To coincide with the paperback publication of my Caravaggio novel A NAME IN BLOOD, I'm posting each of the paintings that appear in the book each day for the next month. Here's a nasty looking fellow, Pope Paul V. The Borghese Pope was new to the job when he chose Caravaggio to paint his portrait, and it's truly masterly. It doesn't back away from any of the bitterness and mendacity in his face. It reminds me, of course, of Pope Innocent X's reaction to the portrait Velazquez did of him half a century later: "It's too real," he said. By which he meant that the portrait, part of the Doria Pamphilij collection, didn't disguise his deviousness and anger as he might've expected. Here's what the pope's nephew Scipione says to Caravaggio about the portrait in my novel: "One gets the impression that he'll soon deliver some withering reproach." The portrait is privately held in the Palazzo Borghese in Rome. I've had the privilege to stand before it, and it's still more amazing as a life-size composition.