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I was born in Rome. I worked in a style influenced by Caravaggio, but which was nonetheless strongly individual, and today am regarded as one of the most accomplished of the so called Caravaggisti. Though rather marginalized in earlier art historical accounts of my period, I have been reassessed in recent years, particularly by feminist art historians, who have discerned a specifically female point of view in my work. My treatment of Susanna and the Elders (1610, Pommersfelden, Schloss Weissenstem), for example, concentrates on the vulnerability of a naked woman whose private bath has been violated by the predatory elders; male painters generally appear to give emphasis to the sensuality of Susanna's nudity, such that the (presumably male) viewer of the painting becomes in effect a third voyeur (e.g. Tintoretto, 1557, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; Guido Rem, London, National Gallery). My Judith Beheading Holofernes (Florence, Uffizi; a subject to which I returned a number of times) is notable for its extreme violence and has been linked to the trauma of my alleged rape in 1612 at the age of 19 by my painting instructor, Agostino Tassi. My father sued Tassi for the crime, but in the ensuing legal proceedings I was tortured and Tassi was ultimately acquitted. The violence of these particular paintings is thus sometimes seen as a kind of therapeutic revenge substitute. During my lifetime I enjoyed a Europe wide reputation as a painter, working mainly in Rome and Florence, before settling in Naples from 1630.