Enzo Russo / AP
The presumed remains (above) of Italian baroque painter Caravaggio are on display in a clear case in Tuscany at the Forte Stella.
The bones were stored in a church after being exhumed from a grave in 1956. A team of microbiologists, art historians and anthropologists examined the bones for a year. Although Caravaggio had no children, the team compared the artist's bones with descendants of his family and carbon dated the remains.
Based on the team's evidence, Caravaggio presumably died in about 1610 in Port Ercole (on the Tuscan coast) at the age of 39, possibly from malaria, sunstroke or lead poisoning.
Caravaggio's famous works include "Bacchus," "David with the Head of Goliath," and "Supper at Emmaus."
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Thanks for a post that is both fascinating and grisly. It's nice to see the display too. The Daura Center is actually looking into bone-presentation strategies in preparation for one of our contributions to the slate of GMOA traveling exhibitions, "Pierre Daura and the Spanish Civil War." We'd like to display a bone fragment that Pierre dug out of his arm with a pocket knife after being shot in the war (it's much smaller than the extant remains of Caravaggio). The Daura archive also has the knife he used.
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