David with the Head of Goliath

When Caravaggio painted this, he was a wanted man. In 1606 he had killed someone in a brawl in Rome and fled with a death sentence over his head, moving between Naples, Malta and Sicily. The one man who could help lift that sentence was Cardinal Scipione Borghese, an avid collector with the ear of the pope. So the head Goliath's head, held up by the young David is Caravaggio's own face, painted from life as a beheaded man, mouth open, eyes already glazing over. The sword David holds carries an abbreviation art historians read as a line about humility conquering pride. It reached Borghese's collection in Rome, where it still hangs. Caravaggio died in 1610, at 38, before any pardon reached him.