XXI
Caravaggio spent the summer of 1606 in the hills east of Rome. He was perfectly safe, hidden away in the strongholds of people who could be trusted. But he dared not forget for a moment that he was an outlaw on the run and a bounty would be paid for his head.
There is no record of where he first found shelter’ after escaping from Rome at the end of May. He seems to have gone north, though not in the direction expected by the sbirri. Leaving no trace, he disappeared northeastward into the Sabine Hills, staying in impregnable mountaintop castles, and then, quite soon, moved farther south. Probably, he was never more than thirty miles from Rome. The Marchesa di Caravaggio, or someone close to her, had swiftly found secure refuges for him, in particular at her Colonna kinsmen’s hill towns of Palestrina, Zagarolo, and Paliano. It is also likely that some of his patrons—del Monte, the Giustiniani brothers, Ottavio Costa, and perhaps even Scipione Borghese—provided him with money.
Luckily, he had had plenty of opportunity to renew his acquaintance with the Marchesa Costanza. Since the jubilee of 1600, she had often been in Rome, staying with her family at the Palazzo Colonna in the Piazza Santi Apostoli, where he must have visited her. If she was away at the time of the Tommasoni duel, in Lombardy or at her new palace in Naples, her family could be relied on to help him, fulfilling a feudal obligation to the son of a valued retainer.
Modern roads have brought the Colonna hill towns within a short drive of Rome, but in those days they were dauntingly remote, approached with difficulty along steep mountain paths. During his summer in exile, a forlorn Caravaggio must have ridden from one to another. Naturally, he took very good care to conceal his tracks, so that no record of his itinerary survives. What little we know about his movements has been confused by Mancini and Bellori, who both claim, mistakenly, that he began by hiding at Zagarolo. In reality, his first refuge was probably Palestrina, where his host may have been the new bishop, Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, the marchesa’s nephew.
An English tourist, Augustus Hare, visited Palestrina in the 1870s, when it still looked much the same as it had in Caravaggio’s day. The huge castle where he stayed was high on a bare hillside where, says Hare, “the sun beats so pitilessly upon its white rocks that it is best to put off the ascent till near sunset.” From the summit, Rome and the sea could be seen. Just below the castle was a squalid village, where, according to local legend, St. Peter had lived for a while as a hermit. The town beneath was full of Roman remains, with fragments of classical pillars in every house. It had a minute piazza and a small cathedral. The plain below, Hare recalled, was so rich that it looked like a vast garden of fruit trees. Baglione tells us that Caravaggio painted a Mary Magdalene at Palestrina. Only copies survive. They show the Magdalen as penitent and exhausted, rather than ecstatic, no doubt the painter’s own frame of mind.
Zagarolo, a mere twenty-one miles from Rome, sounds more comfortable. Only a few years before, the palace had hosted a papal commission working on the text of the Vulgate. Mancini says that here Caravaggio “was secretly entertained by the Prince.” This was the marchesa’s cousin, Don Marzio Colonna, Duke of Zagarolo. Although a great Roman noble who lived in splendor, he was bankrupt, a victim of inflation. His reputation was slightly sinister. He had had close links with the Cenci; the castle where Count Francesco was murdered belonged to him, while Giacomo Cenci’s decision to kill his father may have been prompted by being in debt to the duke. He was also a man of taste, a collector of Antique sculpture. He may be the donor in his guest’s Madonna of the Rosary, bald, wary-eyed, and commanding. To produce such a likeness, Caravaggio must have met him several times.
Mancini and Bellori state that while Caravaggio was at Zagarolo he painted his second Christ at Emmaus. Subtler than the first version, the wise and sensitive Christ is most impressive, while the old woman holding a dish is almost as memorable. Nobody seeing her at the Brera in Milan can deny Caravaggio’s compassion for the poor and weak. Mancini believed that the Supper at Emmaus was bought by Ottavio Costa, who somehow kept in touch.
It is possible that Caravaggio painted other pictures during his time in the hills. Painting was his only cure for loneliness. Apart from one or two Colonna retainers, the company consisted of peasants, whom Hare described two and a half centuries later as “savage, lawless, violent and avaricious.” Ahead lay the dismal prospect of autumn rain and winter snow. He had to move on, and the obvious place to go was Naples.
Even before his flight from Rome, he may have discussed entering the Order of Malta with a senior knight, Fra’ Ippolito Malaspina, Prior of Naples. Fra’ Ippolito had come to Rome in 1603, to take command of the pope’s galleys, and became a prominent figure at the papal court, his dress as a Grand Cross making him an eye-catching figure. Another contact among the Knights was Fra’ Ainolfo Bardi, who acted as Caravaggio’s surety after the Baglione case. The Giustiniani brothers had a cousin in the Order, Fra’ Orazio Giustiniani, while the Marchesa Costanza had a son who was a knight.
More than mere social climbing was involved in Caravaggio’s decision to enter the order. Joining meant becoming a monk as well as a knight, and he must have known that he would have to make real sacrifices. It is quite possible he was moved by a desire to atone for his disreputable life, a desire reinforced after the killing of Ranuccio Tomassoni.
His ambition to become a Knight of Malta was apparently his main reason for going to Naples, where he could discuss the idea further and, hopefully, take ship for Malta. He may have heard that Fra’ Ippolito was leaving Rome and returning to his priory. He would also be able to find commissions for pictures, ammassing funds to finance his new life in the order.
Reaching Naples would not be easy. The usual route from Rome went along the Via Appia, through the Campagna with its ruined aqueducts and haunted tombs, through the malarial Pontine marshes to Terracina, and from there through Formia, Gaeta, and Capua. But although it was the main road and the most used, it was notoriously unsafe. Fynes Moryson, who went this way in 1594, says that for fear of the banditti, no one would risk making the journey alone but rode beside the mail coach, which was always escorted by sixty mounted musketeers. Travelers had to rise before dawn, not daring to go any faster than the coach and the mule train that accompanied it. When an inn came in sight, the musketeers let them gallop ahead and “eat a morsell, or rather devoure it,” but as soon as the coach caught up, they had to remount. Captured bandits were beheaded and quartered on the spot; while their heads were sent to Rome to get the bounty, their quarters were hung from trees by the roadside, a sight that added nothing to the gaiety of the journey. More than once, banditti managed to overwhelm the musketeers, robbing and killing the travelers.
At the end of September or beginning of October, 1608, Caravaggio left his final refuge in the Roman hills. This was the castle at Paliano, even more inaccessible than Palestrina and Zagarolo, whose walls made it seem still grimmer when seen from far below. The town’s feudal lord was the young Don Filippo Colonna, Duke of Paliano, another of the marchesa’s nephews. Caravaggio may have traveled to Naples with the mail coach; he could have done so in disguise, joining the coach after it had left Rome. It is more likely, however, that he took some lonely road through the hills, although he would have been in scarcely less danger from banditti, who were everywhere. Anxious to be rid of such a well-known fugitive, Don Filippo or his steward may have given him an escort of Colonna men at arms.
Despite managing to avoid the bandits, Caravaggio had every reason to feel apprehensive when he came in sight of the largest and most sinister city in Christendom. Just what sort of a welcome was an outlaw going to receive? Although he had powerful friends in Naples, the Neapolitans might arrest and execute him as a murderer, and claim the money for his head.