It is the epiphany of ancient art. “Latest caravaggio”. Or the “discovery of caravaggio lost”. Everything to do with Lombard genius is securing queues at an Old Masters museum. The National Gallery in London exhibits until July 21 The martyrdom of Saint Ursula (it was not its original title, but Saint Ursula felled by the Tyrant) and brings to mind – as recorded in the stories of the lives of saints and martyrs in the golden legend— the story of the 11,000 virgins who were led by a chaste maiden on a suicidal pilgrimage across Germany.
“When they arrived in Colonia, the Huns fell on them, on that flock of sheep, like butcher wolves,” says the anthology compiled by Santiago de la Vorágine in the 13th century. In the middle of the massacre, the General of the Huns noticed the beauty of Saint Ursula. If she agreed to be his wife, she would save his life. He refused and skewered her with an arrow in the stomach that the martyr warns about her body with the calm of the inevitable. Three other figures look at the atrocity in the painting. The saint’s servant tries to stop the arrow with her hand (it appeared after a restoration), a soldier prepares to pick it up in case she faints, and in between the face of a young man appears, contemplating the horror: the self-portrait of the genius. His mouth open, perhaps feeling his own pain and a premonition of future death, on a mosquito-infested beach. This is the moment that Caravaggio captures in the canvas that is exhibited in London, loaned by the Intesa Sanpaolo Bank. He marketing artist says that it is his last work, but doubts arise.
According to documents, the painting was completed on May 11, 1610, two months before the painter’s death. “Later it is possible that he painted other works, such as The denial of Saint Peter [hoy en la colección del Metropolitan de Nueva York]”, points out Giuseppe Porzio, one of the world’s leading experts on Lombard. This canvas, according to art historian Rossella Vodret in her complete works, “was illegally exported” in 1964 to Switzerland, and from there, after passing through the Shickman gallery, it arrived at the New York museum.
The story of The denial of Saint Peter it is told in the New Testament. It tells, as Jesus prophesied in the garden of Gethsemane when he was apprehended, how his disciple Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed twice. The painter reduces the scene to an interior. Only three characters. On the left, with his face in shadow, one of Caiaphas’s henchmen (high priest). His face, between shadows, and his hands (poorly resolved) are only intuited. The sleeve cloth is an indeterminate red. “Next to her, a girl,” writes biographer Andrew Graham-Dixon, “represents the two servants who had questioned Peter.” She has her gaze fixed on the soldier, the incarnations of her face, like spots of an illness (or a poorly represented fire), and her hand, rough, addressing the apostle, is barely outlined. Peter points at himself, cries, and acknowledges that he has failed Jesus. But the master avoids painting the details. The difficult parts are hidden in shadows, gloves or diagonals of the characters. Something is wrong. Surely his wounds are open, his eyesight fails and his hands tremble. His physical precision and his gift for placing light disappear.
It had been only seven months since Caravaggio had been assaulted in the Osteria del Cerriglio, a very famous slum (even Cervantes cites it) that mixed drinking (on the first floor) and prostitution (on the second) of both sexes, in Naples. The genius had injured a Knight of Justice of Malta during his stay on the island, and these men of “honor” were not given to forgiving or forgetting affronts.
Caravaggio survived a beating and was “punished” with a vendetta call disfigurement, which consisted of stabbing his face with a razor. A brand for life. At that time, barbers were surgeons and literally sewed up those wounds. Surprise in Saint Ursula, in his self-portrait, seeing him contemplate the scene without marks on his face, his beard shaved, horrified at the execution (his own horror if he did not obtain the Pope’s grace for having murdered the pimp Ranuccio Tomassoni in Rome in 1606?) and even looking younger than his 39 years. Was it the look of someone 60 days from dying? It was impossible for him to be cured. From October 1609 to May 1610 nothing is known. Most likely, he was hiding in the Palazzo Colonna in Chiaia fighting, with 17th century medicine, for his life.
He Saint Ursula It corresponds, there is no doubt, to the artist’s second stay (1609-1610) in Naples and was commissioned by Prince Doria, Prince of Angri and Duke of Eboli. “But there are no indications that it was the last painting he painted,” warns Nicola Spinosa, expert caravaggio artist Neapolitan. For many years there were doubts about the attribution of the work. From a young Mattia Preti (1613-1699), through the irregular Messina painter Alonzo Rodríguez (1578-1648), to Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582-1622). After the discovery of the documentation of his commission and the inscription on the back of the initials MAD (Marco Antonio Doria), it was the centenarian expert Mina Gregori who correctly related him (from 1975) to Caravaggio. The canvas—in a state of conservation that could be improved—had a unique history. Lanfranco Masa, envoy and attorney of the Doria family, put it in the sun so that it would dry first. The heat softened the paint “because Caravaggio painted very thick layers,” Masa apologized, and it took the Lombard two weeks to restore his own canvas. On May 27 he would arrive in Genoa.
Let’s recover the mystery. Two greats of the Caravaggista world leave the door open for the Saint Ursula may not be the last painting of genius. Biographer Helen Langdon considers that this final canvas was a Saint John Baptist (1610) painted for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who had interceded to obtain his favor. His forgiveness was assured. Caravaggio traveled with the fabric on a felucca bound for Rome and, in addition, he carried a safe conduct from the Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga. Nothing could go wrong. But everything failed. Locked up in the Spanish garrison of Porto Ercole by mistake, on the voyage to his destination he never reached port, perhaps due to malaria. septicemia, a heart attack or unhealed wounds. She succumbed on those beaches, just 80 kilometers from Rome. Who can imagine Caravaggio’s desolation, anguish and horror when he could almost touch the salvation of his existence? This was the end of the chiaroscuro genius.