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Merixio—rather than the Romanized version of it, Michelangelo Merisi, which he adopted later, or Caravaggio—the town of his birth—with which he signed his works when he became famous.
    The cardinal paid eight scudi for
The
Cardsharps
and
The
Fortune Teller
; four scudi each. In that same year of 1595, the artist Carracci sold his paintings for two hundred and fifty scudi apiece; del Monte’s annual income—not the money he used for his political operations and the administration of the palace, but for his personal expenses—was one thousand scudi. It would have been enough to buy two hundred and fiftyCaravaggios a year, twenty-one a month. In 1981, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth bought
The
Cardsharps
for $15 million.
    Despite his spectacular stinginess, Cardinal del Monte always knew exactly what he had bought. He unveiled the two paintings in the celebrated music salon of the Palazzo Madama, where they were so admired by his guests that he soon returned to Constantino Spata’s butcher shop and bought
Sick Bacchus
and
Medusa
, which he sent as a gift to the grand duke. In the same fell swoop, carried away by enthusiasm, he bought Caravaggio too—fleshy shoulders, fresh mouth—and brought him to live among the servants of the palace so he could paint works on demand.
    This was the turning point of Caravaggio’s career, the moment when his life as an orphan adrift moved him onto the service side of the court.

Changeover

    A s it happened, the Lombard really didn’t remember anything about the night before. Very likely he couldn’t even remember each serve as he returned it, once the ball was in play. Maybe this was why he was enjoying himself so much during the break in a match where he had already lost the first set. The spectators had scattered about the gallery to stretch their legs, and some had gone to piss in the canal, so the painter, Mary Magdalene, and Matthew had a bit of welcome privacy.
    Leaning on the gallery railing, he wasn’t sure at all how he had come to be playing a Spaniard at tennis, nor why the Spaniard had an escort of soldiers, nor how he could possibly be losing when his opponent was a lame lordling with a face that drooped to the sides, like a pair of buttocks. Not that it mattered much: he was very happy breathing in the powerful scent of Mary Magdalene’s tits as she asked him why the Spaniards could bear arms and his friends couldn’t. They must be noblemen, said the Lombard, and he lowered his head, as if by sinking his nose into the whore’s cleavage he could remove himself from a world that pressed on his temples and parched his throat. He inhaled. And those ugly soldiers, said the woman. The artistturned to look at them. He gave them a distant stare, his eyes nearly shut. They’re green people, he said; except for their master, who’s worse: pink as a pig. And he turned his attention back to her cleavage.
    Matthew, who had been in a sulk for a while over the artist’s disinclination to rapidly crush his opponent, noted that they were probably from the Naples regiment, but not soldiers. He added: They must be mercenaries,
capo mio
—as if he were morally superior somehow to a soldier, a mercenary, or anyone else. He was standing with his back to the court, next to his
capo
, who was now nuzzling Mary Magdalene’s left clavicle.
    If anyone associated with one of the families who ruled the city rabble had heard Saint Matthew refer to the tennis player as
capo
, he would have died laughing. The artist had the right to carry a sword because he was in service to a cardinal, which meant that he could make extra money by taking part in debt collection and street fights, but that was all. The flock of lowlifes who followed him everywhere wasn’t a gang, though when bodies were needed they brought sticks and stones to the battle for control of a corner or a piazza. The
famiglia
that the artist belonged to took