The Guardian of Mercy

December 21, 2015
The second book by Ward (Searching for Hassan) belongs to an eclectic mix of genres: it’s a travel memoir, an art history treatise, and a journalistic sketch of modern-day Naples. Ward—who lives in Florence for part of each year—traveled to Naples in the early 2000s with his wife, Idanna. There, the pair stumbled upon a masterpiece hidden in the back of a small church called Pio Monte della Misericordia. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s The Seven Acts of Mercy was commissioned as propaganda for the church’s charitable brotherhood, but Caravaggio took liberties with his depictions of mercy, using beggars, street fighters, and ordinary passersby on the streets to act as his models. Ward weaves the story of Caravaggio—who was accused of several counts of murder and condemned to a death sentence by the pope, and who eventually died a mysterious, lonely death—with the contemporary story of a guard named Angelo Esposito stationed at Pio Monte della Misericordia. Esposito, a passionate sanitation worker turned Caravaggio disciple, shows the couple deeper layers of both the painting and the city that he calls home. Ward’s writing is laden by over-the-top descriptions (e.g.,“Each meal became a cornucopia of delicacies, breaking new ground”), but the story is strangely compelling and educational—a charming departure from the typical narrative of art history.

December 15, 2015
A documentary producer's memoir of the unexpected lessons he learned from a church caretaker about faith, the human condition, and the Italian painter Caravaggio. In the early 2000s, Ward (Searching for Hassan: An American Family's Journey Home to Iran, 2002, etc.) was on a research trip to Naples when a tour of the Duomo of San Gennaro altered the course of his visit. While in the duomo, he came across a mysterious Caravaggio painting called The Seven Acts of Mercy. A church guardian began to explain the work to him. Each grouping of figures in the "eerie chiaroscuro" was an interpretation of the seven mercies as presented in the Gospel of Matthew. Rather than attempt to render the painting along more classical lines, Caravaggio broke with tradition and used "Neapolitans fresh off the streets as his models." Some of the acts he depicted--such as a daughter offering her starving and imprisoned father her own breast to feed and comfort him--bordered on scandalous. The more Ward listened to the guardian and his stories over successive visits, the more he found himself intrigued by Caravaggio, whose mysterious life he imagines and deftly interweaves into the main narrative. Gradually, he began to understand that through the painting, Caravaggio was attempting to offer a purified version of Christianity, which the artist saw as classist and exclusionary. The artist's "truth," writes the author, "ignores earthly divisions of wealth, power, [and] birth." Instead, Caravaggio focused on the shared humanity of the individuals and suggested a more egalitarian vision of Christian brotherhood. In an ironic twist, the guardian's life became a study in the power of mercy when he was confronted with his wife's adultery. Remembering Caravaggio, he transcended his pain to eventually accept both his wife's frailties and his own. Ward's work offers a refreshing look at a once-forgotten--but now much-celebrated--artistic genius. The author also reveals the subtle and profound ways in which art and life interact. Fascinating reading about a significant artistic figure and his legacy.

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February 15, 2016
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known simply as Caravaggio, was one of the greatest artists of the sixteenth century. The Seven Works of Mercy (1607), one of his most memorable paintings, hangs in a small church in Naples. On a single canvas, Caravaggio depicts feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners, giving water to the thirsty, burying the dead, and healing the sick. Contrary to the custom of the times, the renegade artist used ordinary Neapolitans as models. Ward (Searching for Hassan, 2002) interweaves the story of that now-iconic painting with the story of Rafaelle, an employee of the city of Naples whose job it is to guard it. Ward encountered both the masterpiece and the man who was transformed by his connection with it on a visit to his wife's native Italy, and has written an absorbing account of the powerful experience. The narrative moves back and forth between Caravaggio's time and the present in prose as colorful and compelling as the painting itself. Anyone interested in art and its power to change lives will appreciate this thoughtful work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)