Was Renaissance artist Caravaggio killed in revenge attack by the Knights of Malta?

The mysterious death of Italian painter Caravaggio has been attributed to lead poisoning from the oil paints he used, a fatal bout of malaria and a violent brawl amongst other theories.

But more than 400 years after his death, a professor from Italy has cast doubt over his passing in 1610.

Caravaggio was allegedly targeted by Maltese Knights

Professor Pacelli, from the University of Naples, claims that the artist was murdered by Knights of Malta in a revenge attack, according to documents that he accessed from the Vatican Secret Archives.

Caravaggio who held a notorious reputation for being violent, is believed to have been targeted by the Maltese Knights after he wounded one of their fighters in an earlier brawl.

And Pacelli's theory is strengthened by the Knights decision to throw his body into the sea which explains the absence of burial records and why he never afforded a funeral.

He told The Daily Telegraph: 'Had he died at Porto Ercole, he would have been given a funeral, especially given the fact that his brother was a priest.

'He would not just have been forgotten.'

His subsequent assassination was carried out with the 'consent of the Church in Rome,' that saw his body dumped at sea in Palo, near Civitavecchia north of Rome.

However, the claims that the artist fell victim to the Knights has been refuted with Dr John T. Spike, a Caravaggio expert at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

He insisted: 'They had ample opportunities to kill him sooner – either when he was in Malta, or during the time he spent in nearby Sicily afterwards.'

Judith Beheading Holofernes is a work by Caravaggio, painted in 1598-99 with the widow first charming the Assyrian general before slaying him in his tent

Instead, Spike believes the most plausible cause was that he was accidentally murdered and his body discarded.

In 2010, following a year-long investigation into his death, Italian researches claimed to have located his remains in a church grave in Porto Ercole in Tuscany.

They insisted they were 85 per cent sure that the bones belonged to Caravaggio, a claim which was promptly rejected by many historians.

This article originally appeared in : Was Renaissance artist Caravaggio killed in revenge attack by the Knights of Malta?