Jerome D. Oremland M. D. Knihy

I am Mario Minniti, painter. I write this as I approach age 63. I can hardly believe that I knew Caravaggio. We met in 1593, really as boys. I was scarcely 16 and he, 21, although he lied and said he was 19. To think he was to become the most sought after and revered painter in all of Italy. Yet when I first met him, I knew that he was headed for tragedy. Everyone suspected that Caravaggio's death was mysterious. Some say that he died of fever. I say that he was murdered. For fear of my life for thirty years, I have had to hold my tongue. Now when many are dead, I want to tell what happened, what I know to be true. I do not know who will read this, but I want a record to exist. Syracuse, Sicily, 1640 Taking us on a journey beginning in sixteenth-century Rome and moving through Naples, the wild seaport of Malta, Sicily, and back to Rome, The Man Who Killed Caravaggio is a story filled with mystery, art, love, and betrayal. Oremland breathes life into the little-known painter Mario Minniti to tell the story. Through Minniti, the lifelong friend, one-time model, and early lover of Caravaggio, we encounter the great painter's loves and lovers, rivals, and the influential patrons who protected him from mishap after mishap