The Caravaggio Conspiracy (10 page)

The whole episode had soured him. How had it come to this, that he should end up a figure of fun to the populace? Most of the city’s other artists weren’t fit to tie his bootlaces. Only Annibale Carracci was worth a damn. But they knew how to work the system. That was why they were in favour and he was not.

Using the silk scarf around his neck to wipe the grime from a window of the tiny living room of his temporary lodgings – accommodation that he had moaned was better suited to a servant than a master – Caravaggio stared out at the street beyond. It was a late evening in May. The Piazza Navona was no more than fifty paces away and as the sun drifted beneath the horizon, the human comedy, as ever, played out before him. The fishmonger opposite, wiping his streaming nose with a corner of his apron, was disposing of his unsold stock, the pungent stench of which completely overpowered the scent of Alyssum flowers drifting down from an overhead balcony; an old man wearing patched-together rags, looking as if he had made the narrowest of escapes from an outbreak of the plague, sat on an upturned box plucking at a lute, while an equally diseased-looking monkey on his shoulder held out a miniature basket; a fat-bellied fire-eater, wearing an extravagant turban, exhaled a foot-long tongue of flame, then smiled hopefully at his audience through a mouthful of missing teeth.

Caravaggio turned away. He had had enough. Was that how people saw him – a tradesman or street entertainer, applauded one day, forgotten the next? There was no hiding the fact that his life had gone from bad to worse. Paintings for important patrons remained unfinished; the
sbirri
never let up on him, accusing him of brawling and affray, looking for the chance to lock him up and toast his feet over a brazier of burning coals. He was losing control. Not long before, he had returned home in the early hours wounded in the ear and throat, with blood streaming down his jerkin. He had no idea what happened and had taken to telling anyone who asked that he had fallen on his own sword while drunk, which could even have been true. Fate, though, took no account of the aggregation of
circumstance
. It was while he was recovering from his wounds, absorbed in self-pity, unable even to lift a brush, that he had been awarded one of the most important commissions of his career.

St Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in Christendom, remained a work-
in-progress
. Thirteen popes so far had come and gone, and still the construction went on. To be displayed in St Peter’s was the ultimate accolade for any artist and Caravaggio was determined to seize the opportunity. It was Cardinal Del Monte, his former patron, who had spoken for him – which was typical. Del Monte gave painters the latitude they needed. He knew better than anyone that the wind blowing through the Vatican had changed and was careful these days whom he promoted. But the opportunity was exceptional and only Caravaggio, he felt, could do it justice. The canons and cardinals in charge of the basilica had decided that a vacant altarpiece in the northwest corner should be assigned to the Confraternity of the Palafrenieri, or Papal Grooms – bankers, merchants and lawyers, mostly – who shamelessly used their connections to advance their careers. The Grooms’ patron saint was St Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, widely venerated as a virtuous woman. It was well known that Caravaggio had been planning a St Anne canvas for at least the last two years, and it was this fact that Del Monte used as his trump card.

The question was, was the artist up to it?

‘I can do this,’ he told Orsi over a pitcher of wine in the Turk’s Head. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’ll miss the deadline or produce something they can’t accept. But I won’t. The Palafrenieri may be a bunch of bastards, but they’ll still get my best work, Prosperini, depend on it.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Orsi said. ‘You’ve never produced anything second-rate in your life. But, for God’s sake, try to remember who’s paying you. This lot aren’t only hypocritical and pompous, they’re vindictive and they’re greedy – and they have the ear of the Pope. Give them what they want, Michelangelo. Don’t tempt fate.’

It took him three months. He worked on it every day and almost every night, sometimes until dawn. Finally, it was done and, with huge Vatican fanfare, the
Madonna dei Palafrenierni
was placed over the vacant altar. Three days later, at the height of one of the most vicious whispering campaigns in the city’s artistic history, it was removed.

The whole of Rome, it seemed, had queued up to have a go at the man who for years was their favourite son. The Virgin’s dress was disgracefully low-cut, an Austrian archbishop said. How had he put it? ‘Her dumplings were boiling over.’ Another prelate, clearly familiar with his model, complained that St Anne had been represented as a retired whore. But particular ire was reserved for the figure of the Christ child, who, with his Holy Mother was pictured stamping upon a serpent – evidently the Devil – while his infant penis jutted out towards the congregation.

Was that a provocation too far? Caravaggio asked himself. What was too far, anyway? And who got to draw the line? Whoever it was, he had crossed it. What incensed him was that, privately, the artistic community of Rome, led by Del Monte and Guistiniani, acknowledged that the composition was a masterpiece. They loved it. But the canons of San Pietro – as self-serving a group of hypocrites as any in Christendom – weren’t having it. They were affronted, they said, and all they would pay him for his months of labour was seventy-five scudi. But that wasn’t the end of it – as he never thought it would be. Like
Death of the Madonna
, the painting itself was quickly sold on – at a handsome profit. The next thing he knew, it was in the private collection of Scipione Borghese, the cardinal-nephew, along with five other of his works, including
David with the Head of Goliath
and a recently completed portrait of the Pope. Scipione’s homosexuality was an open secret in Rome. His worldly ambition would have shamed Nero. Not only did he set the artistic standards of the age, he also worked with the Church to fix the prices. Everyone, it seemed, could make a profit out of Caravaggio except Caravaggio himself.

Later that night, having once again measured his considerable debts against his meagre resources, the artist climbed the narrow stairs to his studio. Using the candle that had guided his way, he lit five of the lanterns he employed for painting at night. Some of his detractors held it against him that the colours he used were too rich and overly accentuated. They accused him of cheap trickery and of using light like a stage prop. Caravaggio ignored their strictures, which he dismissed as jealousy. He had no doubt of his place in the pantheon, alongside da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Nor did he doubt the fact that his rivals, including his friends, were, at best, second-rate.

But while none who knew him doubted the sincerity of his vision, especially his devotion to the art of
chiaroscuro
, of which he was the acknowledged master, Caravaggio had another, practical reason for eschewing the subtleties of daylight. His nightmares, always frequent, were now constant. The horrors of the Cenci executions had been joined by a recurring dream in which he himself was dragged from a prison cell – or else set upon in a church – and decapitated, either by sword or axe. The worst dreams were those in which he remained conscious after his head was struck from his shoulders, so that he gazed up at his executioner – often a thick-bearded Turk who grinned as he wiped the blade of his scimitar – unable to speak, or even to blink, waiting for the eternal darkness to enfold him. That was when he woke up screaming and clutching at his neck, mistaking the sweat that poured down his face for blood. So it was not merely that he was fascinated by the interplay between light and shade. He also wished desperately to remain awake.

As soon as he had he lit the fifth lantern, he moved to the window, looking across to the Piazza Navona, and closed the shutters. Then he began to sort through a series of canvases propped against the back wall, covered by several sheets of sacking. Selecting one – some six and a half feet wide by four and a half feet high – he dragged it out to the large easel he had set up in the centre of the floor. As soon as it was installed – no easy matter – he adjusted the lanterns so that they lit the entire surface equally. Then he stood back and stared.

He had worked on the painting for more than three years, ever since it was commissioned by Ciriaco Mattei in the late autumn of 1602. Large and luminous, more dramatic than anything he had accomplished since
Judith and Holofernes
, it featured the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane in which Jesus was identified by Judas and taken into custody by soldiers acting for the high priest. Mattei had agreed to pay 250 scudi for the finished work but had long since given up asking when, if ever, it would be ready.

As he gazed at the painting, to which he had given the name
The Betrayal of Christ
, a chill moved through his body and hairs on his arms stood up. How many times had he reworked the image of Judas? How often had he begun to obliterate the figure of the fleeing man, only to halt before he reached the face and hands? As for the witness on the right, holding a lantern, which he had added at the last at the expense of the Apostle John, what was he doing there and what was he trying to say?

The painting was a triumph. He knew that. But it could also be his death warrant. The question was, could Mattei be trusted to keep it from public view? He swallowed hard, rubbing his fingers down the thin stubble of his beard, remembering as if it were yesterday the portentous scene he had witnessed in Battista’s chapel. The audacity of the composition struck him anew, as it did every time he looked at it. Judas’ left arm, with which he clutched his Saviour, was several inches too short, with a claw-like hand. Caught in the very moment of betrayal, the fallen Apostle was burly and bearded. The pink-skinned crown of his head was bare, giving it the appearance of a cardinal’s zuchetto. But it was the figure on the far left, ostensibly a fleeing disciple, whom those who knew the truth would have found the most disturbing. For it was unmistakably the murdered priest from Trastevere, his expression taken directly from the chalk sketch Caravaggio made minutes after he was killed. To the right of the canvas, meanwhile, shedding light on the ghastly scene, stood the unmistakable figure of the artist himself – perplexed and afraid, unable to intervene.

For twelve months now he had wrestled with the demons the canvas evoked in him. He had thought many times of burning it. Once, he had even drawn a knife to it, as if it were his enemy, only to stay his hand at the crucial moment and collapse into tears. He could no more destroy it than he could accuse Battista of betraying his sacred trust. He had tried to rework the central figures, turning them into the conventional tableau of Christ and his disciples. But that had proved impossible as well. It was as if the Lord himself was directing him to leave it as it was.

Disconsolately, he sat down on a small, three-legged stool and once more considered his options. His debts were mounting. He hardly dared show his face in the Campo Marzio. He had even been forced to release Bartolomeo from the terms of his apprenticeship, meaning that there was no one to mix his paints or fill in backgrounds, or make his supper. Just yesterday, his benefactor Ruffietto had informed him that the house in which he had rooms was up for sale and he must be out by Christmas. What was he to do? Where was he to go? The seventy-five scudi he had been paid by the canons would do little more than settle his bar bills and buy new paint and brushes. The simple fact was that he desperately needed the cash Mattei would provide once he handed over
The Betrayal
. But that wasn’t all. The problem went deeper. As much as he needed the money, he also needed to be rid of the painting, which he had begun to think of as having a life of its own. He couldn’t destroy it. He knew that now. It was as if it no longer belonged to him, but rather to history. But nor could he live with it.

He mopped his forehead with an oily rag and with a supreme effort of will came to a decision. Tomorrow he would visit the banker and offer him the painting. But there would be one important stipulation: it could not be shown in public, not even to friends, so long as the Camerlengo was alive. If Mattei would agree to that – and there was no guarantee that he would – he would accept just half the agreed fee – 125 scudi. If not, then, God help him, he would have to burn it. 

The candle in one of the lanterns guttered out and he could hear a mouse scuffling beneath the floorboards. Standing up, he blew out all but one of the remaining candles, using the one still lit to guide him next door to his bedroom. There, he lay down, fully clothed. A shaft of moonlight cutting across from an unshuttered window silvered the right side of his face leaving the other side in darkness. He could hear an owl hooting. Then sleep came like a falling axe.

Rome in the middle of the papal campaign was buzzing with gossip. Superior General O’Malley, dressed in chinos, sandals and short-sleeved shirt, had taken time off to be with his nephew in the Scholars Lounge, an Irish bar behind the Gesù, where those who knew him left him alone and others just thought him a passing tourist. As additional insurance – for he knew that if Father Giovanni could get to him, he would – he had switched off his mobile and shoved it deep in a pocket of his trousers.

It was another hot, still day. The air conditioning in the bar was set to low in conformity with the latest energy-saving measures imposed by the EU, and the two men selected a table away from the windows. Dempsey fetched a couple of pints of Guinness from the bar and brought them across.

‘Cheers!’ he said, pulling his chair back with the toe of his shoe.

‘
Sláinte!
’

He sat down. They raised their glasses and each took a sip. Both then wiped their upper lips with the backs of their hand.

‘So how are you today?’ O’Malley asked. ‘How’s your back?’

Dempsey hesitated. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, turning his glass slowly on the table in front of him. ‘The physiotherapy seems to have worked. With any luck, I’ll be back to normal by Christmas.’

O’Malley nodded. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You’ve had a rough time of it right enough. Now tell me about Maya Studer. How’s that going?’

‘Slowly. She’s very much her own woman – not the sort to be rushed. But maybe you’ll get a chance to meet her … lunch or dinner, something like that.’ 

‘I’d be delighted.’

‘It’s not as if she can meet dad.’

‘No.’

O’Malley took a sip from his Guinness, staring at his nephew over the top of the glass. ‘Your father didn’t hate you, you know,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t think that. He simply couldn’t understand what happened.’

‘Right. It’s a funny thing, though. Here you are, the head of the Jesuits, and yet you don’t seem to mind that I don’t go to Mass any more.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘No, but you don’t take it personally. Dad lost himself in religion after my mother died. That and the drink. When I told him I didn’t really take the church stuff that seriously and was leaving Galway to join the army, he took it as a personal rejection of him – which it never was. Not really. He thought I was doing it just to get back at him for something – maybe for the beatings, or the times I’d come down in the night and find him slumped on the sofa with an empty whiskey bottle beside him and a burnt-out fag in his fingers.’

O’Malley remembered the last time he’d spoken to his brother-in-law. He’d been drinking, as usual. He’d wanted to know if God would reunite him with Kitty after he died. O’Malley hadn’t known what to tell him.

‘He didn’t have it easy either. Your mother was his world. When he lost her, he didn’t know where to turn, except to the drink – and the Lord. Not an unusual combination in my experience – though if it’s one or the other it’s generally
religion
that misses out. There’s many a priest in much the same boat.’

‘I think he blamed me for her death,’ Liam said.

O’Malley looked away. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, she died in childbirth. If it hadn’t been for me …’

The priest reached for his glass. ‘Don’t be talking that way. How could it possibly have been your fault. You were hardly born.’

‘Original sin?’

‘Liam, please. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I only know what I saw in his eyes.’

There was a pause while both men both finished their pints.

‘My shout,’ said O’Malley.

When the priest got back to the table, he found his nephew staring out the window. Three North African men were walking past, talking animatedly to each other. Behind them trouped their wives, dressed in hijabs, holding on to at least half a dozen young children. But Liam was looking right past them, like they weren’t there. He placed the glasses of stout on the table. ‘What’s bothering you, Liam? Is it what I said? If so, I’m sorry.’ 

‘I just wish I’d called him, or he’d called me. It shouldn’t have ended like that.’

‘Your father was a proud man. I think maybe you take after him. You both had a lot to put up with. Too much, if the truth be known. The difference is, there were no therapists in his day, no counsellors. And no anti-depressants. He was on his own.’

‘What do you mean, “if truth be known”?’

‘Nothing,’ O’Malley said hastily, remembering his promise. ‘Just a figure of speech.’

The result was a piercing look, which made the priest feel distinctly
uncomfortable
. ‘Yeah, well here’s to him!’ Dempsey said at last, raising his glass.

‘I’ll drink to that.’

They smiled ruefully at each other over the tops of their glasses. ‘So what else is happening?’ O’Malley asked, anxious to break the mood. ‘Do you think the Catholic Church is finished or are we in with a chance?’

‘You’re asking
me
?’

‘Why not?’

‘Aren’t you the Black Pope?’

‘Only when it suits me.’

‘Okay. So what do you reckon about this stuff about St Malachy? You must have seen it. It’s in all the papers. The internet’s full of it.’

The Jesuit sighed. The prophecies of St Malachy, a twelfth-century archbishop of Armagh, had come to light in 1590 after allegedly being lost for five hundred years. Detailed, yet obscure, the prophecies purported to list every pope up to and including the next one, who would not only be the last, but quite possibly the Antichrist, whose arrival would herald an era of unparalleled tribulation for the world.

As a Jesuit and an Irishman, O’Malley found the myth of Malachy doubly irksome. ‘You’re surely not taken in by that old malarky,’ he said. ‘Come on. Just because we’re Irish doesn’t mean we have to take pride in a lie.’

‘I didn’t say I believed it, I said everyone’s talking about it.’

‘Including you, apparently. It’s ridiculous, Liam. For a start, the “prophecies”, supposedly handed personally to Pope Innocent II in 1139, were almost certainly a late-sixteenth century forgery. They were intended to secure the election of Cardinal Gorolamo Simoncelli as the successor to Urban VII. That’s all.’

‘You’re kidding.’

O’Malley took another swallow of Guinness. ‘Actually, I’m not. Simoncelli was from Orvieto. The Latin name for his hometown is
Urbs Vetus
, which means “Old City”. According to Malachy, the next pope would be
ex antiquitate urbis
– from the old city. Claude-François Ménestrier, a Jesuit, showed later it was a fix – and, face it, who am I to contradict a man with SJ after his name?’ 

‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ said Dempsey. ‘For a man that doesn’t believe it, I mean.’

O’Malley shrugged. ‘I did a paper on it in my fourth year at Maynooth. The thing is, it keeps on coming up. Now, with the last name on the list pending, it’s becoming an obsession. Do you remember
The Da Vinci Code
?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Sold by the truckload, in a hundred languages. Complete tosh, of course. It claimed Jesus got married and raised a family. The Holy Grail was in there, too. But the thing is, millions believed it. I tell you, it was the Devil’s own job to persuade most of them it was only a story. Amazing what some people will swallow.’

Dempsey grinned. ‘So did it work?’

‘Did what work?’

‘The
Urbs Vetus
business.’

‘Oh, that. No. Niccoló Sfondrati got the job, took the name Gregory XIV. Much good it did him – he was dead inside of ten months.’

‘A stressful job. So what did the Prophecy crowd say when Sfondrati ended up as Pope?’

‘They pointed out that he was from Milan, which is one of the oldest cities in Italy, and that his father and grandfather had both been senators, which comes from the Latin,
senex
, for –

‘– old man.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Inventive.’

‘I’d prefer to say, desperate.’

‘You’re not a subscriber, then?’

‘I believe in God, not word games.’

‘And God doesn’t play Scrabble. Is that it?’

‘Nor dice. Einstein was right about that. I’d say Patience was his game.’

Dempsey shifted in his chair. The scars down his back were burning, which they did when he sat still for any length of time. ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean people aren’t anxious.’

‘People are always anxious.’

‘True. But this time they’re worried that the next pope will be Petrus Romanus – the Antichrist – and that after he’s done with us it’s Judgment Day and the End of the World.’

‘That’s what they said the last time. According to Malachy, Benedict XVI was the last pope but one … except that he wasn’t.’

Dempsey looked gleeful. ‘Ah, but that’s where the fun starts. Someone on the internet claims to have spoken to a leading cardinal who was present at the last conclave, and according to him the result was a fix, contrary to the wishes of a majority of the cardinal electors. If that’s true, then the man they buried last week wasn’t Pope at all, but an imposter – an antipope.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘Is it? I’ve seen the record. Did you know that in the two thousand years or so of Church history, there have been no fewer than forty antipopes?’

‘Nearly all of them in the wake of the Great Schism and the move to Avignon. There hasn’t been an antipope for more than five hundred years.’

‘So you say. Not everybody out there agrees with you.’

O’Malley threw up a despairing hand. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Can we just drop this? Right now I have more urgent matters to contend with.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Such as the future of the Catholic Church and the prevention of war between Europe and the Muslim world.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I’m serious, Liam. You probably know that with the death of the Pope all Curial posts were placed in abeyance. That means, for example, that Cardinal Bosani is no longer Secretary of State. But Bosani is also Camerlengo, or High Chamberlain, of the Church, a post he acquired last year on the death of the previous incumbent.’

‘Go on.’

‘Centuries ago, the Camerlengo was the second-most powerful man in Rome, in charge of taxes and estates and all kinds of appointments, civil and religious.’

Dempsey nodded. ‘But then along came the
Risorgimento
. The Papal States were incorporated into a unified Italy and the popes retreated into the Vatican.’

‘Exactly. But it wasn’t just the popes who lost out; their henchmen suffered too. The Apostolic Camera, controlling the finances of a country bigger than Portugal, with a standing army of nearly 15,000 men, was overnight robbed of all purpose. From being both finance and defence minister of a major European state, the Camerlengo became overnight like a figure out of comic opera.’

‘Except that you’re not laughing.’

‘No. One crucial responsibility remained. The Camerlengo acts in place of the Pope during the
interregnum
. Not only that, he organizes and presides over the conclave that elects his successor. What if I were to tell you that, with this power at his elbow, Cardinal Bosani wishes to secure the election of a pope who will adopt an aggressive stand against Muslim expansion in Europe?’

‘I’d say he’d have the support of 90 per cent of Catholics across the Continent.’

O’Malley leaned in closed to the table. ‘But what if it meant driving out
immigrants
and establishing a fortress mentality of a type we haven’t seen since the Turks stood at the gates of Vienna in 1683?’ 

‘That would be something else.’

‘Never doubt it. So don’t talk to me about St Malachy and his loony prophecies – not that he wrote them anyway. I’m more worried that Bosani will get his man – whoever that may be – onto Peter’s throne and launch us all into a real-life clash of civilizations.’

‘The Fifth Crusade? Oh, come on. Now who’s being fanciful?’

‘It’s not an exaggeration, Liam. It could happen.’

‘But the Curia wouldn’t let it … would they?’

‘It would depend how it was sold to them. Look around you. The Muslim population of Europe has grown out of all proportion in the last thirty years. Marseille is virtually an Arab town. There are more observant Muslims in the UK than there are Catholics. Here in Rome, where the biggest mosque in Europe is less than two kilometres from St Peter’s Square, it’s possible sometimes to imagine yourself in an Arab souk.’

Dempsey offered a wry smile. It was true. The world capital of the Catholic faith was now 10 per cent Muslim, with no sign of any slowdown. In some districts of the city there was a mosque on almost every corner.

O’Malley continued. ‘Muslims these days are confident of their strength. They’re done with life in the shadows. Spit on them and they’ll spit back. Desecrate their cemeteries and they’ll take to the streets. They’ve reached the point where they want major concessions to their culture and way of life, and equality of esteem for their places of worship. You might think this a simple matter of natural justice – and you’d be right. I support them in this without any reservation. Yet Christians –those of us that are left, that is – can’t help asking, where’s the
quid pro quo
? In most of the Muslim world, Christianity is either banned or heavily restricted. Missionaries are outlawed. If they’re caught preaching the Gospel, they risk
deportation
, flogging or a prison sentence. In some places, converts are condemned as traitors to the true faith and stoned to death.’

He looked around him as if to ensure there was no one listening. ‘But that’s not the half of it. Here, among indigenous Europeans, fear, resentment and animosity are widespread. People are starting to feel like strangers in their own countries. Nobody’s happy. Look at Turkey. The Turks have been denied what they see as their rightful place in the European Union. They feel insulted – and who can blame them? They think, well, if secularism isn’t going to give us a future in Europe, maybe it’s time to give Islam a chance. So the women have taken to the veil again and the legal system installed by Atatürk is on its last legs. But it doesn’t end there. Hizb ut-Tahrir, with its calls for a restoration of the caliphate, is operating openly in Istanbul, as it is across much of Europe. It’s almost as if the Hadith are coming true and there’s going to be a second Muslim conquest of Constantinople.’