The Caravaggio Conspiracy (26 page)

O’Malley paused to let the significance of what he was saying sink in. In Dublin, Cardinal McCarthy pressed the off switch on his TV remote. ‘Go on,’ he said, his voice barely audible.

‘What the Camerlengo failed to realize,’ O’Malley continued, ‘was that the priest, a Father d’Amboise, was not the only witness to his heresy. Caravaggio was also present, but hidden from view. Later on, when Battista discovered that the artist not only knew his secret but had fingered him as an enemy of the faith, he took steps to suppress the painting, which afterwards disappeared from history.’

There was another pause, broken by McCarthy. ‘Why are you telling me this, Declan? What are you trying to say?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ O’Malley replied, still struggling to come to terms with the logic of his own argument. ‘But here’s what our American friends would call “the clincher”. The late Cardinal Rüttgers, the circumstances of whose death continue to disturb me, visited the private quarters of the Camerlengo shortly before he died. On the wall, in a place of honour, he noticed a portrait of Battista by Annibale Carracci, a contemporary of Caravaggio’s. In 1611, by instruction of the Pope, this portrait – which in the current market could fetch millions – was consigned to the newly created Secret Archive and remained there, in obscurity, for the next four hundred years. The Holy Father wanted it out of his sight. Bosani wanted it next to him and we are entitled to ask why.’

Down the line from Dublin there came a sharp inhalation of breath.

O’Malley continued. ‘I appreciate how bizarre this must seem, and I don’t pretend that all the evidence is in. But events are moving very fast indeed. If I’m right in my suspicions, the implications for the Church could be profound. We could be on the brink of a turning point in history. Could I therefore ask you to exercise extreme care when you attend the conclave? Take extra care. Listen intently to whatever Bosani has to say. Watch his every move. Don’t let him ride roughshod over the conclave.’

‘Wait! Hang on there!” McCarthy’s voice was rising to a crescendo. Are you telling me that the Camerlengo is planning some sort of Islamic
coup
?’

‘I wish I knew,’ O’Malley said. ‘But if he is, you need to have your wits about you. The future of the Church itself could depend on it.’

‘No pressure, then.’

‘I’m sorry, Henry. I wish I …’ O’Malley’s voice trailed off.

McCarthy closed his eyes and uttered a silent prayer. Then he spoke, very slowly and very deliberately. ‘We are all sinners. We are all flawed. But ever since I took my vows as a priest I have always done what I think is right for the Church. And may I be struck down and damned to hell if I ever follow a different course. I find what you have just told me to be literally incredible. If you were any other man, I would recommend that you visit both your confessor and a psychiatrist. But I have known you for forty years and I have never once doubted either your
intellectual
acuity or the strength of your faith. You may take it from me, Declan, that if it should become clear to me in the days ahead that Lamberto Bosani plans to turn St Peter’s Basilica into a mosque, he’d better be ready for a scrap.’

O’Malley made the sign of the cross. ‘I’m glad to hear it. I will pray for you.’

‘And I for you, Declan. God bless.’ While O’Malley and McCarthy were on the phone, Franco, wearing glasses, his black hair cut back almost to the roots, visited Father Visco to report on the events of the previous evening. He was embarrassed and apologized for not taking care of Dempsey. ‘You never told me he was an ex-soldier,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know. I thought he was a historian.’

‘These things are important, Father. You’ve got to do your research.’

‘So what happens now?’ Visco was nervous. He hated it when things went wrong. Franco was normally so dependable. ‘Scajola telephoned a short while ago to tell me the Rome police have issued a wanted notice for a man answering to your description.’

The assassin scowled. ‘In that case, what happens is that I disappear for a while. They’ll be looking for me and it won’t do anybody any good, not least the Camerlengo, if they establish a link between me and you.’

‘Exactly. You should leave Rome immediately – this morning. Go to Genoa, or La Spezia. Anywhere. If we need you, we’ll call you.’

Franco shrugged. He didn’t like to leave a job unfinished, but he was glad he didn’t have to face Cardinal Bosani to account in person for his failure.

The Camerlengo was calculating his next move. Though irritated that Dempsey was still alive, he reckoned the Irishman would be out of the picture for several days at least – which was all the time he needed to secure victory for his plan. Later, if necessary, he would have Franco attend to him. What mattered was that all the necessary pieces were now in place. Ten key cardinals had already
undertaken
to support his candidate; a dozen more were on the brink of declaring. Where they went, others would follow. What none of them knew, and could never know, was that, under the direction of Yilmaz Hakura, an unprecedented Muslim ‘outrage’, directed at Catholicism’s heart, would take place on the opening day of the conclave. A suicide bomber, recruited from Islam’s growing army of European converts, would blow himself up in St Peter’s Square, thus, in accordance with Islamist teaching, guaranteeing himself a place in paradise. The slaughter, and the insult, would be like nothing that had gone before. Not only governments but the Christian peoples of Europe would demand that action be taken against the Islamists responsible, hiding in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Lebanon. Their demand would be impossible to resist. After that, Bosani told himself, nothing would prevent the emergence of a new age of chaos in Europe.

Caravaggio’s return to Naples began better than he could ever have imagined. Fabrizio Colonna’s mother, the Marchesa, received him with open arms and immediately invited him to stay at her palazzo in Chiaia, constructed against the Spanish viceregal walls, with spectacular sea views. Soon, all the nobility of southern Italy appeared to call. Commissions poured in. Scipione Borghese, the latest cardinal-nephew, was only the first of a long line of wealthy and influential men queuing up to buy paintings from the most celebrated, and now most
notorious
, painter in Italy.

But though he worked diligently and, many said, with divine inspiration, the canvases he produced demonstrated that he remained in the grip of a terrible
obsession
.
Salome With the Head of John the Baptist
was sent to Alof de Wignacourt in Valletta with a plea for the Grand Master’s understanding. The work was accepted, but no response made. A bleak, despairing
Crucifixion of St Andrew
,
commissioned
by the Spanish viceroy, was interpreted by those who knew him as a plea for release from the prison of the world. Even more terrifying, his
Martyrdom of Saint Ursula
painted to order for Prince Marcantonio Doria of Genoa, showed the saint on the point of death, with the artist behind her, looking on. Caravaggio’s shadowy self-portrait was the one thing about the canvas that was not original – for it was lifted straight from his previous masterpiece, done for Ciriaco Mattei,
The Betrayal of Christ
. He was reminding himself that he had seen too much already and had reached breaking point.

By now, his voices were becoming dominant. He was more and more convinced that he had a mission – to expose Battista and prepare the way for a Christian defence against the coming Ottoman onslaught. But he also believed that he was fated to die before he could achieve his purpose.

On the evening of 24 October, he woke from a sleep feeling more refreshed than he had done in months. He had just completed a canvas, and to clear his head and relax his tired frame he walked into Naples, to the Osteria del Cerriglio – a tavern as famous for its music and the beauty of its courtesans as it was for the richness of its food and drink. The time was approaching midnight. Caravaggio had just come down from one of the upstairs rooms, still holding the hand of the seventeen-year-old prostitute with whom he had spent the previous two hours, when the Sicilian sent by Fonseca, who for weeks had patiently bided his time, suddenly barred his path.

‘Watch where you’re going,’ the assassin said, already reaching for the dagger in his belt. ‘Don’t you know when to make way for your betters?’

‘If you are my better,’ the artist replied, ‘then I must be a very low fellow entirely, for you strike me as an ignorant oaf.’

At that, the Sicilian drew his blade and drove it straight at Caravaggio’s heart. Taken by surprise, the painter sprang sharply to his right, but missed his footing and stumbled forward instead. The knife blade now swung upwards and opened a terrible wound from his chin all the way up the left side of his face, almost severing his ear.

The girl screamed. At once, three guards employed by the innkeeper bounded up the stairs. Seeing the Sicilian about to deliver what would have been a fatal blow, they grabbed him from behind and wrestled him down the stairs.

‘This fellow tried to kill the artist Caravaggio,’ one of the three called out.

‘Find out who paid him, then slit his throat,’ the innkeeper replied. He had been paid by the Colonna to keep an eye out for trouble and would do whatever he had to to justify their faith in his establishment.

The Sicilian, who was strong as an ox, broke free at this point and made for the door, easily knocking out of the way two men who tried to stop him. It was the innkeeper himself, another brute of a man, who brought him down from behind, using a heavy cudgel that split his skull, killing him instantly.

Surgeons called in by the Marchesa Costanza saved Caravaggio’s life. But they could do nothing about the disfigurement. He was left with an ugly scar running up the entire left-hand side of his face, and the top half of his left ear was missing. Throughout the long winter that followed, he slowly recovered his strength. But by now he was so paranoid that he slept with his hand on his dagger and woke up, screaming, at the slightest noise.

He spoke to Costanza and told her he was more determined than ever to return to Rome.

‘There is nothing for me here, Marchesa. Only the running sore of fame and the prospect of death. I have business with the Holy Father. Only he can give me peace.’

Costanza tried to dissuade him, but failed. Instead, she wrote letters to the Pope and Cardinal Scipione, pleading his case and begging for a revocation of the
banda capitale
. Caravaggio meanwhile painted
David with the Head of Goliath
, with himself as the model for the giant, and sent it to Scipione in sign of
atonement
. It would prove to be his final work. The cardinal-nephew, almost out of gratitude, but also from self-interest, agreed upon seeing it to add his powerful voice to the chorus demanding a papal pardon.

Finally, in July 1610, word arrived from Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, son of the Duke of Mantua and effective head of the Curia, that the sentence imposed three years before had at last been rescinded, conditional only on the accused’s presenting himself in person in Rome. Retrieving from Prince Marzio the
laissez-passer
obtained for him by the Marchesa, Caravaggio at once booked passage for Rome.

A felucca was leaving for Rome, Livorno and Genoa three days later. The vessel, loaded with goods, including five recently completed canvases by Caravaggio, sailed north for two days, hugging the coast, until it put in at Palo, a tiny port near Civitavécchia, west of Rome. As he waited for his goods to be unloaded, Caravaggio set off to find a means of onward transport. That was when the tightly coiled mainspring of his life finally gave way. Reports of his
disfigurement
were widespread throughout Italy and he was instantly recognized. Within an hour, he was arrested by the commandant of the local papal guard, who, not knowing that the
banda capitale
was annulled, sent word to the Vatican that the infamous fugitive, Merisi, had been captured.

Next day, having spent the night in the cells, the artist argued his case before a local magistrate, brandishing his
laissez-passer
, signed by Cardinal Gonzaga, and insisting that he was on his way to meet the Pope. At noon, after paying a large bribe, they let him go. But by then, the felucca, with all his remaining wordly goods still on board, had embarked for Porto Ercole, fifty miles to the north. Desperate to retrieve the paintings, which were now his only currency, the painter set off in pursuit, telling the commandant that he would wait for Cardinal Gonzaga’s men in the church in Porto Ercole. He was exhausted and all but broken in spirit. Anything that remained of his former confidence and swagger was gone. Two days later, having wandered in high heat through a malarial swamp, he reached his destination, a spit of land under Spanish rule. He was burning with fever and badly dehydrated.

The end was close. But he would not give up. Not yet. Though terrified, he was determined to live long enough to impart his secret and expose Battista’s treachery. Barely able to stand, his head concealed by a floppy hat, he staggered into Porto Ercole by way of the beach. Minutes later, he reached the harbour, arriving just in time to see the sails of the felucca billowing in the distance as the craft continued on its way to Livorno. It was a defining moment. But he was not surprised. If anything, he had expected it. Slumping down on to the edge of the harbour wall, he threw up his arms in surrender to God’s will. Then he started to laugh, causing two fishermen mending their nets nearby to glance at each other, fearing that he must be a madman, or else diseased.

Overhead, the midsummer sun continued to beat down. He could feel his senses reeling and his mind begin to wander. Once more the voices came.
Give up, Michelangelo. Give up
. There is nothing you can do. Concentrating hard, telling himself that soon the worst would be over, he stood up and made his way slowly uphill, behind the waterfront taverns and fishmongers’ shops, until he came upon the church of Saint’Erasmus. Inside, grateful for the cool provided by the thick stone walls, he prayed before a statue of the martyred saint before collapsing in a coughing fit onto the flagstones.

It was the parish priest who found him. Not recognizing him, for he was lying face down, he feared to touch him in case he was a plague victim and rushed off instead to raise the alarm. He barely made it to the church door. Three horsemen, a Monsignor in his distinctive red-trimmed cassock, and two brothers from the Order of Saint John the Beheaded, had just ridden up and now stared down at him from their mounts.

‘I beg you,’ the priest called out. ‘Don’t go into the church. For there is a stranger inside and I fear he may have the plague. I am on my way to fetch help in having him removed.’

The prelate, a powerfully built man in his forties, looked down scornfully. ‘Do not trouble yourself, Father. Continue on your way, but do nothing and say nothing about the stranger. Do you understand me?’

The priest saw the papal arms, the crossed keys and the triple tiara on the sleeves of the Monsignor’s cassock and mumbled his assurance.

‘Very good. We have heard about this man and are come to take him with us to Rome. I suggest you pray for his immortal soul – and your own.’

The three riders dismounted. The smaller of the two monks took the reins of the horses and remained on the path outside the church door. His companions looked around them before disappearing inside. Caravaggio was lying,
semi-conscious
, his left hand reaching out to the statue of St Erasmus.

While the Monsignor looked on, the second monk, tall and broad-shouldered, reached into a bag slung over his shoulder and drew out a cloth and a canteen of water. He lifted the artist’s head and leaned it into the crook of his arm before pouring cold water over his face and wiping it with the cloth.

Caravaggio began to come round. ‘Drink,’ said the monk. ‘We are here to help you.’

‘Yes, Michelangelo,’ the Monsignor said, speaking softly, careful not to avert his eyes from the horrific scars marring the painter’s once handsome features. ‘My name is Monsignor Marinello and the man holding you is Brother Domenico. We have been sent by Cardinal Gonzaga, on the orders of His Holiness, to bring you home.’

At first, Caravaggio could only hear the words. The face looking down at him was a blur. But after several seconds, as the water from the monk’s canteen trickled down his throat, the image of the priest’s face began to move into focus.

‘Is it true?’ he asked, his voice hoarse and trembling. ‘Are you really sent by the Pope?’

‘Yes,’ said Marinello, smiling. ‘We have brought your letter of safe conduct. As soon as you are well, we shall travel together to Rome, where the Holy Father has pardoned you for your past indiscretions, committed without malice, for which you have already suffered enough.’

‘I should like to confess, Monsignor.’

‘Of course,’ said Marinello. ‘In a little while, as soon as you are better.’

‘No,’ Caravaggio insisted, looking suddenly angry. ‘I wish it now!’

‘Very well,’ Marinello said. ‘But you must conserve your strength.’

Caravaggio drew a deep breath and gripped hold of the priest’s arm. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’

‘How long has it been since your last confession?’

‘Three months, perhaps longer.’

‘Tell me of your sins.’

Caravaggio began to talk. The sins poured from his lips: lust, fornication, drunkenness, pride.

Marinello listened. There was no mention of the murder in Rome or the illegal flight from custody in Valletta. He must, he concluded, have confessed to these already – probably in Naples. So this latest list had to relate only to recent months. He and the monk exchanged glances.

When Caravaggio was done, Marinello made the sign of the cross and spoke the words of absolution. ‘I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’

‘And what is my penance, Father?’

‘We shall come to that presently,’ said Marinello, ‘for yours has been no
ordinary
life and your sins are not such that a recital of the rosary will suffice. But you must accept that your reception into heaven and the company of saints depends very much on how honest you are with me about your claims in repect of Cardinal Battista.’

Caravaggio nodded and the monk raised him into a sitting position.

‘First,’ said Marinello, ‘I have been charged by His Holiness to ask you some questions.’

‘I am ready,’ said Caravaggio.

‘Is it true that you witnessed Cardinal Battista engaged in an act of Muslim worship?’

‘Yes, Monsignor.’

‘Tell me about it.’

Caravaggio did so, recalling for Marinello how he had seen the Camerlengo and his secretary prostrate themselves on the floor of Battista’s private chapel, with the cross laid flat on the altar as they prayed to Allah. He then described how the only other witness to the cardinal’s treachery had been killed the same night, murdered because of what he knew. ‘I can see his face now – the fleeing man. He haunts me in my sleep.’

Marinello blanched as he listened. Then he asked: ‘Michelangelo, are there others? Do you have any other names – churchmen who have become Muslims, who, like Battista, are enemies of Mother Church?’