In 1667, Gottfried Leibniz, who would later become a well-known mathematician and philosopher, wanted to join a society of alchemists. He compiled a letter from the writings of the most celebrated alchemists and sent it to the society. The letter consisted of the most obscure terms Leibniz could find, and he himself, he said, did not understand a word of it. Afraid to be thought ignorant, the society invited Leibniz to its meetings and made him secretary.
Sonny Bono was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1994. You probably know him as half of Sonny & Cher. He is the only member of Congress to have scored a number-one pop single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
4 May 1598: Arrested at 2-3am near Piazza Navona, for carrying a sword without a permit
19 November 1600: Sued for beating a man with a stick and tearing his cape with a sword at 3am on Via della Scrofa
2 October 1601: A man accuses Caravaggio and friends of insulting him and attacking him with a sword near the Piazza Campo Marzio
24 April 1604: Waiter complains of assault after serving artichokes at an inn on the Via Maddalena:
Statement to police by Pietro Antonio de Fosaccia, waiter, 26 April 1604:
About 17 o’clock [lunchtime] the accused, together with two other people, was eating in the Moor’s restaurant at La Maddalena, where I work as a waiter. I brought them eight cooked artichokes, four cooked in butter and four fried in oil. The accused asked me which were cooked in butter and which fried in oil, and I told him to smell them, which would easily enable him to tell the difference.
He got angry and without saying anything more, grabbed an earthenware dish and hit me on the cheek at the level of my moustache, injuring me slightly… and then he got up and grabbed his friend’s sword which was lying on the table, intending perhaps to strike me with it, but I got up and came here to the police station to make a formal complaint…
19 October 1604: Arrested for throwing stones at policemen near Via dei Greci and Via del Babuino
28 May 1605: Arrested for carrying a sword and dagger without a permit on Via del Corso
29 July 1605: Vatican notary accuses Caravaggio of striking him from behind with a weapon
28 May 1606: Caravaggio kills a man during a pitched battle in the Campo Marzio area
Four hundred years after his death, Caravaggio is a 21st Century superstar among old master painters. His stark, dramatically lit, super-realistic paintings strike a modern chord – but his police record is more shocking than any modern bad boy rock star’s.
An exhibition of documents at Rome’s State Archives throws vivid light on his tumultuous life here at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries.
Caravaggio’s friendships, daily life and frequent brawls – including the one which brought him a death sentence from Pope Paul V – are described in handwritten police logs, legal and court parchments all bound together in heavy tomes – and carefully preserved in this unique repository of Rome’s history during the Renaissance and after.
The picture the documents paint is that of an irascible man who went about town carrying personal weapons – a sword and dagger, and even a pistol – without a written permit, boasting that he enjoyed the protection of the ecclesiastical authorities who commissioned some of his most famous works.
He had frequent brushes with the police, got into trouble for throwing a plate of cooked artichokes in the face of a waiter in a tavern, and made a hole in the ceiling of his rented studio, so that his huge paintings would fit inside. His landlady sued, so he and a friend pelted her window with stones.
All these events are documented with eyewitness accounts in this collection of yellowing parchments – difficult to decipher for the non-specialist, but rich in contemporary detail for a skilled archivist.
The documents provide a completely new account of his most serious brawl in May 1606 in which he killed a certain Ranuccio Tommassoni. This brawl – just like a modern-day clash between warring gangs – was arranged in advance by eight participants who have all now been named.
Caravaggio and his three companions, one a Captain in the Papal army, met their rivals at a pallacorda court in the Campo Marzio area, where the artist lived. (Pallacorda was a game played with a ball with a string attached – an early form of tennis, which some older Romans still remember seeing played in the streets of the capital in the mid-20th Century.)
Some biographers have suggested that there may have been an argument over a woman, but the text of the court report suggests the quarrel broke out over a gambling debt. Caravaggio killed Ranuccio and fled the city.
One of Caravaggio’s own supporters was seriously injured. Taken to prison, he was subsequently put on trial, and the new evidence emerges from the report of this trial.
Marcus Sergius was a Roman general during the Second Punic War (218 to 201 BCE). He is famed in prosthetics circles as the first documented user of a prosthetic hand. In Pliny’s Natural History, published about 250 years after Sergius’ death, he describes the war hero:
Nobody – at least in my opinion – can rightly rank any man above Marcus Sergius, although his great-grandson Catiline shames his name. In his second campaign Sergius lost his right hand. In two campaigns he was wounded twenty-three times, with the result that he had no use in either hand or either foot: only his spirit remained intact. Although disabled, Sergius served in many subsequent campaigns. He was twice captured by Hannibal – no ordinary foe- from whom twice he escaped, although kept in chains and shackles every day for twenty months. He fought four times with only his left hand, while two horses he was riding were stabbed beneath him.
He had a right hand made of iron for him and, going into battle with this bound to his arm, raised the siege of Cremona, saved Placentia and captured twelve enemy camps in Gaul – all of which exploits were confirmed by the speech he made as praetor when his colleagues tried to debar him as infirm from the sacrifices. What piles of wreaths he would have amassed in the face of a different enemy!
On this day in 1874, Ehrich Weisz, or as we know him – Harry Houdini, was born in Budapest, Hungary. Houdini left home at seventeen to begin his magic career. He caused a lot of commotion as he continuously escaped from policemen, whether he was in handcuffs or behind bars.
Throughout his career, Houdini amazed audiences through his performances involving straitjackets and coffins as well as his appearances in film. Curious to know how he escaped? Visit American Experience’s Escape Secrets to find out.
Photo: Harry Houdini in handcuffs, circa 1918 (New York Times/Wikimedia Commons).
Liuvigild, also known as Leovigild, was King of Septimania and Hispania from 568 to 586, and also King of Galicia for the latter part of his reign.
So why is this guy important?
For a number of reasons. This man took a dispirate, fractured land of people fighting for their borders and indeed against themselves and united them. He established whole cities at a time when almost no new urban centers were being founded. But I should start at the beginning. First, a little history.
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