Rock star Caravaggio

Marathon mother Maureen Stapleton is training hard for this April's London marathon. She took some time off training to visit the Caravaggio exhibition in London. Having fled Italy, Caravaggio lived peacefully in Malta protected by the Knights - until he offended one of them and was imprisoned. He later escaped and went back to Italy. From Marathon mum:

I took the morning off to see the Caravaggio exhibit at the National Gallery. The pictures were amazing, and I'm not really one to fall for the seriously religious stuff. Caravaggio lived the life of a rock star. Seriously! (Who knew, right?) This exhibit looks at his final years, when he was banished from Rome after killing a man in a duel. He went on the run-- painting beautiful pictures along the way-- and was made a knight in Malta. Just as things started to look up for him, he was involved in bar fight in Naples, and got slashed and stabbed beyond recognition in the face. He survived the stabbing, and then learned that he might be pardoned by the pope, so he headed back north via ship. However, he disembarked, got thrown in jail, and the boat-- with all his belongings and pictures on board-- left without him. ("Wait! Wait! My pictures!!") He then tried to chase after it, only to suffer heat exhaustion and die. You can't make this stuff up, can you?

Caravaggio biography

The miraculous Caravaggio - see paintings here

Lost opportunity for Malta