# Caravaggio and the Artichokes

![Caravaggio
(1571–1610)](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Bild-Ottavio_Leoni%2C_Caravaggio.jpg/220px-Bild-Ottavio_Leoni%2C_Caravaggio.jpg)

Amazingly, police records describing
[Caravagio’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio) numerous scrapes
with the law have survived until today, and are currently part of an
exhibition at [Italy’s State
Archive](http://www.archiviodistatoroma.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/22/archivio-eventi/69/mostra-su-caravaggio-a-roma-una-vita-dal-vero-documenti-inediti-dipinti-e-testimonianze-sinora-mai-raccolte-in-mostra-allarchivio-di-stato).
Some of the details are summarised in a [splendid piece on BBC
News](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12497978), including this
wonderful police statement of a waiter who claimed to have been attacked
by Caravaggio in a disagreement over artichokes:

> 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…

([The Nerdwriter](https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdwriter1) has
published an excellent and loving [profile of Caravaggio and his art
on YouTube](https://youtu.be/R1lcb_7gj5k).)