Caravaggio (1986)
Director: Derek Jarman
Cast: Noam Almaz .... Boy Caravaggio, Dawn Archibald .... Pipo, Sean Bean .... Ranuccio, Jack Birkett .... The Pope, Sadie Corre .... Princess Collona, Una Brandon-Jones .... Weeping Woman, Imogen Claire .... Lady with the Jewels, Robbie Coltrane .... Scipione Borghese, Garry Cooper .... Davide, Lol Coxhill .... Old Priest, Nigel Davenport .... Giustiniani, Vernon Dobtcheff .... Art Lover, Terry Downes .... Bodyguard, Dexter Fletcher .... Young Caravaggio, Michael Gough .... Cardinal Del Monte.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Italian Baroque painter.
1571 (Sept. 28) – birth of Caravaggio in Milan. His father, Fermo Merisi, was a household administrator and architect-decorator to Francesco Sforza, Marchese of Caravaggio, a town 30 kilometers from Milan.
1576 – the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague.
1577 – Caravaggio’s father died. It is not know with certainty where Caravaggio grew up, perhaps in Caravaggio with some time in Milan. His family maintained their relations with the powerful Sforza and Colonna families, which were allied by marriage.
1584 – for 4 years, Caravaggio was an apprentice to painter Simone Peterzano of Milan (a pupil of Titian).
1592 (mid-year) – he moved to Rome with no money. He found some hack work for the commercially successful Giuseppe Cesari, Cavaliere d’Arpino, who was the favorite of Pope Clement VIII.
Some of his early paintings were Boy Peeling a Fruit; Boy with a Basket of Fruit, and Young Sick Bacchus.
The latter painting was of himself during a period of illness He lost his because of his long convalescence.
1594 (January) – Caravaggio left d’Arpino taking wit him the model (16-year old Mario Minniti) for the boy in his early paintings.
Caravaggio started painting scenes of Roman street life (sold through dealer Costantino): The Fortune Teller, The Cardsharps; and Fortune Teller.
His paintings gained him the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome. Caravaggio shared an apartment with his model Minniti in the cardinal’s Palazzo Madama.
What followed were intimate chamber-pieces: The Musicians, The Lute Player, Bacchus, and Boy Bitten by a Lizard, all featuring quite a few boy models, including Minniti.
He turned back to a more realist style with his religious pictures: Penitent Magdalene, featuring Mary Magdalene, Saint Catherine, Martha and Mary Magdalene, Judith Beheading Holofernes, Sacrifice of Isaac, Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, and Rest on the Flight into Egypt.
1599 – Caravaggio got a commission to paint the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi.
1600 – Caravaggio created a sensation with the resultant Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Many praised him as the savior of art.
Caravaggio did, however, have some critics. Many thought his painting too realistic and therefore "vulgar". Some patrons had him repaint his paintings.
1601 – a wealthy jurist commissioned a painting for his private chapel in the new Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Scala. What resulted was Death of the Virgin.
1602-1603 – Amour Victorious.
1606 – the painting Death of the Virgin was rejected by the Carmelites on the grounds that Caravaggio had used a well-known prostitute as his model for the Virgin and/or because Mary's legs were bare legs. Or maybe it was a theological objections: that the painting did not assert the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, that is, the idea that the Mother of God did not die in the ordinary sense but was assumed into Heaven.
The Duke of Mantua, responding to Rubens’s advice, purchased Death of the Virgin.
Caravaggio led a quite wild life. Today we might say he had quite a rap sheet. He would get into trouble especially for brawling.
1606 (May 29) – he killed the young man called Ranuccio Tomassoni. Caravaggio fled to Naples. There he was given sanctuary by the powerful Colonna family. The Colonnas even got him important church commissions, including the Madonna of the Rosary and The Seven Works of Mercy.
1606 – after just a few months in Naples, Caravaggio left for Malta. It is thought he was seeking the help of Alof de Wignacourt in order to secure a pardon for Tomassoni's death. De Wignacourt inducted Caravaggio as a knight into the Knights of Malta.
Some of the paintings from this period were Beheading of Saint John the Baptist and Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page.
1608 (August) – Caravaggio was arrested and imprisoned for still another brawl in which a knight was seriously wounded.
Caravaggio moved on to Sicily (along with Mario Minniti, now married and living in Syracuse). They toured from Syracuse to Messina and on to Palermo. Despite his troubles, Caravaggio continued to obtain commissions. Some of the paintings of this period were a Burial of St. Lucy, The Raising of Lazarus, and an Adoration of the Shepherds.
1608 (December) – Caravaggio was expelled from the Order of Malta "as a foul and rotten member."
Caravaggio was becoming quite paranoid. He slept in his regular clothes while being fully armed. He learned that he was being pursued and felt he had to get out of Sicily. He returned to Naples after only nine months. He hoped the Colonnas would help him earn his padron from Pope Paul V.
In Naples he painted The Denial of Saint Peter, John the Baptist (Borghese), and The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula.
1610 (summer) – due to his powerful Roman friends, Caravaggio thought he was going to get his pardon via Cardinal Scipione. He took a boat to receive the pardon.
1610 (July 28) – a private newsletter from Rome reported that Caravaggio was dead. The cause of death is not know, but the most probable cause seems to be that he died of a fever July 18.
1610 (July 18) – death of Caravaggio.
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