ABSTRACT
As in the Death of the Virgin, Caravaggio shows only human aspects of divine drama. He eschewed the host of angels that would normally swarm in the upper half of a saintly burial and so emphasized the emptiness of earthly death. The Padri Crociferi were "Ministri degli Infermi," hospitalers in charge of the sick; a struggle between life and death, aided by religion, was for them an everyday matter. Susinno tells us that Caravaggio set up shop in the hospital and some of the models were presumably patients. Caravaggio's other surviving painting for Messina is an Adoration of the Shepherds, painted for a Capuchin church, perhaps on the order of the Senate. Bellori says that in Naples Caravaggio painted a Salome with the Head of the Baptist that he sent to Malta to placate Wignacourt. That canvas was presumably painted in 1609–1610.
