CAPTIONED ONLY FROM 50:43 TO END OF VIDEO
-[narrator] It's a self-portrait unlike any painted before.
Usually when artists looked in the mirror,
they liked what they saw,
and what they saw were men, young or old,
whose features were ennobled by their calling
to bring virtue, beauty, and grace into the world.
Now, look at Caravaggio.
A decapitated head is Goliath, bloody, grotesque, a monster.
In The Beheading of John the Baptist, evil was done by other people.
Here it's Caravaggio who's the embodiment of wickedness.
In this victory of virtue over evil,
David is supposed to be the center of attention,
but have you ever seen a less jubilant victor?
On his sword is inscribed humilitas occidit superbiam,
"humility conquers pride,"
a battle that's been fought out inside Caravaggio's head
between the two sides of the painter portrayed here.
There's the devout, courageous David Caravaggio,
and then there's the criminal sinner, Goliath Caravaggio.
"I know who I've been," says a pathetic head,
unable to look us in the eyes. "I know what I've done."
It's a desolate vision, offered to us in utter blackness.
No virtue, no grace,
just the dark truth in the inside of Caravaggio's head,
flooded with tragic self-knowledge.
[♪ pensive music ♪]
For me, the power of his art is the power of truth,
not least about ourselves.
For if we're ever to have a chance of redemption,
it must begin with an act of recognition that in all of us,
the Goliath competes with the David.
In July 1610, Caravaggio rolled up his paintings
and set sail for Naples, finally heading home.
[♪ hopeful music ♪ ]
Sailing north, his boat stopped at the tiny harbor of Palo,
on the coast just west of Rome.
[door clangs shut]
Here the local captain of the guard either hadn't heard about his pardon,
or mistook him for some other fugitive.
Either way, he's thrown in jail.
By the time he's managed to pay his way out,
his boat has sailed off along with his paintings,
his offering to Borghese.
[♪ somber chorus ♪]
Desperate to catch up with his ship with its precious cargo,
Caravaggio sets off north towards Porto Ercole,
a hundred kilometers through the malarial
infested swamp country, the Maremma.
[♪ grim music ♪]
Here, the final disaster awaited.
In a pathetic attempt to hail a ship,
Caravaggio starts running along the beach
under the broiling July sun before collapsing in the sand.
By now he's suffering from a raging fever,
and is taken to a local monastic hospital.
There, according to a contemporary report,
without the aid of God or man, he died, as miserably as he'd lived.
[♪ grim music ♪]
[no spoken audio]
-Nooo!
-It's sometime later that the Pope's nephew, Scipione Borghese,
finally receives the paintings with which Caravaggio had hoped to win his pardon.
The Cardinal finds himself face to face with the picture
of the painter as the slain Goliath.
The Cardinal isn't used to this.
Artists have been given their gift by God
to bring beauty into the world,
to put mortal creatures in touch with their higher selves.
That's the way it was supposed to be,
but Caravaggio never did anything the way it was supposed to be.
"Here I am," says this dead face, which seems still alive.
"They said whoever delivers my head will get a reward.
"Well, I'm turning myself in. Will that do?
"Can I have my reward? Can I have my pardon?"
"Sorry," says the Cardinal. "So sorry-- you're too late."
[♪ pensive music ♪]