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CARAVAGGIO Michelangelo Merisi da (d.1610) was so called from the town from which his family originated near Milan.Recently discovered documents suggest that he was born not in 1573 as has long been believed but in 1571. In 1584 he was apprenticed for four years to Simone Peterzano a Bergamasque who claimed to have been a pupil of Titian. After hisapprenticeship ended he appears to have gone to Rome but his early years are so obscure that it is uncertain when he arrived there and when he worked for the Cavaliere d'Arpino. His earliest works were still-life subjects and small dramatized self-portraits of a distinctly Northern and vaguely Venetian character with strong chiaroscuro and detailed execution. During the 1590s he worked for Cardinal del Monte who commissioned several genre subjects and probably through him he obtained in 1599 the commission to decorate a chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi the French church in Rome with three scenes from the life of S. Matthew. This his first public work was finished only after many difficultiesincluding the rejection of the original altarpiece of S. Matthew and the Angel on the grounds of indecorum and radical repaintings of the Calling and the Martyrdom of the Saint on the side walls probably due to difficulties with the scale of the figures occasioned by unfamiliarity with working on such large canvases and on related works on opposing walls. The present altarpiece was substituted for the original one and with the extensive repaintings the work may well have lasted until 1603 although the chapel was opened in 1601.During these years he also painted the Martyrdom of S. Peter and the Conversion of S. Paul for Sta Maria del Popolo (1600-1) but these too seem to have been rejected and replaced with other renderings of the subjects. These are smaller pictures than the works in S. Luigi with fewer figures much larger in scale but with an even more dramatic chiaroscuro. Three further large altarpieces were bitterly criticized; the Madonna di Loreto the Virgin and Child with S. Anne and the Death of the Virgin. Basically the objections were on the grounds of indecorum the sweaty headcloth and dirty feet of the pilgrims in the Madonna di Loreto the naked Child and peasant air of the Virgin and S. Anne the coarse peasant types used for the apostles and bloated figure of the dead Virgin reputed to have been painted from a drowned strumpet fished out of the Tiber. These accusations and opposition to his works among the Academic later Mannerists such as Zuccaro were founded on his vivid realism his use of contemporary costumes and settings his rejection of idealization the immediacy and simplicity of his approach and the novelty of his use of strong chiaroscuro with a wealth of detail which though appearing to conform to the new ideas favoured by Counter-Reformation artistic theory were radically opposed to the formsand ideas expressed by the Carracci. But all his rejected works found ready buyers among Cardinals and noblemen against whom no accusations of insincerity and sensationalism can be made. His reputation as a stormy petrel was probably added to by the libel action brought against him in 1603 by Baglione (later his biographer) because of scurrilous verses which Baglione accused him of circulating and by the numerous fracas with the police due to his violent temper. His career in Rome was brought to an inglorious end in 1606 by just such an outburst for during a game of racquets he quarreled with his opponent and stabbed him. He fled to Naples where he painted several works before going on to Malta in 1607. Here he was well received by the Grand Master of the Order of S. John of whom he painted a portrait (which may be the one in the Louvre attributed to him though there are doubts) was made a knight 'of Grace'(the lowest grade) and commissioned to paint two works still in Malta. After assaulting a Knight Justiciary (the highest grade) he was imprisoned but escaped and fled to Sicily in 1608. He was expelled from the Order and pursued by its agents from Syracuse to Messina then toPalermo and finally back to Naples in 1609 where at a low tavern haunt of German mercenaries and cut-throats he was seriously wounded in a brawl and his death was generally reported. Meanwhile in Rome efforts were being made to obtain a pardon but not daring to return to Rome until he was sure of it he left Naples by sea for Port' Ercole a Spanish enclave on the Tuscan coast. Here he was imprisoned by mistake and was released in time to see the felucca sail as he thought with all his goods. His frantic efforts to overhaul the vessel brought on an attack of fever and a few days later he died in a tavern. After his death the Spanish Viceroy sent to Port' Ercole for his effects which were awaiting him in the customs' house.His last works in Malta and Sicily are very dark and somewhat damaged but their direct iconography their inspired simplicity and poignancy embody a new intensity of dramatic feeling. His technical methods were revolutionary and brought him into endless controversy: he is recorded as painting directly on to the canvas from a model instead of working from sketches and squared-up preparatory drawings. Apart from Naples his methods and ideas had little lasting effect in Italy where his principal followers were Orazio Gentileschi and his daughter Artemisia Manfredi Borgianni Saraceni (who painted the replacement for the rejected Death of the Virgin) and a number of lesser men who imitated his manner without catching more than his realism and light effects. He had some passing influence on Guido Reni and Guercino and a decisive one on the Utrecht School and in Naples. The realism of Ribera and Maino links him with the early work of Velazquez andMurillo and in France La Tour and the Le Nain brothers show the spread of his ideas. Rubens was also another profound admirer of Caravaggio and much of Rembrandt's work stems from him.There are works in Berlin the Escorial Florence (Uffizi Pitti) Hartford Conn. Kansas City Leningrad London (NG) Madrid (Prado) Messina Milan (Ambrosiana Brera) Naples (S. Domenico Maggiore Misericordia) New York (Met. Mus.) Paris (Louvre) Rome (Gall. Naz Borghese Capitoline Corsini Doria Galls. and churches) Rouen Valletta Malta the Vatican and Vienna. The Nativity in the Oratory of S. Lorenzo Palermo was stolen in 1969 and has not yet been recovered.
