I must assume you have read the newspaper accounts that related the full story of that villain “Roero,” whose departure from this world will apparently have to count as the best happy ending we can manage for our story.
The letter trembled in her hand. “Happy ending.” Moto loved happy endings. She could feel the tears gathering, but she was not going to cry. She had already cried too much. Besides, Moto’s happy ending was that she was going to be his very special American friend. And she was. She always would be. And now she was crying. She forced herself to stop and looked back to the letter.
But I expect that you have not heard anything relating to the report I recently received from a scholar who was scheduled to make a presentation at the Palo symposium about the document that had been retrieved from its hiding place on the back of our painting after nearly half a millennium of concealment, only to be destroyed in the Posta Vecchia cataclysm.
Sadly for him, an unpublished paper on a now-destroyed document involving a destroyed painting of still slightly questionable provenance (though we know better, you and I, don’t we?) has a very limited audience. In this case, that audience consisted, in its entirety, of Aristotle Rafael Richman, which is to say, me.
Still, as far as I was concerned, he did reveal some fascinating information about the document.
Having studied it in detail, he had no doubt that it was authentic—after a fashion. That is to say, it was contemporary with the painting itself; however, he was equally certain that it had not been actually written by our relatively unlettered friend, Michele. The handwriting in the document was far too educated to have been inscribed by our friend. The tone and vocabulary, however, seem likely to have been entirely Michele’s. (And we all know that he was quite capable of getting others to wield a pen on his behalf.)
The document consisted almost entirely of a savage attack on an unnamed “cavaliere,” accusing him of blasphemy, sodomy, devil worship, and other “unspeakable practices.” (Although one wonders what practices Michele would have considered “unspeakable.”)
The key passages, our frustrated scholar said, referred back to the painting itself. They declared that the face of Judas was a portrayal of pure evil and that no one could fail to recognize the sodomite he portrayed.
With the painting destroyed, of course, that portrait will never be certainly known, but I would think you and I can agree there is very little doubt that it was Cavaliere Giovanni Rodomonte Roero.
I refrained from discussing this with the presenter—it was late, I was tired, and I feel that you and I should do our little bit to cleanse the world of the final traces of the nasty feud between Roero and Caravaggio.
May Michele’s troubled soul finally rest in peace.
And if you will forgive a moment of sentiment from an old man, I will close by saying, Mi manchi. I miss you. E mi manca anche Moto. And I miss Moto too.
May his heroic soul rest in peace as well.
She put the letter down.
And she sat for a long time, looking out the window at that endless stream of life surging past, vivid and unstoppable.
Chapter 59
Roma
1610
Cecco laid the calla lilies at the head of Lena’s grave.
Lena.
“He’s dead now too,” he whispered. “Though no one knows how or where he is buried. All we hear are lies and rumors. I don’t believe any of the tales they tell.”
The wind rustled in the ancient poplars standing sentinel over the Roman cemetery. Cecco lifted his eyes to the quivering leaves, the sunset coloring the tombstones in a golden light, sifting through the shadow of the trees.
Cecco stifled a sob.
He told me that a true artist has no need for friends, only inspiration.
Perhaps I am becoming an artist. For I have never been as lonely as I am tonight.
Cecco rearranged the lilies on Lena’s grave and said a silent prayer. Then he rose from his knees, brushed the dirt from his trousers, and walked back into the raucous streets of Roma.
Epilogue
COMUNE DI PRIZZI, SICILY
The weathered trees still stand guard over the hillside. The cemetery in their care has a fresh grave, but it makes no difference to the trees. There have always been fresh graves. Though many fewer now than in decades past. The old keep dying, as they always have, but fewer die young, and still fewer stay to grow old and die in their turn, as the old ways fade and the hill towns empty.
Today, just one man stands, on a rise beyond the spears of the iron fence, looking down at the graves. At the new grave. He is dressed in the somber suit of a businessman, a successful businessman. He has cried. But not today.
His lips tighten. Is there a hint of pride? Now he speaks, almost silently. One would have to stand very close to hear what he says. Perhaps it is only this: “Figghiu meu.” My son.
He closes his eyes for a moment, then turns and walks back down the hill to the village.
It is not his home.
But he is family.
Historical Note
In telling the story of Caravaggio’s life, we have compressed the timeline of his paintings and life events to give a flow to the story. Similarly, we made the decision to house Caravaggio at 19 Vicolo dei Santi Cecilia e Biagio, even though we were aware that he lived in several other residences in Campo Marzio after leaving Palazzo Madama. Some dates are slightly modified for the flow of the narrative, e.g., the date of Pope Paul’s accession.
For the reader’s information, Rome during the seventeenth century was a notoriously dangerous city, particularly at night. Language in the streets and taverns was particularly lewd, as evidenced in the slanderous poem penned by Caravaggio and friends. The population was predominantly male, with a great number of prostitutes among the city’s women, especially on the Via di Ripetta and in the Campo Marzio neighborhood in general.
Life for a prostitute was hard, and many died young. Anna (Annunccia) Bianchini died in 1604, long before Caravaggio left for Malta. One historical record claims that she drowned (and was possibly murdered) in the Tiber River. Some sources conjecture that Caravaggio visited the mortuary, using Anna’s corpse as a study for The Death of the Virgin.
Fillide Melandroni, on the other hand, was a shrewd courtesan who lived to the ripe old age of thirty-seven, dying in 1618.
Lena Antognetti, as portrayed in the book, died before Caravaggio.
Cecco (Francesco Boneri) became an artist of note, in both Rome and Tuscany. At least one of his paintings, a self-portrait, hangs in the Uffizi in Florence. Also, his painting The Resurrection is located in the Art Institute of Chicago, while his Christ Chasing the Money Changers from the Temple is in Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Cecco’s style imitated Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro, but his vision was his own.
Caravaggio was a genius, though his conduct in Rome—and possibly before his arrival there—qualified him as a notorious thug. According to records, he was arrested fourteen times and imprisoned six.
Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, Caravaggio’s friend and coauthor of the libelous poem, became perhaps the best-known woman painter in Italian history. Her style was greatly inspired by Caravaggio’s . . . and she is the protagonist of Linda’s next novel.
The last record of Caravaggio was at Palo—beyond that, no one knows what became of him, though there are many speculations. Scipione Borghese recovered at least one of the paintings, St. John the Baptist, from the Knights of Malta after the knights confiscated them from the home of Marchesa Colonna in Naples in 1610.
Acknowledgments
In writing this novel, we relied heavily on research contained in these brilliant books: M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio by Peter Robb and Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham-Dixon. We also appreciated the insights of the following books: Caravaggio: A Life by Helen Langdon; Caravaggio: The Artist and His Work by Sybille Ebert-Schifferer; Caravaggio: The Complete Works by Sebastian Schütze; Caravaggi
o: The Art of Realism by John Varriano; Caravaggio: Art, Knighthood, and Malta by Keith Sciberras and David M. Stone; and The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders by Desmond Seward.
We also read many documents and websites both in Italian and in English to give us insight into seventeenth-century Rome, Naples, and Malta. Thank you to Lucia Caretto, who helped us translate the Italian documents and understand their contents.
Also our thanks to:
In Rome: Dottora Isabella Botti and Francesco Apice of Rome Walking Tours.
In Naples: Vincenzo Pauciullo of Mondo Guide and especially our guide Vincenzo Russo.
In Malta: Joan and Chris Sheridan and our incredible guide Mario Falzon. We are grateful for your insight into the Knights of Malta and especially Caravaggio. Also thanks to Marius Zerafa for sharing his tremendous knowledge of Caravaggio both in articles and through social media. Father Marius Zerafa, a Maltese priest, risked his life to rescue a Caravaggio painting from the Mafia.
Our special gratitude is reserved for our editor, Danielle Marshall, who championed our manuscript and shepherded it from first draft through production. Thank you, Danielle. So much.
David Downing led us around our own self-inflicted land mines and safely out the other side. Thank you, David, for your guidance—and deft demolition—in escaping that treacherous field. It was a pleasure working with you.
Michelle Hope Anderson rigorously researched every character and event of our novel for continuity, consistency, and historical accuracy, even though this is a work of fiction. Any errors—or fictions—are entirely our doing. (We are novelists, after all.)
Nick Allison, thank you for guiding us through the proofreading stage.
To Nicole Pomeroy and the entire production team—our gratitude for overseeing every step of the manuscript’s development. (What a staggering amount of work.)
A special note of gratitude to our agents, Deborah Schneider of Gelfman Schneider/ICM Partners and Victoria Skurnick of Levine, Greenberg, Rostan Literary Agency. We’d be lost without you.
And on a very personal level, our thanks to the following people for their support (moral, physical, and emotional) in the writing of this book: Sarah Kennedy Flug, a great friend who cheered us on and provided special shelter, places to hide away and write; Lucia Caretto, a source of knowledge and inspiration on the Italian language and the Italian spirit; Bridget Strang and the Strang Ranch; Maree McAteer; Emily Longfellow; Natasha Riviera; Sandy MacKay; and Dave Mortell, who saved Linda’s life one evening, for which we will always be deeply grateful.
And first and last, special thanks to Linda’s sister Nancy Elisha, who is always a first reader and enthusiastic supporter of our writing.
About the Authors
Photo © 2015 Roger Adams
Linda Lafferty is the author of The Bloodletter’s Daughter, House of Bathory, The Girl Who Fought Napoleon, and the Colorado Book Award winners The Drowning Guard and The Shepherdess of Siena. She holds a doctorate in bilingual special education and taught in Spain for three years. She is an avid equestrian and horse lover.
Andy Stone worked for thirty-five years for the Aspen Times as a reporter, editor, award-winning columnist, and eventually, the publisher of the newspaper. He is the author of the novels Song of the Kingdom and Aspen Drift.
Linda Lafferty and Andy Stone had their first date on the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado. They were married in 1986 and still live in the Roaring Fork Valley.
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