Theory and Criticism of Literature and Arts
Issue 10, Nr. 1 – 2026
CARAVAGGIO’S LAST JOURNEY
(JUNE–JULY 1610)
NEW DOCUMENTS AND REAPPRAISALS
Copyright © 2026 Bibliothèque de l’OProM
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Cover Image: Graphic reworking of a detail from The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, Caravaggio, Naples, 1610. Gallerie d’Italia, Intesa San Paolo. © TCLA Journal 2026.
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Archiving and Accessibility Statement
Full Issue DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17558816.
The full PDF of this issue is archived on Zenodo and linked to the respective authors’ ORCID IDs to ensure persistent metadata, and academic attribution.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial
The studies brought together in this issue mark a turning point in scholarship on the final days of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. For the first time, heterogeneous documentary sources—diplomatic, administrative, military and notarial—are systematically reassembled, restored to their historical context and placed in dialogue with one another. The resulting picture differs radically from the long-established narrative, which for centuries has oscillated between biographical simplification and romantic myth-making.
The point of departure is the annotated critical edition, prepared by Carla Rossi, of the letter sent on 29 July 1610 by the Apostolic Nuncio in Naples, Deodato Gentile, to the Papal Secretariat of State. This document, long known but never subjected to rigorous philological and palaeographical scrutiny, constitutes the earliest contemporary testimony concerning the circumstances of the painter’s death. The edition makes it possible to correct imprecise readings and to clarify the informational status of the text, distinguishing with precision between established facts, information reported indirectly, and statements formulated in cautious terms.
From this reappraisal emerges a first substantial novelty: the nuncio’s letter is not a summary account, but a complex document drafted within a specific political and administrative context, presupposing local expertise, official procedures and an institutional reconstruction of events. When correctly interpreted, the text yields a coherent sequence of facts, in which the episode of the restato pregione no longer appears as a marginal incident, but as a decisive junction in the chain of events that led to Caravaggio’s death.
A second, highly significant novelty lies in the examination of the documentation relating to the Fortress of Palo, including the identification of the captain mentioned by the nuncio. This makes it possible to situate the painter’s arrest within a clearly defined network of responsibilities, linked to the military administration of the territory and to the mechanisms of control governing movement along the Tyrrhenian coast. This evidence requires a reassessment not only of the dynamics of the arrest itself, but also of its immediate consequences, in terms of timing, physical condition and the painter’s actual capacity for movement in the days that followed.
The issue then introduces a completely renewed reconstruction of the painter’s final movements, achieved through cross-referencing with documented itineraries of members of the Colonna family. The maritime journey undertaken on 3 July by Marzio Colonna from Naples to Gaeta, on the occasion of the delivery of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the overland journey begun on 13 July by the young Constable Marcantonio IV Colonna from Bracciano to Florence, are not incidental data. Their analysis allows Caravaggio to be placed within an active but not all-powerful network of protection, articulated yet vulnerable, characterised by timing constraints, imperfect coordination and evident points of fragility.
In this way, the now stereotyped image of a solitary and chaotic flight is definitively superseded. On the contrary, the studies show that Merisi was expected to move within a system of complex relationships involving aristocratic families, military authorities and local officials. It is precisely the malfunctioning of this system—rather than a vague notion of adverse fate—that emerges as the key factor in the final sequence of events.
A fundamental contribution to the understanding of the context is provided by L. Fusini’s reconstruction of the territorial and military configuration of Porto Ercole at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The historical, cartographic and topographical analysis demonstrates that the fortress, an integral part of the Presidios of Tuscany, was a rigorously controlled space, both by land and by sea. Every point of access was regulated, monitored and recorded. This often neglected or overlooked fact renders untenable any reconstruction that presupposes free movement, casual entry or unobserved presence.
The picture is further enriched by two investigations addressing the immediate reception of the painter’s death. On the one hand, the fundamental discovery by V. Minniti of the document recording the purchase, at the end of August, of crespone—the black mourning cloth—by the Marchesa of Caravaggio, alongside previously known attestations of the purchase of funerary cloths, unequivocally confirms the formal elaboration of mourning for Merisi. On the other hand, the analysis of the reports circulating within the Curia in the days immediately following, prior to 24 July 1610—including those placing the painter’s death in Procida—shows that information was initially fluid and uncertain, and that the official version only gradually became established.
Far from encouraging new speculation, these data make it possible to grasp the complexity of the informational moment, in a summer marked by health emergencies, military controls and political tensions. Caravaggio’s death thus emerges at the intersection of structural and contingent factors, which this issue reconstructs with methodological rigour and precision.
The most significant novelty of this work lies not only in the discovery of new documents, but in the method itself: reading documents in their context, reconstructing the networks within which individuals moved, and restoring to events their true historical density. Only in this way is it possible to approach, without myth-making or reductive simplification, the historical truth of the final days of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
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Title: A Critical and Annotated Edition of the Letter Sent by Deodato Gentile to the Vatican Secretariat of State, 29 July 1610 (Edizione critica commentata della lettera inviata da Deodato Gentile alla Segreteria di Stato Vaticana il 29 luglio 1610)
pp. 7–75
Author : Carla Rossi, Chair ISFiDa (ORCID: 0000-0001-6557-3684)
Abstract:
This article presents an annotated critical edition of the letter sent on 29 July 1610 to the papal Secretariat of State by Deodato Gentile, Apostolic Nuncio in Naples. The document constitutes the earliest contemporary testimony concerning the circumstances of the death of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
Philological and palaeographical analysis of the text enables the correction of several misleading readings that have become established in modern scholarship, and the restoration of the original meaning of several key passages, thereby clarifying their nature and informational status.
The historical commentary reconstructs the painter’s final days and the political, military, and logistical context in which he moved, based on a broad documentary corpus hitherto never examined as a whole. This includes diplomatic dispatches, Medici and Orsini correspondence, diaries, and notarial and administrative sources. The examination of contemporary documentation relating to the Fortress of Palo – until now overlooked by scholarship – allows, for the first time, the identification of the captain mentioned by the nuncio in his letter. This finding leads to a reassessment of the episode of the restato pregione, which emerges as a decisive moment in the sequence of events that culminated in Merisi’s death.
Finally, the contribution reconsiders the painter’s last movements in the light, on the one hand, of the maritime route taken on 3 July by Marzio Colonna from Naples to Gaeta, in connection with the conferral of the Golden Fleece upon Prince Francesco Colonna of Palestrina, and, on the other, of the journey begun on 13 July by the young Constable Marcantonio IV Colonna from Bracciano to Florence.
The convergence of these elements makes it possible to move beyond the traditional representation of the painter’s final journey as a solitary flight and to outline alternative scenarios, grounded in a more precise documentary reconstruction of the network of protection activated around Merisi, its weak points, and the local competencies, as well as the political and sanitary contingencies of the summer of 1610.
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Carauaggio non è morto in Procida p. 18
Procida e la cronologia del viaggio del Viceré di Napoli p. 22
essendo capitato con la felluca p. 28
[…] in quale andaua, à Palo p. 32
Palo, gli Orsini e il Cardinal Farnese p. 39
Si ridusse sino a Porthercole, oue, ammalatosi, ha lasciato la uita p. 47
sintanto che si trattarà con gli heredi e creditori di detto Carauaggio p. 51
I due scenari della morte del Caravaggio: tertium datur p. 71
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Title: Access to Porto Ercole by Land and by Sea in 1610
pp. 75–83
Author : Lorenzo Fusini, Università di Firenze, ORCID: 0009-0003-9949-3246
Abstract:
The article reconstructs the territorial and military configuration of Porto Ercole at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Caravaggio arrived there in July 1610. Drawing on historical, cartographic, and topographical sources, the study restores the image of a fortified stronghold that formed part of the Presidi of Tuscany, a Spanish enclave along the Tyrrhenian coast. The analysis of the land and sea routes of access shows that every entry point was regulated and guarded, making it almost impossible to move about without being observed.
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​​​​Title: Il senso del segreto e alcune conseguenze del nonsenso (The Sense of the Secret and Some Consequences of Nonsense)
pp. 103-116
Author: Luigi Tassoni, University of Pécs, ORCID: 0000-0002-1720-542X
Abstract: Moving beyond many traditional misconceptions, the current broad typology of secrecy initially refers to a simple act of omission—of bracketing, prohibition, or suspension. Yet when reasoning focuses more closely on speech itself, on the discourse triggered by secrecy and on the process that explains its operation, matters become more complex. The interpretation of these “complications,” which are in fact functional elements of complexity, seeks to evoke the dynamic movement between sense and nonsense within language. This paper discusses some of these key aspects, engaging with the perspectives of those who have explored the deep motivations of secrecy between philosophy and literature—from Derrida to Petrarch.
Read PDF on Zenodo | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17559266
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Title: San Domenico Soriano: dai fasti all’oblio (Saint Dominic of Soriano: From Splendour to Oblivion)
pp. 117-132
Author: Biagio Gamba, Organisation pour la protection des manuscrits médievaux, Parigi, ORCID: 0009-0003-5217-6673
Abstract: If one were to ask an ordinary Catholic—especially a Calabrian—about Soriano Calabro, the answer would, in most cases, be a puzzled or indifferent look. Few today know that between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this tiny village, nestled in the Serre mountains of Calabria, was among the most visited pilgrimage sites in Europe and beyond. Artists, famous and obscure alike, immortalised the image of the Saint renowned for his miracles. In the early 1700s, the engraver I. H. Störcklin produced a now-forgotten print depicting the monumental complex as it appeared to pilgrims of the time. A tragic event—a devastating earthquake, reaching the eleventh degree on the Mercalli scale (roughly above 7.0 on the Richter scale)—eventually reduced it to ruins, erasing Saint Dominic of Soriano from both historical and religious memory.
Read PDF on Zenodo | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17559278.
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