Caravaggio's paintings began to obsessively depict severed heads, often his own, at this time. The model was named in a memoir of the early 17th century as "Cecco", the diminutive for Francesco. [92][93], Following the theft, Italian police set up an art theft task force with the specific aim of re-acquiring lost and stolen art works. [70] By the late nineteenth century, Sir Richard Francis Burton identified the painting as Caravaggio's painting of St. Rosario. The quotation originates in, Robb, p. 79. Among other works from this period are Burial of St. Lucy, The Raising of Lazarus, and Adoration of the Shepherds. In 1603, he was arrested again, this time for the defamation of another painter, Giovanni Baglione, who sued Caravaggio and his followers Orazio Gentileschi and Onorio Longhi for writing offensive poems about him. "[23], Caravaggio went on to secure a string of prestigious commissions for religious works featuring violent struggles, grotesque decapitations, torture and death, most notable and most technically masterful among them The Taking of Christ of circa 1602 for the Mattei Family, recently[when?] [39] The Seven Works of Mercy depicts the seven corporal works of mercy as a set of compassionate acts concerning the material needs of others. "Because!" Caravaggio was sentenced to beheading for murder, and an open bounty was decreed enabling anyone who recognized him to legally carry the sentence out. But he certainly had female lovers. Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi or Amerighi) was born in Milan, where his father, Fermo (Fermo Merixio), was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio, a town 35 km to the east of Milan and south of Bergamo. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons. "Caravaggio. [11], In 2005, Mafia member Francesco Marino Mannoia told investigators that he was involved in the theft. [1] Its value has been variously estimated at US$20 million[7] and £20 million;[8] however, black market resale values are typically significantly less than fair market prices, perhaps a tenth of its estimated value. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. The Baroque, to which he contributed so much, had evolved, and fashions had changed, but perhaps more pertinently Caravaggio never established a workshop as the Carracci did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. "[63] Francesco Susino in his later biography additionally relates the story of how the artist was chased by a school-master in Sicily for spending too long gazing at the boys in his care. [62] The model of Amor vincit omnia, Cecco di Caravaggio, lived with the artist in Rome and stayed with him even after he was obliged to leave the city in 1606, and the two may have been lovers. [73], Baglione's painting of "Divine Love" has also been seen as a visual accusation of sodomy against Caravaggio. [5], In 2009, Mafia informant Gaspare Spatuzza told authorities that when he was in prison with Mafia member Filippo Graviano in 1999, Graviano told him the painting was destroyed in the 1980s. There is no absolute proof of it, only strong circumstantial evidence and much rumour. [94] Former mafia members have said that the Nativity was damaged and has since been destroyed. [50] In Naples he painted The Denial of Saint Peter, a final John the Baptist (Borghese), and his last picture, The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula. Caravaggio, outlawed, fled to Naples. "[69] The phrase, according to Mirabeau, entered Caravaggio's thoughts, and he claimed that such an "abomination" could be witnessed through a particular painting housed at the Museum of the Grand Duke of Tuscany—featuring a rosary of a blasphemous nature, in which a circle of thirty men (turpiter ligati) are intertwined in embrace and presented in unbridled composition. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.[3][4][5]. [1][8] A Carabinieri art protection unit in Rome believed Mannoia was recalling a different painting and devised another theory. The young artist arrived in Rome "naked and extremely needy... without fixed address and without provision... short of money. Bibliografia. [29] The replacement altarpiece commissioned (from one of Caravaggio's most able followers, Carlo Saraceni), showed the Virgin not dead, as Caravaggio had painted her, but seated and dying; and even this was rejected, and replaced with a work showing the Virgin not dying, but ascending into Heaven with choirs of angels. Quoted without attribution in Robb, p.35, apparently based on the three primary sources, Mancini, Baglione and Bellori, all of whom depict Caravaggio's early Roman years as a period of extreme poverty (see references below). "[12] During this period he stayed with the miserly Pandolfo Pucci, known as "monnsignor Insalata". Il Caravaggio nasce a Milano verso il 1571, la data non è sicura. Michelangelo Merisi, auch Michael Angelo Merigi, nach dem Herkunftsort seiner Eltern (Caravaggio in der Lombardei) kurz Caravaggio [karaˈvadd͡ʒo] genannt (* 29. The Death of the Virgin, commissioned in 1601 by a wealthy jurist for his private chapel in the new Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Scala, was rejected by the Carmelites in 1606. Caravaggio's innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the Baroque incorporated the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism. Caravaggio's contemporary Giulio Mancini records that it was rejected because Caravaggio had used a well-known prostitute as his model for the Virgin. [37][38] Previously, his high-placed patrons had protected him from the consequences of his escapades, but this time they could do nothing. [2] The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) listed it among their "Top Ten Art Crimes" in 2005. Reports stated that he died of a fever, but suggestions have been made that he was murdered or that he died of lead poisoning. La Natività di Palermo. 0 Commenti Lascia una risposta. Baglione's Caravaggio phase was short-lived; Caravaggio later accused him of plagiarism and the two were involved in a long feud. September 1571 in Mailand; † 18. M. Cuppone, Caravaggio.La Natività di Palermo: un quadro del 1600 o 1609?, www.news-art.it, dicembre 2015 2 La 'vulgata' tramandata a partire da alcune biografie La prima testimonianza letteraria di un passaggio di Caravaggio da Palermo è del biografo Giovanni Baglione (1642) che, dopo aver descritto la fuga da Malta, scrive: «arrivato all'Isola di Sicilia operò authenticated and restored; it had been in storage in Hampton Court, mislabeled as a copy. No such painting appears in his or his school's catalogues. The Fortune Teller, his first composition with more than one figure, shows a boy, likely Minniti, having his palm read by a gypsy girl, who is stealthily removing his ring as she strokes his hand. The body of Lazarus is still in the throes of rigor mortis, but his hand, facing and recognising that of Christ, is alive. "The earliest account of Caravaggio in Rome" Sandro Corradini and Maurizio Marini, Floris Claes van Dijk, a contemporary of Caravaggio in Rome in 1601, quoted in John Gash, "Caravaggio", p. 13. Several contemporary avvisi referred to a quarrel over a gambling debt and a pallacorda game, a sort of tennis; and this explanation has become established in the popular imagination. [2] The completed replica was hung in the altar on December 12, 2015. In 1609 he returned to Naples, where he was involved in a violent clash; his face was disfigured and rumours of his death circulated. [94], The whereabouts of the artwork are still unknown. He settled with no one... [but] the idea that he was an early martyr to the drives of an unconventional sexuality is an anachronistic fiction.[63]. Prenota Hotel Caravaggio, Roma.Assistenza Clienti - tutti i giorni 24h. The conservative art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon has summarised the debate: A lot has been made of Caravaggio's presumed homosexuality, which has in more than one previous account of his life been presented as the single key that explains everything, both the power of his art and the misfortunes of his life. "Is the horse God?" In Naples, outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities and protected by the Colonna family, the most famous painter in Rome became the most famous in Naples. With The Resurrection of Lazarus, he goes a step further, giving us a glimpse of the actual physical process of resurrection. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. It was moved from boss to boss, including Rosario Riccobono, eventually reaching the hands of Gerlando Alberti. "Most famous painter in Rome" (1600–1606), Legal Problems and Flight from Rome (1606). Caravaggio's gravest problem began on 29 May 1606, when he killed Ranuccio Tommasoni, a gangster from a wealthy family, in a duel with swords at Campo Marzio. Costanza's brother Ascanio was Cardinal-Protector of the Kingdom of Naples; another brother, Marzio, was an advisor to the Spanish Viceroy; and a sister was married into the important Neapolitan Carafa family. The first of these was the Penitent Magdalene, showing Mary Magdalene at the moment when she has turned from her life as a courtesan and sits weeping on the floor, her jewels scattered around her. [59], Since the 1970s art scholars and historians have debated the inferences of homoeroticism in Caravaggio's works as a way to better understand the man. With this came the acute observation of physical and psychological reality that formed the ground both for his immense popularity and for his frequent problems with his religious commissions. Investigators believe the painting changed hands among the Sicilian Mafia in the decades following the robbery and may still be hidden. [17] At this point he forged some extremely important friendships, with the painter Prospero Orsi, the architect Onorio Longhi, and the sixteen-year-old Sicilian artist Mario Minniti. These connections are treated in most biographies and studies—see, for example, Catherine Puglisi, "Caravaggio", p.258, for a brief outline. Similarly, The Conversion of Saint Paul was rejected, and while another version of the same subject, the Conversion on the Way to Damascus, was accepted, it featured the saint's horse's haunches far more prominently than the saint himself, prompting this exchange between the artist and an exasperated official of Santa Maria del Popolo: "Why have you put a horse in the middle, and Saint Paul on the ground?" With him were three last paintings, the gifts for Cardinal Scipione. The relevance of art history to cultural journalism, "Isaac Laughing : Caravaggio, non‐traditional imagery and traditional identification", "Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) (1571–1610) and his Followers. His daughter Artemisia Gentileschi was also stylistically close to Caravaggio, and one of the most gifted of the movement. Settembre 2020 Giugno 2020 Maggio 2020 Aprile 2020 Ottobre 2018 Giugno 2018 [8] This story is doubted by some authorities. Servizio clienti 24 Ore. But a true reputation would depend on public commissions, and for these it was necessary to look to the Church. [24] For the most part each new painting increased his fame, but a few were rejected by the various bodies for whom they were intended, at least in their original forms, and had to be re-painted or find new buyers. [2] Sky produced a documentary about the original painting and the reproduction. [91] Experts estimated its value at $20 million. [10], In 2018, informant Gaetano Grado told authorities the painting was stolen by amateur criminals but then acquired by the Mafia and given to Gaetano Badalamenti, head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. They had previously done so with the tomb of Tutankhamun. Bellori writes of Caravaggio's "fear" driving him from city to city across the island and finally, "feeling that it was no longer safe to remain", back to Naples. La Natività di Caravaggio, il "Presepe" trafugato a Palermo nel 1969: secondo alcuni collaboratori di giustizia la tela, finita nelle mani della MAFIA, sarebbe ancora esistente. "[16], Caravaggio left Cesari, determined to make his own way after a heated argument. [1], The theft is considered one of the most significant art crimes in history. Un'opera incustodita di valore inestimabile che, secondo le He died in 1610 under uncertain circumstances while on his way from Naples to Rome. La storia dello «scellerato furto» viene raccontata nel libro «Caravaggio, la Natività di Palermo» di Michele Cuppone (Campisano editore). Rosa Giorgi, ": Master of light and dark – his life in paintings", p.12. [54], Vatican documents released in 2002 support the theory that the wealthy Tommasoni family had him hunted down and killed as a vendetta for Caravaggio's murder of gangster Ranuccio Tommasoni, in a botched attempt at castration after a duel over the affections of model Fillide Melandroni. [42] According to Andrea Pomella, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist is widely considered "one of the most important works in Western painting. Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence is a painting of the nativity of Jesus from 1600 by Italian painter Caravaggio. La Natività con i santi Lorenzo e Francesco d’Assisi, capolavoro del Caravaggio trafugato nel 1969 (particolare) Nuove “verità” emergono dalle rivelazioni del collaboratore di giustizia Franco Di Carlo, che recentemente ha dichiarato di aver visto il capolavoro nella casa di un boss di Partanna Mondello [1][8] Another theory claims that it was destroyed in the 1980 Irpinia earthquake in southern Italy, shortly before a planned black market sale. Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence is a painting of the nativity of Jesus from 1600 by Italian painter Caravaggio.It has been missing since 1969 when it was stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo.Investigators believe the painting changed hands among the Sicilian Mafia in the decades following the robbery and may still be hidden. 10. ", For the details of the discovery, see the essay by eye-witness Noel Barber (superior of the Jesuit community in Dublin in which the painting had been found), in. The two had argued many times, often ending in blows. He developed a considerable name as an artist, and as a violent, touchy and provocative man. In the following generation the effects of Caravaggio, although attenuated, are to be seen in the work of Rubens (who purchased one of his paintings for the Gonzaga of Mantua and painted a copy of the Entombment of Christ), Vermeer, Rembrandt and Velázquez, the last of whom presumably saw his work during his various sojourns in Italy. There he again established himself as one of the most prominent Italian painters of his generation. [2] It depicts the nativity of Jesus, with saints Francis of Assisi and Lawrence among other figures surrounding Mary and the newborn Jesus. Good modern accounts are to be found in Peter Robb's M and Helen Langdon's Caravaggio: A Life. Catherine Puglisi, "Caravaggio", p. 79. Yet in Rome and in Italy it was not Caravaggio, but the influence of his rival Annibale Carracci, blending elements from the High Renaissance and Lombard realism, which ultimately triumphed. This painting he may have sent to his patron, the unscrupulous art-loving Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of the pope, who had the power to grant or withhold pardons. His female models include Fillide Melandroni, Anna Bianchini, and Maddalena Antognetti (the "Lena" mentioned in court documents of the "artichoke" case[76] as Caravaggio's concubine), all well-known prostitutes, who appear as female religious figures including the Virgin and various saints. "Caravaggio. [95] British filmmaker Derek Jarman made a critically applauded biopic entitled Caravaggio in 1986. See Robb, pp193–196. All three demonstrate the physical particularity for which Caravaggio was to become renowned: the fruit-basket-boy's produce has been analysed by a professor of horticulture, who was able to identify individual cultivars right down to "...a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesion resembling anthracnose (Glomerella cingulata). Caravaggio stayed in Costanza's palazzo on his return to Naples in 1609. ", while his eyes, fixed upon the figure of Christ, have already said, "Yes, I will follow you". Yet the models were basic to his realism. La Natività con i Santi Lorenzo e Francesco d’Assisi di Caravaggio è un dipinto assai particolare. [87], A painting believed by some experts to be Caravaggio's second version of Judith Beheading Holofernes, tentatively dated between 1600 and 1610, was discovered in an attic in Toulouse in 2014. For Del Monte and his wealthy art-loving circle, Caravaggio executed a number of intimate chamber-pieces—The Musicians, The Lute Player, a tipsy Bacchus, an allegorical but realistic Boy Bitten by a Lizard—featuring Minniti and other adolescent models. [32] Caravaggio was often arrested and jailed at Tor di Nona.[33]. Caravaggio's mother died in 1584, the same year he began his four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of Titian. [6] Italian police, Interpol, and the FBI have all worked towards locating the painting. Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio (/ˌkærəˈvædʒioʊ/, US: /-ˈvɑːdʒ(i)oʊ/, Italian pronunciation: [mikeˈlandʒelo meˈriːzi da kkaraˈvaddʒo]; 29 September 1571[2] – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. He was also sued by a tavern waiter for having thrown a plate of artichokes in his face.[34]. La Natività con i Santi Lorenzo e Francesco d’Assisi (nota semplicemente come Natività di Caravaggio) è un prezioso dipinto a olio su tela, realizzato dal pittore italiano Caravaggio.La storia di questo quadro è ben nota: fu trafugato nella notte tra il 17 e il 18 ottobre 1969 dall’oratorio di San Lorenzo, a Palermo, e da allora non è stato più rintracciato. The dealer he identified is now deceased. com. News from Rome encouraged Caravaggio, and in the summer of 1610 he took a boat northwards to receive the pardon, which seemed imminent thanks to his powerful Roman friends. Mancini describes him as "extremely crazy", a letter of Del Monte notes his strangeness, and Minniti's 1724 biographer says that Mario left Caravaggio because of his behaviour. Writing in 1783, Mirabeau contrasted the personal life of Caravaggio directly with the writings of St Paul in the Book of Romans,[68] arguing that "Romans" excessively practice sodomy or homosexuality. Caravaggio appears to have stayed in the Milan-Caravaggio area after his apprenticeship ended, but it is possible that he visited Venice and saw the works of Giorgione, whom Federico Zuccari later accused him of imitating, and Titian. [8][9] It is assumed that the artist grew up in Caravaggio, but his family kept up connections with the Sforzas and the powerful Colonna family, who were allied by marriage with the Sforzas and destined to play a major role later in Caravaggio's life. For an outline of the Counter-Reformation Church's policy on decorum in art, see Giorgi, p.80. He is unclothed, and it is difficult to accept this grinning urchin as the Roman god Cupid—as difficult as it was to accept Caravaggio's other semi-clad adolescents as the various angels he painted in his canvases, wearing much the same stage-prop wings. [5][8] Mannoia has not given clues to its location. [71] The survival status and location of Caravaggio's painting is unknown. [3][2] The painting is about 2.7 metres high and two metres wide. 26/3/2018 0 Commenti ... Sky Arte foto di Alessandro Gaja Wikipedia Il foglio Factum arte. Sappiamo tutti bene come la scomparsa della Natività del Caravaggio dall’oratorio di San Lorenzo sia ancora una ferita aperta sia nell’animo dei siciliani che di tutti gli amanti dell’arte. Out of spite, Caravaggio threw rocks through her window at night and was sued again. A brawl led to a death sentence for murder and forced him to flee to Naples. La Natività di Palermo. Caravaggio presumably hoped that the patronage of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, could help him secure a pardon for Tomassoni's death. [52] What happened next is the subject of much confusion and conjecture, shrouded in much mystery. [94], Caravaggio's work has been widely influential in late-20th-century American gay culture, with frequent references to male sexual imagery in paintings such as The Musicians and Amor Victorious. Portrait of a Courtesan (Fillide Melandroni), The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus, Madonna of Loreto (Madonna dei Pellegrini, Pilgrims' Madonna), Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Madonna de Palafrenieri), Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page, Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nativity_with_St._Francis_and_St._Lawrence&oldid=994732777, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 17 December 2020, at 07:30. [5] Alberti attempted a sale but could not complete it before being arrested in 1981. [81], In the 1920s, art critic Roberto Longhi brought Caravaggio's name once more to the foreground, and placed him in the European tradition: "Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him. "[22] It was understated, in the Lombard manner, not histrionic in the Roman manner of the time. Baglione says Caravaggio was being "chased by his enemy", but like Bellori does not say who this enemy was. One secular piece from these years is Amor Vincit Omnia, in English also called Amor Victorious, painted in 1602 for Vincenzo Giustiniani, a member of Del Monte's circle. He did sleep with women. [42], Major works from his Malta period include the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, his largest ever work, and the only painting to which he put his signature, Saint Jerome Writing (both housed in Saint John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta) and a Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page, as well as portraits of other leading Knights. According to such rumors, Caravaggio castrated Tommasoni with his sword before deliberately killing him, with other versions claiming that Tommasoni's death was caused accidentally during the castration. "[21] In 1606 he killed a young man in a brawl, possibly unintentionally, and fled from Rome with a death sentence hanging over him. Viața și opera. Creighton E. Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-271-01312-1. "His great Sicilian altarpieces isolate their shadowy, pitifully poor figures in vast areas of darkness; they suggest the desperate fears and frailty of man, and at the same time convey, with a new yet desolate tenderness, the beauty of humility and of the meek, who shall inherit the earth. [10][11] One Mafia informant recalled seeing it being used as a floor mat by boss Salvatore Riina. Caravaggio's epitaph was composed by his friend Marzio Milesi. The balance of probability suggests that Caravaggio did indeed have sexual relations with men. ", Caravaggio's incisions by Ramon van de Werken, Caravaggio's use of the Camera Obscura: Lapucci, Roberta Lapucci's website and most of her publications on Caravaggio as freely downloadable PDF, Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio WebMuseum, Paris webpage, Lachrimae Caravaggio, by Jordi Savall, performed by Le Concert des Nations & Hesperion XXI (Article at Answers.com), Portrait of a Courtesan (Fillide Melandroni), The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus, Madonna of Loreto (Madonna dei Pellegrini, Pilgrims' Madonna), Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Madonna de Palafrenieri), Artists in biographies by Giovanni Baglione, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caravaggio&oldid=1007105675, CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2021, Short description is different from Wikidata, All articles with vague or ambiguous time, Vague or ambiguous time from December 2020, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with KULTURNAV identifiers, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with RKDartists identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with TePapa identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Giulio Mancini's comments on Caravaggio in, Walter Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1955, This page was last edited on 16 February 2021, at 14:09. Traditionally historians have long thought he died of syphilis. Much of the documentary evidence for Caravaggio's life in Rome comes from court records; the "artichoke" case refers to an occasion when the artist threw a dish of hot artichokes at a waiter. Harris, Ann Sutherland, Seventeenth-century Art & Architecture (Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008). Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott has taken issue with Graham-Dixon minimizing Caravaggio's homosexuality: There was a fussiness to the tone whenever a scholar or curator was forced to grapple with transgressive sexuality, and you can still find it even in relatively recent histories, including Andrew Graham-Dixon’s 2010 biography of Caravaggio, which acknowledges only that “he likely slept with men.” The author notes the artist’s fluid sexual desires but gives some of Caravaggio’s most explicitly homoerotic paintings tortured readings to keep them safely in the category of mere “ambiguity.”. There is disagreement as to the size of Caravaggio's oeuvre, with counts as low as 40 and as high as 80. He appears to have facilitated Caravaggio's arrival in the island in 1607 (and his escape the next year). He moved just south of the city, then to Naples, Malta, and Sicily. He traveled in 1607 to Malta and on to Sicily, and pursued a papal pardon for his sentence. Caravaggio's patrons were unable to protect him. [5] They believe the robbery was carried out by amateurs who learned about the painting's value on a television program about artifacts in Italy that aired a few weeks before. Mancini: "Thus one can understand how badly some modern artists paint, such as those who, wishing to portray the Virgin Our Lady, depict some dirty prostitute from the Ortaccio, as Michelangelo da Caravaggio did in the Death of the Virgin in that painting for the Madonna della Scala, which for that very reason those good fathers rejected it, and perhaps that poor man suffered so much trouble in his lifetime. A theory relating the death to Renaissance notions of honour and symbolic wounding has been advanced by art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon. Orsi, established in the profession, introduced him to influential collectors; Longhi, more balefully, introduced him to the world of Roman street-brawls. [63], A connection with a certain Lena is mentioned in a 1605 court deposition by Pasqualone, where she is described as "Michelangelo's girl". The French ambassador intervened, and Caravaggio was transferred to house arrest after a month in jail in Tor di Nona. According to a 17th-century writer the painting of the head of Goliath is a self-portrait of the artist, while David is, Catheine Puglisi, "Caravaggio" Phaidon 1998, p.199, Riccardo Bassani and Fiora Bellini, "Caravaggio assassino", 1994, pp.205–214, The transcript of the trial is given in Walter Friedlander, "Caravaggio Studies" (Princeton, 1955, revised edn.