Max set the portfolio on the table, undid the snaps, and removed the inner case. The painting rested snugly in a bed of soft white cotton. Max laid back the cloth, gently lifted the painting, and set it on the easel. He stepped to the wall and flipped a switch, bathing the work in soft light.
The young shepherd David, sword in one hand, was lifting the bloody head of Goliath, the Philistine warrior. Goliath’s face was frozen in death, eyes and mouth open, forehead gashed, blood dripping from his severed neck. Joe Cooley Barber stared in silent awe, transfixed. “It’s smaller than I imagined,” he said quietly. “And darker.”
Max removed several thick binders from his briefcase. “I’ve brought documentation on the provenance, of course,” he said, setting them out on the table, then extracting folders which appeared to contain clippings, books, and handwritten notes.
Joe Cooley knew Max didn’t need the notes; those were for him. “My friend the professor begins,” he said. “Better have a drink. Whisky? Wine?”
“Just water.” The preacher poured whisky for himself and water for Max, and pulled up a chair.
“His work could be quite gruesome—beheadings, like this one. Assassinations, betrayals, martyrdoms, all caught at the instant of perfect revelation. It was his gift, capturing that moment. He painted this scene at least four times over the course of his career, each representing a progression in his maturity, expressed in the two faces,” Max said. “This was probably the second version, in which there is pride in David’s expression, but also deep humility—the triumph of the kingdom of heaven over the forces of Satan.”
Max ran his crippled hand just above the canvas, lovingly following Caravaggio’s lines, picturing the artist at work. “So sure of himself he rarely used sketches, like other artists. He painted directly from life. He left pentimenti, sharp creases in the paint—you can see traces here, and here. Such genius, do you see?—and all of it done so quickly that some said his work flowed as if from the hand of God. And the light! Look how the flesh runs to shadow, blood red runs to black, light runs to darkness and to death. Such mastery of light—or of the darkness, depending upon your point of view.”
“Light, of course,” said Joe Cooley Barber. “I’ve never seen you quite this worked up over a painting.”
Max smiled sheepishly. “There are not many paintings like this one, or many painters. His work was new and brilliant, but so raw that it often shocked his patrons in the Church, who complained of his vulgarity and sacrilege. He used whores for his models and dressed the Virgin Mary in a low-cut gown. He put warts on saints and gave them dirty fingernails. The Church establishment found him intolerable. They preferred perfection in their saints.”
“So does the U.S. Senate,” Joe Cooley muttered, sipping his whisky.
“His life was just as raw as his work. He was a tortured soul. Some think his madness came from lead poisoning, from his paints, others that he was simply tormented by his own genius. Whatever the cause, he lived hard, dueling and drinking. He whored and gambled and was hauled in and out of court. He assaulted a waiter for bad service and stabbed a lawyer in a fight over a prostitute. He murdered a police official, was tortured, and escaped. Another man would have languished in prison for any of that, but while Caravaggio had detractors in the Church, he had powerful protectors as well, this one among them.”
Max had marked a page in an art-history book, and opened it to a portrait of an ascetic-looking cleric. “This is Scipione Borghese, a nephew of Pope Paul V—the pope who ordered Galileo to abandon his heretical notions about our solar system. Paul elevated Borghese to the position of Cardinal Nephew, a position of immense power. He was brilliant, ruthless, and unprincipled. Besides being the de facto head of the Vatican government, he held multiple offices and titles that made him rich beyond measure. He bullied men and threatened their souls. He imposed taxes and acquired estates—whole villages—through extortion and papal edicts. He had an extensive collection of pornography, and his homosexuality scandalized the Church.”
Joe Cooley could not suppress a snicker of delight. “Somehow that Church has always known how to grow real scoundrels,” he said.
“Yes, but for all his faults, he was a great patron of the arts. He used his wealth to build a magnificent villa to display the works of Raphael, Titian, Bernini—and Caravaggio, for a time his favorite.”
“A man after my own heart, I guess,” Joe Cooley said. “Except for the boys, of course. All things for the glory of God.”
Max turned to another file. “As for our painting here, the Church owned it first,” he said. “Or, more precisely, was the first to steal it. Borghese had begun to collect art aggressively and was learning to use the tools of his power. Giuseppe Cesari was a prominent artist who had an important collection of more than a hundred paintings, including several by Caravaggio, who had worked in his studio as a young man. Borghese learned that Cesari also had a collection of arquebuses. Cesari was harmless, the guns just a hobby, but they were illegal. Borghese had Cesari arrested, his possessions confiscated. He was sentenced to death. That sentence was eventually lifted, but not until Cesari agreed to donate his paintings to the apostolic chamber. Several months later, the pope gave the entire lot to the Cardinal Nephew.
“About this same time, Caravaggio killed a man he thought cheated him at tennis and fled Rome with a price on his head. He spent the rest of his life running, hoping Borghese could arrange a papal pardon. While he was a fugitive, he did some of his best work. In Malta he painted for the Knights of St. John, becoming a Knight himself, until the Order imprisoned him for fighting. He escaped, but in Naples he was attacked and badly wounded, likely by assassins in the pay of the Knights. He made his way back toward Rome. His pardon had been granted, but he died of fever before he heard.” Max shook his head. “He was only thirty-eight. Imagine what he could have done with another twenty years.”
Max slid a ledger across the table. “As for our painting, Borghese only parted with it because he owned another version, sent to him by Caravaggio from exile. He included this one as part of a bribe to a Polish count named Krasinski. There were three other paintings—an Annibale Carracci, a Reni, and a Lanfranco—and an exquisite jeweled reliquary. We have cross-checked the list with Count Krasinski’s household ledgers. On his death the count bequeathed the items to his brother, who had just been appointed by the king as bishop of Stawicki. As you can see here, the items are included in a church inventory from 1685.” Max fished a paper out of the stack. “This is in Polish, of course, but I’ve circled the items for you.
“The paintings and reliquary stayed safe and anonymous in that church for nearly three hundred years, surviving fires and insurrections. For most of that time Caravaggio was a forgotten man, all but lost to history until the twentieth century, when scholars began to appreciate what a giant he was.”
Joe Cooley stood. “Time for another drink. Sure you won’t have something stronger?”
“Just a bit more water. There is a great deal more to cover.”
Max opened a thick file of yellowed documents and newspaper clippings. On top was a black-and-white photograph of a German officer. Max slid it across the table.
“SS,” Joe Cooley commented. “Handsome devil.”
Max nodded. “Walter Beck. This photograph was taken just after his promotion to colonel, a year before the end of the war.”
Joe Cooley studied the long, angular face and intelligent eyes. “Perfect German officer,” he said. “Cold bastard, by the look of him.”