Rebuilding The Renaissance Rocky Ruggiero

After spending some time in Siracusa, Sicily, Caravaggio – still on the run from the Knights of Malta - headed north to the town of Messina. There he painted another of his hauntingly beautiful late works, which, in this case, depicts Christ bringing Lazarus back from the dead. The disturbingly realistic figure of the dead Lazarus led to the popular belief that Caravaggio had exhumated a corpse to serve as his model.

After his daring escape from the island of Malta, Caravaggio went to Siracusa, Siscily. There he painted one of his most haunting works – the “Burial of St. Lucy.” An oppressive yellowish light illuminates the macabre burial of the early Christian martyr whose head almost looks detached from its body.

After having been invested into the Knights of Malta and producing two of his most beautiful paintings while he was on the island, Caravaggio finally seemed to have cleaned up his act. But, on the night of August 28, 1608, Caravaggio was involved in a near fatal assault on a superior officer and imprisoned. After a daring escape from Malta, Caravaggio now found himself a fugitive from justice twice over. Discover what went wrong in this episode!

While in Malta in 1608, Caravaggio painted one of his most sensational paintings – “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.” Measuring 12ft. (3.7n) x 17ft. (5.2m), the massive oil on canvas work depicts the moment after the executioner had used his sword to decapitate the Baptist. We now see him reaching for his knife to complete the gruesome act, and perhaps even more gruesomely, Caravaggio has used the blood of the Baptist to add his own signature to the painting.

Caravaggio, still a fugitive from justice, left Naples for Malta in the second half of 1607 most likely because the sensational paintings he produced in Naples were drawing too much attention to him. When he arrived in Malta, he was inducted into the brotherhood and apparently changed his ways. One of the paintings that he produced while in Malta was his beautiful “Sleeping Cupid,” (today in the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy) which reminded its patron of his vow of chastity.

Painted in 1607 while Caravaggio was in Naples, Italy, trying to elude the long arm of papal law for the murder he committed in Rome, the “Madonna of the Rosary” is Caravaggio’s most standard Baroque painting. While the patron is unknown, curiously, the painting went up for sale a few months after being completed perhaps indicating an unsatisfied client.