Are you interested in learning about your Italian Heritage?

Here is a short story about a very special person. We hope you will enjoy reading it.

Michelangelo Merisi or most likely Merisio widely known as Caravaggio was born in Milan on September 29, 1571 son of Fermo Merisi (or Merisio) and Lucia Aratori. His father, Fermo Merisi, was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the Marquis of Caravaggio, a hill town not far from the city of Bergamo. His mother, Lucia Aratori, came from a family of landowners of the same district. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague which ravaged Milan, and Caravaggio's father died a year later. His mother died in 1584, and in the same year Michelangelo was apprenticed for four years to a Milanese painter with the name of Simone Peterzano, a pupil of Titian.

Caravaggio became known for realistically capturing moments of human emotion and painting the drama of psychological relationships.  He broke with the conventional styles of depicting the saints and used regular everyday people as models and painted them with realistic detail showing the Saints' common humanity. Caravaggio’s personal life was full of escapades which were as dramatic and tragic as his paintings.  Scandal seemed to follow him.  With his violent temper and unpredictable disposition he was always ready to engage in a fight or an argument. Caravaggio enjoyed only a decade of fame and success.  He was exiled to Naples, and then used the influence of his considerably powerful patrons to secure a pardon.

The exact cause and date of his death has been a mystery for years; it is believed, despite attempts on his life by enemies that he died of fever in 1610. He died at the Hospital of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice as it was stated in a death document that was rediscovered in 2001: “Adì 18 luglio 1609 nel ospitale di S. Maria Ausiliatrice morse Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio dipintore, per malattia” – Today on July 18, 1609 in the hospital of S. Maria Ausiliatrice, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, painter, died from a disease. Caravaggio’s body was then buried in the communal cemetery of San Sebastiano in Porto Ercole a small sea town located in the province of Grosseto, Tuscany. The authenticity of this death document had always been questioned since it was never officially registered in the books of the Church of Porto Ercole and the hospital of S. Maria Ausiliatrice never existed. The document went missing for years until it was found in 1956 and then again in 2001.

At the end of last year, four researchers from four different Italian universities, Bologna, Lecce, Ravenna and Pisa decided to revamp the “Caravaggio Cold Case” when in 1956 a trapdoor in the basement of the church located within the communal cemetery of Porto Ercole in Via del Camerone revealed human bones of people deceased at the beginning of the 1600s. Could that be the lead to finally solve one of the most mysterious cases in art history? After a first screening, the bones belonging to nine bodies whose body size and age was compatible with Caravaggio’s were analyzed and dated through the “carbon-14” method. Three descendents from Michelangelo Merisi or Merisio’s paternal line were located in the town of Caravaggio and with their permission they were tested for DNA to allow the researchers to establish a connection and attribute the remainings found in the cemetery to the ones of the painter.

On June 16, 2010, almost 400 years after his death and one year after the “Caravaggio Cold Case” was reopened, it was confirmed that the bones covered in lead and mercury (substances that were commonly used by artists when preparing their paints in the 1600s) found in the communal burial grounds in the cemetery of Porto Ercole belong 85% to the artist. On July 13, 2010 after a week where the artist’s bones were displayed in the town of Caravaggio, they were returned by ship to Porto Ercole where they will remain on permanent display at the Forte Stella site.

Learning about our origins can be an important legacy to our children, after all memories are not used to remember the lost time, but to start again, knowing that losing our roots inevitably leads to a loss in our identity as people who live, think and love.

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