Caravaggio in Naples

The Seven Works of Mercy

Michelangelo Merisi adopted the name Caravaggio after the town of his birth. I was wondering if I did the same thing then I’d be called ‘Jarrow’ which, in the local dialect, would become ‘Jarra’. This sounds like the kind of name that’s looking for a fight so would take some living up to. No such inhibitions concerned Caravaggio, who, between paintings, did his fair share of boozing, brawling and even murdering by all accounts. In fact, the reason he came to Naples in the spring of 1606 was because he was on the run from the Papal authorities in Rome for having killed someone in a duel.

By the autumn, he was painting The Seven Works of Mercy, which he finished at the beginning of January 1607. This astonishing painting was commissioned by the Pio Monte della Misericordia (Holy Mountain of Mercy), which was founded in 1602 to provide means to alleviate poverty in Naples. This same organisation continues to undertake charitable work across the city.

Some say the original commission was for seven separate panels around the small circular chapel of the Pio Monte but Caravaggio was ducking and diving, a man in a hurry who needed quick cash and he convinced them he could put all seven mercies in one painting.

When you view the painting in the chapel, it’s set back above an altar so you’re inclined to view it from bottom to top. It’s the crowded inventiveness of the composition that first catches the eye. In the lower half of the painting are the givers of mercy (literally and figuratively drawn from the streets of Naples). They’re squeezed into a space so small and tight their intimacy reminds us of ourselves. No grandiose landscape or Holy Lands but a dark and claustrophobic street corner in which these mercies are bestowed. In direct contrast to the surrounding gloom, their generosity illuminates them as they fulfil their works of mercy.

Starting from the left of the canvas, an inn-keeper can be seen directing a pilgrim to his inn (Sheltering the homeless). Behind them is the figure of Samson, pouring water into his mouth from the jawbone of an ass (Refreshing the thirsty). A wealthy young man - possibly St Martin - is cutting up his cloak to comfort the naked beggar in the foreground (Clothing the naked and Visiting the sick). Opposite this group, on the right, is the extraordinary sight of Pero breast-feeding her aged father, Cimon, through the bars of his prison, in reference to the Roman story of filial piety (Feeding the hungry and Visiting the imprisoned). In the background, a priest holds a torch to illuminate the hasty despatch of a corpse, perhaps recalling the plagues that decimated the city's population (Burial of the dead being the seventh Act of Mercy).

And if that was all then you might say it was enough but Caravaggio doesn’t stop there. Above all of this, a pair of tousle-headed angels look as though they’re about to tumble headlong into the crowded scene. One stretches out a strong, slender arm to steady himself and his divine cargo of Mary and Jesus. The other angel unfurls his wings to provide a benevolent canopy, while their arms and wings are intertwined in brotherly love. Perhaps they’re also conferring a blessing on the scene below. Mary gazes at her son, a robust toddler keen to get down from her knee, and steadies him with her powerful hand.

Nobody but Caravaggio could or would have captured this scene in this way. His final years were unsettled and dangerous; from Naples to Malta then Sicily and he died, in uncertain circumstances hoping for a Papal pardon, three years after painting this masterpiece. The Irish poet, Catherine Ann Cullen, imagines him as:

'this jailbird painter with the dirty nails,
his blood maddening in the city heat,
a murder on his hands'