Caravaggio - Nativity Scene Holiday Card

A "Merry Christmas" art card. The back page gives an account of the cover painting: Title / Date: Nativity with St. Francis & St. Lawrence / 1600? 1609? Artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 - 1610) Caravaggio trained in Milan, worked in Rome, moved to Naples to escape a death sentence (for killing someone in a fight), bounced then to Malta, which he fled after imprisonment for wounding another man (this time a knight) in another fight, ending up for a time in Sicily, before heading back to Naples and then, believing a papal pardon secure, back to Rome. He died on the way to Rome of a fever or something in 1610. Maybe he painted his Nativity in Rome in 1600 or in Sicily in 1609. The painting added two anachronistic saints to the manger scene: St. Francis of Assissi (1182 - 1226; Italian friar; born rich but chose pauperdom; travelled the world spreading the Word; founded the Franciscan order; patron saint of animals) and (hey, why not while you’re at it??) St. Lawrence (born AD 225 in Valencia, then part of Roman Spain; made a deacon of Rome AD 257, martyred 258 for thumbing his nose at Emperor Valerian’s demand of the church’s wealth [he gave it all away]). In 1969 someone stole this priceless masterpiece from the Oratory of St. Lawrence and is currently number 2 on the FBI’s list of most wanted art crimes (after the looted Iraqi treasures). Author: B. Willard / Copyright: AM Watson / Visit: PureLoveShop.com/christmas-paintings