:16:01.235,0:16:04.694
a cast of hundreds, angels on clouds.

0:16:04.694,0:16:08.345
Now Caravaggio knew he didn't want any part of that.

0:16:08.345,0:16:12.017
But he didn't know what to do instead.

0:16:12.017,0:16:15.974
Blocked, he turned to the scene for the other wall.

0:16:15.974,0:16:20.901
Somehow, when he thought about the calling of Matthew, a light went on.

0:16:20.901,0:16:30.981
Why? Because it was about a sinner. Not a saint.

0:16:30.981,0:16:32.853
"Where have you been?"

0:16:32.853,0:16:37.803
"Me? Where have I been? I've been here for an hour. Come on. Sit down."

0:16:37.803,0:16:43.130
Suddenly it all made sense. What the church was looking for,

0:16:43.130,0:16:47.007
and what Caravaggio was born to do.

0:16:47.007,0:16:59.174
Make something sacred out of the lives of the squalid.

0:16:59.174,0:17:03.656
So instead of setting the calling in some fantasy holy land,

0:17:03.656,0:17:08.693
Caravaggio beams Jesus down to a dim room in Rome.

0:17:08.693,0:17:10.535
It's a dive, really.

0:17:10.535,0:17:13.260
Torn paper shades on the windows.

0:17:13.260,0:17:18.985
Characters from the card shops and other low-lives gathered to witness the big moment.

0:17:18.985,0:17:25.111
Half of them don't even notice when the two mysterious strangers, Christ and St. Peter,

0:17:25.111,0:17:28.516
enter the room.

0:17:28.516,0:17:31.698
Freeze-frame. The finger points.

0:17:31.698,0:17:33.288
"Who, me?"

0:17:33.288,0:17:36.307
"Yes, you, Matthew. You miserable creature.

0:17:36.307,0:17:41.053
We don't need the virtuous for this job. We need scum, like you."

0:17:41.053,0:17:47.008
And for this instant of redemptive transformation, Caravaggio had another stunning idea.

0:17:47.008,0:17:50.526
Instead of highlighting Christ, cover him up.

0:17:50.526,0:17:56.380
The less we see of him, the more we concentrate on that extended finger.

0:17:56.380,0:18:07.693
And through that finger comes a bolt of radiance, that changes Matthew the sinner into Christ's disciple.

0:18:07.693,0:18:13.385


0:18:13.385,0:18:16.047
It's all about the light.

0:18:16.047,0:18:20.685
The light that's too pure and too strong for the spiritually short-sighted.

0:18:20.685,0:18:24.265
The old man with the glasses and the cash to receive.

0:18:24.265,0:18:30.064
Now, if you think this sounds a bit like a theatre or the movies, well, you're absolutely right.

0:18:30.064,0:18:35.680
What Caravaggio wanted was for people to come into the darkness, in this space,

0:18:35.680,0:18:40.372
and suddenly find themselves in the presence not of a painting at all,

0:18:40.372,0:18:42.783
but a real event.

0:18:42.783,0:18:49.345
Seeing is believing.

0:18:49.345,0:18:54.230


0:18:54.230,0:19:04.053
[no dialog]

0:19:09.146,0:19:14.757
With the Calling of Matthew finished, Caravaggio returned to the painting for the other wall,

0:19:14.757,0:19:19.135
Matthew's martyrdom, and his problem had gone.

0:19:19.135,0:19:22.685
He strips the scene of its remoteness, its solemnity,

0:19:22.685,0:19:31.088
and instead gives us what he knew all about - a brutal assault in a back street.

0:19:31.088,0:19:35.739


0:19:35.739,0:19:42.003
Terrified, chaotic, hysterical - the figures spin around out of control.

0:19:42.003,0:19:56.024
The scene is glimpsed as if you were running away, which is exactly what Caravaggio has painted himself doing.

0:19:56.024,0:20:01.787
It's all flicker-flicker, strobe bit, hand held, stuttering and shrieking.

0:20:01.787,0:20:06.524
And in the middle of all this manic action, there is one fixed point.

0:20:06.524,0:20:15.280
Flood-lit, so you can't miss him, the naked assassin, finishing off his hit.

0:20:15.280,0:20:27.250
Caravaggio makes the sinner, not the saint, the hub on which everything spins.

0:20:30.297,0:20:35.291
It's all shockingly mixed up, with the painter as a fleeing coward.

0:20:35.291,0:20:37.937
And yet, it was a triumph.

0:20:37.937,0:20:47.870
Caravaggio must have thought, "What can't I get away with?"[br]

0:20:47.870,0:20:53.140
He's 30 years old. The Matthews have made him an overnight sensation.

0:20:53.140,0:20:57.131
The church commissions roll in.

0:20:57.131,0:21:00.223
But it all starts to go to his head.

0:21:00.223,0:21:03.996
The other Caravaggio shows up.

0:21:03.996,0:21:09.756
Violent, abusive, unpredictable.

0:21:09.756,0:21:26.511


0:21:26.511,0:21:32.252
[Shouting and laughing]

0:21:32.252,0:21:38.542
And the more successful he is, the weirder his behavior gets.

0:21:38.542,0:21:44.246
His brother, Giovanni Battista, a priest, comes to see the painter in del Monte's palace.

0:21:44.246,0:21:47.791
"I've got no brother. Never had one," says Caravaggio.

0:21:47.791,0:21:54.223
Brother leaves, crushed, bewildered.

0:21:54.223,0:22:04.596


0:22:04.596,0:22:11.274
He gets himself up in a fancy black outfit, but then he wears it until it's in tatters.

0:22:11.274,0:22:20.055
Then there's his dog, Crow, which he teaches to walk on its hind legs.

0:22:20.055,0:22:31.856


0:22:31.856,0:22:36.607
[laughing]

0:22:36.607,0:22:51.425


0:22:51.425,0:22:56.763
If you're another painter and you see this lot coming towards you, watch out.

0:22:56.763,0:23:04.061
Caravaggio and his mates particularly get off on abusing rivals and imitators.

0:23:04.061,0:23:10.177
"We'll fry your balls in oil," was one of the choice insults recorded in court.

0:23:10.177,0:23:13.455
Whether he meant it or not, all this physical aggression,

0:23:13.455,0:23:18.628
all this sweaty closeness on the borderline between pathos and trouble,

0:23:18.628,0:23:30.976
carried over into Caravaggio's art, with shockingly moving results.

0:23:30.976,0:23:38.596
Only someone who rubs shoulders with the poorest people in Rome could produce painting like this.

0:23:38.596,0:23:45.302
Christ grabs Doubting Thomas's wrist, guiding his finger deep into his wound.

0:23:45.302,0:23:50.365
Burying it in his body, until Thomas believes.

0:23:50.365,0:23:55.713
Caravaggio says, "You don't just look at my pictures, you don't just stare,

0:23:55.713,0:23:57.682
You feel them."

0:23:57.682,0:24:03.265
"OK," we say. "OK, we feel it. We believe. We believe."

0:24:03.265,0:24:06.028
He doesn't do it just for effect.

0:24:06.028,0:24:14.897
It's because no one else painting in Rome takes the message of Christianity more seriously than this sinner.

0:24:14.897,0:24:18.706
Christ says, "The wretched of the Earth can be saved,"

0:24:18.706,0:24:22.130
and they are what Caravaggio gives us.

0:24:22.130,0:24:29.573
The gospel is happening right here. Right now.

0:24:29.573,0:24:34.424
When people come into church and see them, they are thunderstruck.

0:24:34.424,0:24:39.116
Their lives change. Their eyes open, their hearts pound.

0:24:39.116,0:24:42.661
In the presence of sacred drama, so vivid, so physical,

0:24:42.661,0:24:45.787
they think they can stretch out and touch them.

0:24:45.787,0:24:53.654
The most hardened sinner, the worst sneerer, believes.

0:24:53.654,0:24:57.029


0:24:57.029,0:25:00.815
This was the painter the church had been waiting for.

0:25:00.815,0:25:08.698
Here's St. Paul, flat on his back, his eyeballs scorched yellow by the blinding light of revelation.

0:25:08.698,0:25:16.355
Next to him, St. Peter bears his load of cowardly guilt, crucified upside down, unworthy, he says,

0:25:16.355,0:25:21.236
to be martyred the same way as Christ.

0:25:21.236,0:25:27.218
No one could touch Caravaggio for capturing the sheer weight of the gospels.

0:25:27.218,0:25:34.050
His faith is carnal. The bodies in his masterpieces are trapped in flesh,

0:25:34.050,0:25:37.869
even when they're the son of God.

0:25:37.869,0:25:40.352
But wasn't that the point of the gospel?

0:25:40.352,0:25:43.059
Christ's presence on Earth.

0:25:43.059,0:25:50.097
Not just a weightless angel, but in the flesh of man.

0:25:50.097,0:25:57.123


0:25:57.123,0:26:00.778
The point is, he's not just an art revolutionary.

0:26:00.778,0:26:06.292
This sinner is also a devout Christian, an evangelist for the unwashed.

0:26:06.292,0:26:10.278
Can you imagine how pilgrims coming to Rome, their Italian Jerusalem,

0:26:10.278,0:26:17.536
felt when confronted by this image of themselves?

0:26:17.536,0:26:29.715
Here's a painter who understood what it was like to live inside the grimy skin of the poor and the pious.

0:26:29.715,0:26:35.380


0:26:35.380,0:26:39.236
His street casting is astounding!

0:26:39.236,0:26:44.925
His Madonna of Loreto is just a local girl, standing in her doorway.

0:26:44.925,0:26:55.052
And instead of the usual crowd of the reverent, all we have kneeling before her are two old pilgrims who've plodded miles.

0:26:55.052,0:27:02.188
on their bare and calloused feet.

0:27:02.188,0:27:09.204
Faced with this homage to filthy feet, some in the church may well have felt that Caravaggio had gone too far,

0:27:09.204,0:27:14.028
the dreaded word - indecent - began to crop up whenever his name was mentioned.

0:27:14.028,0:27:20.720
Perhaps that's why Giovanni Baglione, one of his imitators, got the plum job of painting the resurrection

0:27:20.720,0:27:26.600
in the new Jesuit church, and Caravaggio didn't.

0:27:26.600,0:27:32.759
Not long afterwards a poem did the rounds of Rome's rougher taverns.

0:27:32.759,0:27:41.928
>> Giovanni Baglioni, you are a know-nothing. Your pictures are just dogs.

0:27:41.928,0:27:52.438
You will not earn a brass farthing with them.

0:27:52.438,0:27:54.817
>> [laughing]

0:27:54.817,0:27:57.987
>> So you'll have to go 'round with your arse in the air,

0:27:57.987,0:28:07.880
>> [laughing] [Inaudible].

0:28:07.880,0:28:09.772
[drink pours]

0:28:09.833,0:28:14.601
>> Awfully sorry. I won't be able to join in with a chorus of praise,

0:28:14.601,0:28:18.923
but you are quite unworthy of the chain that you are wearing,

0:28:18.923,0:28:21.793
and a disgrace to painting.

0:28:21.793,0:28:24.061
>> Yes.

0:28:24.061,0:28:30.512
Whether the verses were written by Caravaggio or one of his pals we'll never know.

0:28:30.512,0:28:39.157
Baglioni sues for libel, and Caravaggio is arrested and thrown in jail.

0:28:39.157,0:28:51.845


0:28:51.845,0:28:57.690
The court record of the trial is the only time we hear Caravaggio's words directly.

0:28:57.690,0:29:02.455
>> Poems? What poems?

0:29:02.455,0:29:05.836
So they're read aloud to the whole court.

0:29:05.836,0:29:10.098
>> [laughing] Oh, those poems!

0:29:10.098,0:29:27.267


0:29:27.267,0:29:34.037
Months roll by, with Caravaggio still in jail.

0:29:34.037,0:29:42.912
Then, finally, without a verdict, he's released to house arrest.

0:29:42.912,0:29:46.708


0:29:46.708,0:29:54.374
If he leaves without written permission, he gets a stint rowing as a galley slave.

0:29:54.374,0:29:56.937
Does this stop him in his tracks?

0:29:56.937,0:30:03.105
Hardly.

0:30:05.921,0:30:15.566
>> Five hours after nightfall, Michelangelo de Caravaggio, carrying a sword and dagger, was brought in by my men.

0:30:15.566,0:30:23.273
When asked if he had a license he said yes, and presented it, so was dismissed.

0:30:23.273,0:30:30.302
I told him he could leave and said, "Good night, Sir," to which he replied, "Shove it up your arse."

0:30:30.302,0:30:37.271
So arrested him, since I could not tolerate such fee.

0:30:37.271,0:30:44.188


0:30:44.188,0:30:53.967
>> I was seized on the Corso outside the Church of St. Horatio, because I had a sword and a dagger.

0:30:53.967,0:31:00.169
I have no written license to carry a sword or a dagger.

0:31:00.169,0:31:12.120
However, the governor of Rome had given verbal orders to the captain and corporal

0:31:12.120,0:31:14.736
to let me carry them.

0:31:14.736,0:31:21.827
I have no other license.

0:31:21.827,0:31:26.020


0:31:26.020,0:31:32.685
Even his closest friends couldn't work out how the painter of religious marvels and the psycho

0:31:32.685,0:31:36.222
could inhabit the same person.

0:31:36.222,0:31:40.667
>> We're having dinner in the tavern of the mall,

0:31:40.667,0:31:42.349
>> And across the room was

0:31:42.349,0:31:44.575
>> Michelangelo de Caravaggio.

0:31:44.575,0:31:46.145
>> The famous painter.

0:31:46.145,0:31:49.548
>> He asked the waiter if the artichoke's been done in butter or oil.

0:31:49.548,0:31:53.241
>> Being on the same plate.

0:31:53.241,0:31:56.748
>> Reasonable question.

0:31:56.748,0:32:12.860
>> Are these done in oil or butter?

0:32:12.860,0:32:22.333
>> I don't know. Smell it yourself.

0:32:22.333,0:32:25.296
>> Do you think you're talking to some sort of bum?

0:32:25.296,0:32:26.922
[laughing]

0:32:26.922,0:32:32.247
[screaming]

0:32:32.247,0:32:42.351
>> Smell the artichoke! What does it smell like? Smell it! Smell it yourself, eh?

0:32:42.351,0:32:45.214
Smell the artichoke! Smell it!

0:32:45.214,0:32:47.299
Smell it!

0:32:47.299,0:32:56.908
>> Michelangelo took this somewhat amiss, and he says, "You've made a mistake, you damn cuckold, you think you're servin' some sort of bum!"

0:32:56.908,0:33:02.138
>> And he picked up the artichokes and he threw them at the waiter.

0:33:02.138,0:33:07.671
>> At no point did he take out a sword and threaten the waiter.

0:33:07.671,0:33:13.125
>> Smell it!

0:33:13.125,0:33:24.350
[gates closing]

0:33:26.920,0:33:31.831
Of course, Caravaggio doesn't just pick fights with people in restaurants,

0:33:31.831,0:33:39.547
He's fighting tradition, with painting past and present.

0:33:39.547,0:33:44.345
He lands a commission for the Church of Santa Maria, here in Trastevere.

0:33:44.345,0:33:46.818
It should have been right up his street.

0:33:46.818,0:33:49.327
One of the poorest areas of Rome.

0:33:49.327,0:33:52.078
At its heart was the Coat of the Virgin Mary,

0:33:52.078,0:33:55.281
to whom the women of the district fervently prayed

0:33:55.281,0:33:59.862
to cure the sick, make the barren fertile, and save the plague-stricken.

0:33:59.862,0:34:05.011
Who better than Caravaggio to paint the death of Mary?

0:34:05.011,0:34:09.915
According to Christian tradition, Mary's death wasn't a death at all,

0:34:09.915,0:34:13.649
but a sleep before her ascent to heaven.

0:34:13.649,0:34:19.055
Just as the conception and birth of her son had been a fleshless miracle,

0:34:19.055,0:34:23.733
so her death was a fleshless exit.

0:34:23.733,0:34:26.957
Well, Caravaggio didn't do fleshlessness.

0:34:26.957,0:34:28.521
He did flesh.

0:34:28.521,0:34:34.401
In this case, dead flesh.

0:34:34.401,0:34:38.122
That was the first thing the Carmelite sisters of the church noticed.

0:34:38.122,0:34:41.724
His Mary was dead.

0:34:41.724,0:34:46.876
Her skin was green, her body bloated under a screaming red dress.

0:34:46.876,0:34:52.039
Once that appalling shock had registered, worse was rumored.

0:34:52.039,0:34:55.966
That Caravaggio had taken a drowned whore from the morgue

0:34:55.966,0:35:01.714
and made her into the Madonna.

0:35:01.714,0:35:08.355
For me, this picture is the most moving of any painted of this scene.

0:35:08.355,0:35:12.887
The apostles brought to the death bed, heads bowed in sorrow.

0:35:12.887,0:35:24.388
Mary Magdalene crumpled with grief.

0:35:24.388,0:35:29.876
Of course, if the virgin's just having a nice snooze prior to the lift to paradise,

0:35:29.876,0:35:33.131
why should anyone be so distraught?

0:35:33.131,0:35:38.380
But the weight of grief here is measured by the sense of a real death.

0:35:38.380,0:35:43.711
It's a response not to immortality, but mortality.

0:35:43.711,0:35:47.458
Wherever Mary is going, she's leaving our world,

0:35:47.458,0:35:52.100
and that's reason enough to mourn.

0:35:52.100,0:35:57.022
Not everyone saw it that way, and once they got over their shock,

0:35:57.022,0:36:05.156
the Carmelite sisters who commissioned the painting gave it back.

0:36:05.156,0:36:13.612
[heavy breathing]

0:36:13.612,0:36:27.301
It must have been a bitter rejection, and it marks a major turning point.

0:36:30.055,0:36:37.450
From now on, Caravaggio was even quicker to take offense,

0:36:37.450,0:36:42.608
and his life was about to spiral into a series of disastrous encounters

0:36:42.608,0:36:50.539
that would culminate in an act of appalling bloodshed.

0:36:50.539,0:36:54.937


0:36:54.937,0:37:01.334
It all started with a woman. Her name was Lena, a real flesh-and-blood Roman beauty.

0:37:01.334,0:37:05.713
Much the most voluptuous of all of Caravaggio's models.

0:37:05.713,0:37:10.771
She'd also caught the eye of another man, Mariano Pasqualone.

0:37:10.771,0:37:14.082
So Pasqualone goes to see Lena's mama,

0:37:14.082,0:37:17.033
says he's in love, wants to marry her,

0:37:17.033,0:37:21.443
wants to make a respectable woman of her, and oh - by the way -

0:37:21.443,0:37:27.586
does she know what goes on in those long modeling sessions in Caravaggio's studio?

0:37:27.586,0:37:30.885
Mama goes to see the painter.

0:37:30.885,0:37:34.563
Doesn't take much to imagine what happens next.

0:37:34.563,0:37:41.092
Honor besmirched, Caravaggio explodes in fury, wants to challenge Pasqualone to a duel,

0:37:41.092,0:37:44.120
but the coward won't wear a sword by day.

0:37:44.120,0:37:48.402
There is a huge shouting match on the Corso.

0:37:48.402,0:37:54.567
That night, in the Piazza Novone, Pasqualone is attacked from behind.

0:37:54.567,0:38:02.527
Blood, screams. Victim miraculously still alive. Assailant flees into the darkness.

0:38:02.527,0:38:09.189
No one is in any doubt who it is.

0:38:09.189,0:38:19.364


0:38:19.364,0:38:28.583
By late May 1606, he's just a homicide waiting to happen.

0:38:30.983,0:38:35.721
[sword clanking]

0:38:35.721,0:38:46.329


0:38:46.329,0:38:54.377
[powerful music]

0:38:54.377,0:39:46.196
[heavy breathing]

0:39:46.196,0:39:55.350
[screaming]

0:39:55.350,0:40:16.457


0:40:16.457,0:40:24.696
And you think, well, it was always going to turn out badly, wasn't it?

0:40:24.696,0:40:34.305
Tomassoni's taken to his house, where he makes his final confession, and bleeds to death.

0:40:34.305,0:40:37.437


0:40:37.437,0:40:42.292
Wanted for murder, Caravaggio goes on the run.

0:40:42.292,0:40:46.795
In his absence he is sentenced to abande capitale.

0:40:46.795,0:40:50.073
There's a price on his head. Literally.

0:40:50.073,0:40:57.062
Show up with his head in a basket and you get the reward.

0:41:00.355,0:41:07.599
[rippling water]

0:41:07.599,0:41:33.923


0:41:33.923,0:41:39.799
Once again his network of patrons and admirers rallies round to keep him afloat.

0:41:39.799,0:41:43.708
Throughout the summer of 1606 they help him hide out,

0:41:43.708,0:41:54.273
and in return, sick and sober by what he's done, Caravaggio makes paintings.

0:41:54.273,0:41:56.841


0:41:56.841,0:42:05.678
Paintings that help him on his way far beyond the jurisdiction of the papal state.

0:42:05.678,0:42:13.540
Somewhere the police and bounty hunters won't find him.

0:42:16.493,0:42:20.374
Naples.

0:42:20.374,0:42:25.731
Here, in a city where cutting your throat is nothing to get worked up about

0:42:25.731,0:42:28.525
Caravaggio is a celebrity.

0:42:28.525,0:42:33.094
But his paintings are full of pity, tenderness, and mercy.

0:42:33.094,0:42:44.746
Hardly surprising, since as a murderer he knows his immortal soul is in grave danger.

0:42:57.194,0:43:04.330
A year goes by since the murder and escape from Rome.

0:43:04.330,0:43:09.491
The Neapolitans can't get enough of him.

0:43:09.491,0:43:13.165
Caravaggio is doing great work, and guess what?

0:43:13.165,0:43:18.616
No fights.

0:43:21.416,0:43:28.716
So why does he suddenly leave, and end up in Malta, of all places?

0:43:31.332,0:43:35.327
Not to be a crusader against the Turks, that's for sure.

0:43:35.327,0:43:46.323
But there was one thing that Malta, the Christian island in the Muslim Mediterranean, could give him which Naples couldn't -

0:43:46.323,0:43:52.886
Status. Respect. A knighthood.

0:43:52.886,0:43:57.134
One of his patrons makes the right noises, and introduces Caravaggio

0:43:57.134,0:44:00.911
to the Holy Order of the Knights of St. John.

0:44:00.911,0:44:05.002
One of most rich and powerful organizations in Europe.

0:44:05.002,0:44:09.041
Becoming a knight would mean not only honor and respect,

0:44:09.041,0:44:13.775
but also a chance to wipe the bloody slate of his past clean.

0:44:13.775,0:44:19.641
Now, normally being a convicted murderer would be an insurmountable obstacle to admission.

0:44:19.641,0:44:22.127
Not for Caravaggio.

0:44:22.127,0:44:29.560
On 14 July 1608 the robe with the Maltese Cross is put around the fugitive's shoulders,

0:44:29.560,0:44:38.676
and he is officially proclaimed one of the greatest of painters, living or dead.

0:44:38.676,0:44:46.468
[choral singing]

0:44:48.776,0:44:58.560
In exchange for all this, Caravaggio undertook a painting for the knights' cathedral.

0:45:00.914,0:45:05.787
You have to imagine this place filled with robes and incense,

0:45:05.787,0:45:11.932
and echoing with deep, dark anthems.

0:45:11.932,0:45:17.731


0:45:17.731,0:45:23.212
The beheading of John the Baptist is the biggest thing Caravaggio had ever done.

0:45:23.212,0:45:28.399
Seventeen feet long, filling the entire eastern wall of the oratory.

0:45:28.399,0:45:31.511
It's movie screen-sized.

0:45:31.511,0:45:41.896
He wanted the knights to feel it not as a painting, but as a living drama going on right in front of them.

0:45:44.312,0:45:47.591
No wonder it sends a shiver through us, this thing.

0:45:47.591,0:45:49.854
This infamous butchery.

0:45:49.854,0:45:55.992
Taking place in a grim prison yard, where the body of John the Baptist has been dragged

0:45:55.992,0:46:01.615
to have his head hacked off.

0:46:03.246,0:46:12.294
It's a scene of remorseless cruelty that tears your insides out and turns art upside down.

0:46:12.294,0:46:17.766
Art is supposed to bring us beauty, but just look at that semicircle of figures,

0:46:17.766,0:46:24.195
and you'll see something has gone terribly wrong.

0:46:24.195,0:46:33.907
That perfect lily-white arm carries the golden bowl into which the Baptist's head will drop.

0:46:33.907,0:46:37.798
The solemn soldier, the embodiment of authority,

0:46:37.798,0:46:42.349
is giving the order for an atrocity.

0:46:42.349,0:46:48.951
That perfect nude is a cold-blooded hit man with a knife.

0:46:48.951,0:46:51.848
The action seems to go on forever.

0:46:51.848,0:46:54.735
Until, like that anguished old woman,

0:46:54.735,0:46:59.131
all you can do is scream.

0:46:59.131,0:47:02.637
Caravaggio gives us death, twice over.

0:47:02.637,0:47:09.315
The death of John the Baptist, and the death of our most cherished illusion about art,

0:47:09.315,0:47:13.245
that it can make us finer, more humane.

0:47:13.245,0:47:15.832
"Dream on," says Caravaggio.

0:47:15.832,0:47:25.986
In the face of this barbaric power, all we can ever be are impotent spectators, just like those prisoners in the grim darkness,

0:47:25.986,0:47:32.421
screwing their necks to get a look.

0:47:32.421,0:47:37.833
It's this ruthless honesty that makes this such a modern work.

0:47:37.833,0:47:46.255
Art without any vision of consolation or redemption.

0:47:46.255,0:47:48.582
It's a chilling scene.

0:47:48.582,0:47:53.311
For me, it's about the most powerful statement an artist could possibly make

0:47:53.311,0:47:55.513
about the human condition.

0:47:55.513,0:47:58.946
About the brutality of state murder.

0:47:58.946,0:48:01.698
But it's also autobiography.

0:48:01.698,0:48:08.318
Caravaggio has signed this picture, writing his name in the blood of John the Baptist.

0:48:08.318,0:48:16.881
Only a guilt-stricken killer could possibly feel this desperately about wanting the violence to stop.

0:48:16.881,0:48:26.972
Only Caravaggio could want so badly for the blood of the martyr to wash away his crime.

0:48:26.972,0:48:32.882
[saintly singing]

0:48:35.267,0:49:00.392


0:49:00.392,0:49:04.297
Now it would be nice, wouldn't it, if that was the end of the story?

0:49:04.297,0:49:08.165
Outlaw painter redeemed by knockout masterpiece.

0:49:08.165,0:49:11.004
Art changed forever. Sinner saved.

0:49:11.004,0:49:15.552
But in Caravaggio's case, salvation doesn't come that easily.

0:49:15.552,0:49:23.046
The painter who wants violence to stop can't even control his own.

0:49:25.062,0:49:33.808
Barely a month after he's been admitted to the Order of St. John, Caravaggio's imprisoned for assaulting a brother knight.

0:49:33.808,0:49:38.886
But, incredibly, he manages to escape from his underground cell,

0:49:38.886,0:49:41.798
over the castle walls, and into a boat

0:49:41.798,0:49:49.414
which takes him to Sicily.

0:49:49.968,0:49:55.990
He returns to the safety of Naples, and it's here his enemies finally catch up with him.

0:49:55.990,0:49:58.403
He's jumped, leaving an inn,

0:49:58.403,0:50:04.743
his face and head slashed and gashed so badly, he's left for dead.

0:50:04.743,0:50:15.860


0:50:15.860,0:50:20.986
But he doesn't die, and in this, his darkest moment, recovering from his beating,

0:50:20.986,0:50:23.384
news reaches him from Rome.

0:50:23.384,0:50:28.613
The pope's nephew, Scipione Borghese, is arranging a pardon.

0:50:28.613,0:50:34.131
So Caravaggio sets about repaying him, the only way he can,

0:50:34.131,0:50:40.390
the only way he's ever got anywhere.

0:50:46.082,0:50:51.826
It's a self-portrait, unlike any painted before.

0:50:51.826,0:50:55.617
Usually when artists looked in the mirror they liked what they saw,

0:50:55.617,0:51:01.299
and what they saw were men, young or old, whose features were ennobled by their calling,

0:51:01.299,0:51:05.749
to bring virtue, beauty and grace into the world.

0:51:05.749,0:51:10.627
Now, look at Caravaggio.

0:51:10.627,0:51:14.615
A decapitated head. He's Goliath.

0:51:14.615,0:51:19.413
A bloody grotesque. A monster.

0:51:19.413,0:51:24.454
In the beheading of John the Baptist, evil was done by other people.

0:51:24.454,0:51:30.063
Here it's Caravaggio who's the embodiment of wickedness.

0:51:30.063,0:51:35.528
In this victory of virtue over evil, David is supposed to be the center of attention,

0:51:35.528,0:51:40.013
but have you ever seen a less jubilant victor?

0:51:40.013,0:51:47.045
On his sword is inscribed, "humilitas occidit superbiam", humility conquers pride.

0:51:47.045,0:51:56.503
A battle that's been fought out inside Caravaggio's head, between the two sides of the painter portrayed here.

0:51:56.503,0:51:59.853
There's the devout, courageous David Caravaggio,

0:51:59.853,0:52:03.981
and then there's the criminal sinner, Goliath Caravaggio.

0:52:03.981,0:52:09.148
"I know who I've been," says the pathetic head, unable to look us in the eyes,

0:52:09.148,0:52:16.072
"I know what I've done." It's a desolate vision, offered to us in utter blackness,

0:52:16.072,0:52:22.454
no virtue, no grace. Just the dark truth from the inside of Caravaggio's head,

0:52:22.454,0:52:27.295
flooded with tragic self-knowledge.

0:52:29.157,0:52:45.096


0:52:45.096,0:52:49.068
For me, the power of his art is the power of truth,

0:52:49.068,0:52:51.626
not least about ourselves.

0:52:51.626,0:52:54.948
For if we're ever to have a chance of redemption,

0:52:54.948,0:53:05.283
it must begin with an act of recognition that in all of us the Goliath competes with the David.

0:53:05.283,0:53:11.393
In July 1610, Caravaggio rolled up his paintings and set sail from Naples,

0:53:11.393,0:53:18.369
finally heading home.

0:53:18.369,0:53:29.589
Sailing north, his boat stopped at the tiny harbor of Parlo, on the coast just west of Rome.

0:53:29.589,0:53:33.936
Here, the local captain of the guard either hadn't heard about his pardon

0:53:33.936,0:53:36.755
or mistook him for some other fugitive.

0:53:36.755,0:53:40.006
Either way, he's thrown in jail.

0:53:40.006,0:53:46.457
By the time he's managed to pay his way out, his boat has sailed off, along with his paintings,

0:53:46.457,0:53:53.809
his offering to Borghese.

0:53:56.425,0:53:59.921
Desperate to catch up with his ship with its precious cargo,

0:53:59.921,0:54:11.926
Caravaggio sets off north towards Porto Ercole, 100 km through the malarial infested swamp country, the Miramar.

0:54:16.773,0:54:21.630
[trudging footsteps]

0:54:21.630,0:54:36.628


0:54:36.628,0:54:40.209
Here, the final disaster awaited.

0:54:40.209,0:54:47.734
In pathetic attempt to hail a ship, Caravaggio starts running along the beach under the broiling July sun

0:54:47.734,0:54:50.734
before collapsing in the sand.

0:54:50.734,0:54:57.082
By now he's suffering from a raging fever, and is taken to a local monastic hospital.

0:54:57.082,0:55:03.418
There, according to a contemporary report, without the aid of God or man,

0:55:03.418,0:55:09.677
he died, as miserably as he'd lived.

0:55:11.893,0:55:53.027


0:55:53.027,0:55:56.648
>> No!!!!!

0:55:57.725,0:56:04.169
It's sometime later that the pope's nephew, Scipione Borghese, finally receives the paintings

0:56:04.169,0:56:08.406
with which Caravaggio had hoped to win his pardon.

0:56:08.406,0:56:12.486
The cardinal finds himself face to face with the picture of the painter

0:56:12.486,0:56:15.547
as the slain Goliath.

0:56:15.547,0:56:17.874
The cardinal isn't used to this.

0:56:17.874,0:56:22.660
Artists had been given their gift by God to bring beauty into the world,

0:56:22.660,0:56:26.403
to put mortal creatures in touch with their higher selves.

0:56:26.403,0:56:29.170
That's the way it was supposed to be.

0:56:29.170,0:56:33.309
But Caravaggio never did anything the way it was supposed to be.

0:56:33.309,0:56:37.918
"Here I am," says this dead face which seems still alive,

0:56:37.918,0:56:44.342
"They said whoever delivers my head will get a reward. Well, I'm turning myself in.

0:56:44.342,0:56:47.571
Will that do? Can I have my reward?

0:56:47.571,0:56:49.974
Can I have my pardon?"

0:56:49.974,0:56:56.126
"Sorry," says the cardinal. "So sorry. You're too late."