- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Picador (8 Feb 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330487310
- ISBN-13: 978-0330487313
- Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,873,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Historical Novel Society
In this exciting first person narrative Peachment has captured the heart and soul of this larger than life character.
Product Description
Peachment's imagined Caravaggio, while still a child, overhears his parents discussing one of his sketches, and realises he has a talent which sets him apart from the world. He leaves family and home forever to map out a solitary traveller's life. Caravaggio became a revolutionary of his time, a rebellious and dangerous man to know, a man governed by his genius, his indiscriminate sexual appetite and his murderous rage. His name was sought far and wide in the late-Renaissance world for his art. And there was a price on his head for at least one murder. This is Caravaggio's confession, told in humorous, blasphemous, often brutal prose, which cleverly beguiles the reader into understanding the art that was so celebrated and the life that caused so much outrage. Peachment's Caravaggio is a gripping story of one man's determination to grapple with the truth as he journeys through Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily, encounters lovers and enemies, endures madness, exile and imprisonment, and faces a final showdown with the Vatican Secret Service. His account is poignant and spirited. It is an adventurous and thoroughly enthralling insight into the mind and underbelly of a creative genius and the violent world which inspired his paintings.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I wholeheartedly agree with the first review above. I've loved Caravaggio's paintings for years and have read quite a lot about him, but I couldn't finish this book because of my frustrations with the anachronisms, the lack of any credible information about the painting process, the lack of visually stimulating descriptions of the settings, and the fact that Caravaggio's vocabulary, when he's not foul-mouthed and murderous, sometimes resembles that of an English public schoolboy.
Format:Hardcover
I have never written a review before but feel compelled to disagree with other critic re quality of above book. I never visited an art gallery or museum until I read this novel. It fascinated me so much that I am now an ardent art lover and this entirely due to the fact of having read Caravaggio so 10/10 to Christopher Peachment!
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I picked this book up in the gift shop of the National Gallery during the recent show, Caravaggio: The Late Years. I finally had to abandon it halfway through because the inaccuracies were too irritating. I'm all for a little revisionist history, but seeing as the story is told by Caravaggio, certain passages really got up my nose-- for example, indicating that a neighborhood in Malta looked "bulldozed" (in 1600? --the current sense of a machine for clearing or levelling coming into usage in 1930), the use of the pejorative "frog" for Frenchmen (probably in use since 1850), and his account of entering Rome, "I [Caravaggio] entered Rome from the north, through serious bandit country and starving farms, and then past Cinecitta, where I later used to go and join Federico, and help him indulge his taste for good life..." Cinecitta was established in 1937 for the Italian cinematic industry (thus the name). Federico, the "good life"? Too clever for his own good. I think the language should ring true and historical accuracy be maintained. Credibility was sacrificed here. I think I'll find another novelization of Caravaggio.
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