On July 18, 1610 the tormented genius Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio died forsaken in a small coastal town between Lazio and Tuscany. He had hoped to return to Rome, having fled some years earlier under penalty of death for the murder of a rival.Here is part of an article that I wrote a few years back for Commonweal:

Few paintings in the Western tradition evoke such a sense of dread as Caravaggios David with the Head of Goliath. In what was to be one of Caravaggios last works, the adolescent David holds the bloody, decapitated head of the giant, gazing on it with a mix of fascination and pity. This portrayal alone would make the painting memorable, but what makes it unforgettable is that the battered giants head is Caravaggios own, vacant eyes still staring, mouth agape.The painting was intended as a gift to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, an inducement to intercede with his uncle, Pope Paul V, for clemency to be shown the beleaguered, near-despairing Caravaggio. Contemplating the painting, the words of one of Gerard Manley Hopkinss Terrible Sonnets spring to mind: No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,/ More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.What, perhaps, forestalls total despair in the painting is that the pitying David is, according to some scholars, a representation of the young Caravaggio. His look of compassion is the lone sign of hope in the scene, one that unites the wounded humanity of both executioner and victim in a common yearning for redemption.

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Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is a longtime Commonweal contributor.

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