Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (5 page)

39.
The Creation of Adam
by Michelangelo (detail). Caravaggio modelled the hand of his beckoning Christ (above) on the hand of Michelangelo’s Adam.

40.
The Martyrdom of St Matthew.
Caravaggio included his self-portrait among those fleeing from the scene of the crime. He looks back as if to regret his failure to help the stricken Matthew.

41.
The Conversion of St Paul
(first version). One of Caravaggio’s few failures, it was immediately rejected by the patron, Tiberio Cerasi. The reeling servant looks like a spear-carrier in a bad comic opera.

42.
The Crucifixion of St Peter.
Peter insisted that he be crucified upside down, because he felt unworthy of the same death as Christ. His unfeeling executioners impassively hoist him aloft.

43. The Cerasi Chapel (front view). (
above the altar
) Annibale Carracci’s
Assumption of the Virgin. (left)
The Crucifixion of St Peter. (right)
The Conversion of St Paul,
with horse’s rump aimed at Carracci’s Virgin Mary.

44.
The Conversion of St Paul
(second version). Rejecting the tumult and drama of his first, unsuccessful treatment of the subject (Plate 41), Caravaggio internalized the action so that we sense it unfolding within Paul’s soul.

45.
The Supper at Emmaus.
As the risen Christ reveals himself to the two disciples, they react with gestures of awe and astonishment.

46.
St John the Baptist.
Caravaggio’s workshop assistant, Cecco, modelled for this depiction of the saint in the wilderness as a smiling and ecstatic young boy.

47.
Ignudo
by Michelangelo. The male nudes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling evoke the golden age of classical myth. Caravaggio appropriated motifs from Michelangelo’s work throughout his life.

48.
The Betrayal of Christ.
‘The pale, delicate, emotionally sensitive face of Christ is set hard against the brutish, sunburned face of Judas.’

49.
Street Scene
by Francesco Villamena. A notorious battle between Rome’s pro-French and pro-Spanish factions. Caravaggio took the billowing cloak for his own nocturnal street scene,
The Betrayal of Christ.

50.
St Matthew and the Angel
(first version). Caravaggio’s first, rejected version of the altarpiece. Objections were raised to its lack of decorum. During the Second World War, it met the same fate as the lost
Portrait of Fillide Melandroni
(Plate 34).