Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610 AD), one of the most influential painters in the history of Western art, signed only a single painting. He hid his name in a splash of blood in a work that hangs in the oratory of St John’s Co-Cathedral, in the heart of Malta’s UNESCO-listed capital, Valletta.
The vast Beheading of St John the Baptist – a striking, violent, revolutionary painting – still dominates the room for which it was created, which now receives nearly half a million visitors a year. It is at the centre of the story of Caravaggio’s time on this island, which was a “pivotal” period in his life and work, explained Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, curator at London’s National Gallery, whose upcoming exhibition on the artist begins in April. This is a tale of murder, religion, knights, prison escapes and art theft, all played out across Malta’s most important historic buildings.
I started my quest for Caravaggio where he began his time in Malta, on the sparkling waters of the Grand Harbour, still flanked as they were then by the honeyed limestone fortifications of the Knights of the Order of St John Hospitaller. This harbour has been at the heart of Maltese history since the Phoenicians. Anyone trading or invading in the Mediterranean has at some point coveted this safe haven, and down the years it has caught the eyes of Romans, Arabs, medieval Europeans, Catholic knights, Muslim Turks, Napoleon and the British, to name a few
When Caravaggio sailed in, it had only been a handful of decades since the harbour had been thick with the blood and
