Now an intriguing new theory has been put forward for the demise of the rabble-rousing Renaissance artist Caravaggio – that he was killed in cold blood on the orders of the Knights of Malta to avenge an attack on one of their members.
The chivalric order, which was formed during the Crusades, hunted down the painter because he had seriously wounded a knight during a fight, according to Vincenzo Pacelli, an Italian historian and expert on Caravaggio.
The death of Caravaggio, who earned notoriety during his lifetime for his quick temper and hell-raising ways, has long been shrouded in mystery.
Some historians believe that he died of malaria in the Tuscan coastal town of Porto Ercole in 1610 and that he was buried there.
But Prof Pacelli, of the University of Naples, has unearthed documents from the Vatican Secret Archives and from archives in Rome which suggest that the artist was instead murdered by the Knights of Malta, who then threw his body in the sea at Palo, near Civitavecchia north of Rome.
If true, it was a violent end that Caravaggio himself foretold in one of his most famous works, David with the Head of Goliath (1610), in which he painted his own face onto the severed head of the slain giant.
The "state-sponsored assassination" was carried out with the secret approval of the Vatican, Prof Pacelli claims in a forthcoming book, Caravaggio – Between Art and Science.
"It was commissioned and organised by the Knights of Malta, with the tacit assent of the Roman Curia" – the governing body of the Holy See – because of the grave offence Caravaggio had caused by attacking a high-ranking knight, he said.
The decision to dump the body at sea explained why there are no funeral or burial records recording Caravaggio's death.
"Had he died at Porto Ercole, he would have been given a funeral, especially given the fact that his brother was a priest," Prof Pacelli said. "He would not just have been forgotten." Caravaggio, whose artistic genius was matched only by a supreme talent for creating enemies, was subjected to a violent attack in Naples in 1609 by unidentified assailants which left him disfigured.
Prof Pacelli believes they were almost certainly assassins sent by the Knights of Malta, an order which was founded in the 11th century to protect Christians in the Holy Land and which subsequently established its headquarters on the Mediterranean island.
Re: The Bavarian Illuminati - Jesuit Adam Weishaupt
, William J Donovan did receive this honour amongst many others but I have seen no official mention of him being a knight of Malta.
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