since moving into my new apartment a month ago, not a day has gone by without a card game being played outside my window. usually the same two men go head to head, and armed with their cards, they play for hours on a small wooden table which moves around the square as they please. as the hours pass, various people come over to see what all of the fuss is about. At the game's climax, crowds of men surround the table and the noise is so deafening that i would probably feel more relaxed lying on the sand of the colosseum with a gladiator's sword at my neck and 50,000 people screaming at the emperor to turn his thumb horizontally...
so why do i call them my 'cardsharps'? this is actually the title of an early work by caravaggio, and one of the first of its kind portraying low-lifes in 16th century roman society. note the man in the photograph on the left hand side is doing exactly what the man at the back of caravaggio's painting is doing (see below): spying on the opponent's cards and gesturing (lets imagine this part is happening in the photograph) the number that should be played by his friend. david hockney argues that caravaggio was the world's first photographer. if hockney is right, then this basically makes me and caravaggio the same person right?
perhaps not. but seeing as the 'cardsharps' in my piazza are up there on my list of favourite things about living in rome, we must have some things in common...
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