10. Sexuality
Caravaggio’s sexuality has long-been the subject of intrigue. It is unusual that the most famous painter in Rome, with all his connections and wealth, to say nothing of his near-permanent state of intoxication, did not marry or have any children. Looking again at his paintings, it is notable that he never painted eroticised female figures, and yet beautiful, nubile young men were a frequent subject. Rumours of his homosexuality dogged him: the model for Amor Vincit Omnia (above), Cecco Boneri, was said to have been his lover, and Caravaggio’s rival, Giovanni Baglione, painted a sodomite devil with Caravaggio’s face.
Baglione had an axe to grind with Caravaggio, however. In 1603, Baglione brought a libel suit against the Milanese because he had composed a satirical poem at his expense entitled Giovanni Coglione (‘Johnny Bollocks’). Baglione alleged that a male prostitute, often hired for his usual duties by Caravaggio, had distributed Caravaggio’s lewd rhymes around the city. Though Caravaggio was imprisoned, Cardinal Del Monte’s intervention saw him released without charge, and so we can divine little of the truth from the end of the matter, either. Homosexuality, too, was punishable by death, and thus was a common, slanderous accusation.
Ultimately, there is no definitive evidence for Caravaggio’s homosexuality. As Andrew Graham-Dixon summarises, ‘there is no absolute proof of it, only strong circumstantial evidence and much rumour… the balance of probability suggests that Caravaggio did indeed have sexual relations with men… but he certainly had female lovers’. One of his female lovers, one Lena, was even mentioned in a court case of 1605, described as ‘Michelangelo [Caravaggio]’s girl’. Sexual relations with men were common throughout the Early Modern Period – one has only to think of the works of Shakespeare – and so in this probable bisexuality Caravaggio was far from unique.