Caravaggio: scientists hope to find Italian artist's bones

Italian scientists have launched a high-tech hunt for the remains of Caravaggio, the Renaissance genius who was notorious for his hot temper, wild drinking and tavern brawls

Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio

A team of anthropologists hope to solve the 400-year-old mystery of where the hell-raising artist was laid to rest by using carbon dating, CAT scans and DNA analysis to identify his skull and bones.

They believe his remains are contained in an underground crypt in a cemetery in the small town of Porto Ercole, on the coast of Tuscany.

Caravaggio's last resting place has never been established conclusively. He was wounded in a fight in a tavern in Naples in 1609 and died of a fever in July 1610.

Professor Maurizio Marini, an art historian and Caravaggio expert, believes that after fleeing Naples, he landed in Porto Ercole.

But the wounds he sustained in the brawl festered and his health deteriorated further when he contracted typhoid.

Prof Marini believes he was taken to a local hospital, Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, where he died. He was then probably buried in a nearby cemetery. It was closed in the 1950s and all the remains were transferred to Porto Ercole's cemetery.

Records found in the church list Caravaggio as having died in the parish in 1609, rather than 1610, but Prof Marini believes the discrepancy in dates is explained by the fact that the Gregorian calendar had not yet been introduced to some parts of Italy.
Anthropologists from the universities of Bologna and Ravenna, working with caving experts, have begun to study about 40 sets of bones which they have found in one of the cemetery's three crypts.

They will identify bones which belong to young men who died in the 17th century.

The remains will then be subjected to carbon-dating and CAT scan tests in Ravenna to establish exactly how old they are.

DNA samples will be taken and compared with the DNA of male descendants of Caravaggio's brother, who remarkably still live close to the artist's birthplace, near Milan.

Caravaggio, whose real name was Michelangelo Merisi, was best known for his mastery of the chiaroscuro (light and shade) painting technique.

Considered the greatest Italian painter of the 17th century, he was often involved in violent altercations and in 1606 stabbed a man to death during a quarrel over a game of racquets.

He moved between Naples, Malta and Sicily, finally receiving a papal pardon shortly before he died.