Author

Picture yourself in the heart of Rome, Italy. The date is May 28, 1606 in the eternal city. The streets are bustling with petty merchants trying to sell you everything and anything, each one claiming that theirs is the best. The scent of freshly baked bread wafts through the air masking the bitter aroma of swine and filth. Gypsies run wild with their charming eyes that lure in the innocent, only to make off with their wallet and jewels.

The sun is beginning to set, store fronts are locking up shop for the night, and the once thriving streets of Rome dwindle to emptiness, but only momentarily.

The moonlight dances along the damp cobblestone streets, setting the stage for the romantically untamed forthcoming night. For, a party is underway. A tennis match perhaps, a celebration of wealth and power, for the elite to step outside and unwind.

Shadows begin to shift in the streets as the folks begin to exit there estates and congregate in the square. The streets become alive with fortune and the stench of arrogance fills the air.

Already drunk from the pleasure of Italian wine the noblemen court their maidens, luring them to the taverns ahead.

Imagine seeing the laughter and the absence of inhibitions, the maidens parading around like courtesans, the magistrates acting like scoundrels.
You turn to the right sharply to see a man, a young man, standing with death in his eyes and rage on his face. His body soaked with sweat and hands covered in dirt and filth. Even his hair seems angry, violent curls hang down across his brow and the remnants of the day are scattered on his shoulders. He holds a soul piercing glare as he shifts out of your sight. He reappears suddenly with teeth clenched and hands balled up in fits of rage. He is approaching another man.

First, a verbal confrontation of yelling and screaming over each other to be heard, a crowd slowly gathers in horror and dismay. Gasps are heard like church bells- then all goes silent.

A man is stabbed in the harshness of the Italian night. There was bloodshed that night, a murder in the heart of Rome.

The murderer calmly wipes his blade of blood, looking upon the horrified crowd with absolutely no remorse. The pale orange glow of the moon fills their eyes with terror as they stand in silence, stunned. With every minute move he makes forces them to shutter backward in fear.

In an instant he is gone, like a shadow in the night, he disappears.

Imagine waking up the next morning to a beautiful Italian sunrise. The summer sun beats in through your window and forces your arrival upon the world. Imagine wiping the sleep from your eyes only to find out that the murderer the previous night, was none other than the great artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. A sinister and corrupt man, far more brilliant with paint than anyone of his time, a man of fury and rage, of talent and magic; he was……. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.