by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Caravaggio: A Documentary Biography of the Painter and His Work
Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, was baptised in Milan in 1571 and died at Porto Ercole in 1610. He trained in Lombardy, became a leading painter in Rome, and made major works in Naples, Malta and Sicily after leaving the city in 1606. His art brought sacred and secular subjects close to the viewer through strongly observed bodies, ordinary settings and directed light. The surviving paintings and records tell a compelling story without needing to turn every fight into a key to his images or every shadow into evidence of despair.[1][2][3]
This biography follows documents, collections and places. Dates attached to apprenticeship, commissions, a fatal Roman fight and several journeys are firmer than stories about childhood psychology, named sitters or the precise medical cause of death. Where sources differ, the timeline says so. The artist's name is used both for a person whose movements can be reconstructed and for a changing body of paintings whose attributions must be checked object by object.[2][3][4]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601Four stages of Caravaggio’s career
Lombardy and early Rome
Documented Peterzano apprenticeship; early Roman pictures and collector patronage. Read the biography.
Roman chapels and patrons
Contarelli and Cerasi commissions alongside private Mattei and del Monte work. Read the biography.
Naples and Malta
Flight after the Tomassoni fight, Neapolitan altarpieces and Order of Saint John commissions. Read the biography.
Sicily and final journey
Sicilian church works, a return to Naples and death at Porto Ercole. Read the biography.
At a Glance
- Full nameMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio; “Caravaggio” refers to his family's town of origin rather than a surname assigned at birth.[1][2]
- Lifebaptised 1571 in Milan; died 1610 at Porto Ercole.[1]
- Documented trainingapprenticeship to Simone Peterzano in Milan, contracted 6 April 1584 for four years.[4]
- Principal working placesLombardy, Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily, with a final return through Naples.[1][2]
- First major public Roman breakthroughSaint Matthew paintings for the Contarelli Chapel, around 1599–1602.[2][5]
- Roman departureafter a fight in May 1606 in which Ranuccio Tomassoni died; the immediate quarrel and Caravaggio's intention are more uncertain than the death itself.[3][6]
- Image on the legacy biographya small reproduction resembling a portrait drawing by Ottavio Leoni, held by Florence's Biblioteca Marucelliana. It is not a Caravaggio self-portrait and its JPEG is not licensed for reuse here.[7]
Explore the Life in Three Views
Events: Milan baptism (1571) → Peterzano apprenticeship (1584) → Roman chapel commissions (from 1599) → Tomassoni's death and flight (1606) → Malta knighthood and escape (1608) → Sicilian commissions (1608–09) → final Naples stay and death (1610).[1][2][3][4][5]
Works: The Cardsharps and The Musicians show the early Roman world of private collectors; the Calling of Saint Matthew and Crucifixion of Saint Peter mark public chapel work; The Seven Works of Mercy belongs to Naples; the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist anchors Malta; The Burial of Saint Lucy and Adoration of the Shepherds trace Sicily; The Denial of Saint Peter belongs near the end.[2][8]
Places and patrons: Peterzano's workshop in Milan → Roman collectors such as Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte and Ciriaco Mattei → the Contarelli and Cerasi chapels → the Colonna network and Neapolitan patrons → the Order of Saint John in Malta → Sicilian church commissions → patrons and intermediaries involved in a hoped-for return to Rome.[2][3][5][8]
These views connect events, paintings and patrons without treating a modern museum as a painting's original destination. A date marked “c.” remains approximate. The four stages below explain what each group of records can tell us.
Contents
- Stage One: Lombardy and the First Roman Pictures, 1571–c.1598
- Stage Two: Roman Patronage and Public Chapels, c.1599–1606
- Stage Three: Flight, Naples and Malta, 1606–08
- Stage Four: Sicily, Naples and the Final Journey, 1608–10
- How Caravaggio Painted
- What the Records Say and What They Do Not
- Influence and the Problem of Attribution
- Frequently Asked Questions
Stage One: Lombardy and the First Roman Pictures, 1571–c.1598
The Prado's artist record identifies Caravaggio as baptised in Milan in 1571. The place matters: although the town of Caravaggio gave him his familiar name, his documented training and early visual world belonged to Lombardy. The exact circumstances of his earliest childhood can be reconstructed only from surviving family and civic records. The older claim that childhood plague trauma directly caused his adult violence or painting style cannot be supported by these sources.[1][4]
On 6 April 1584, the young Michelangelo Merisi entered an apprenticeship with Simone Peterzano. Treccani's biographical account of Peterzano describes a contract for four years that included housing, food and instruction in the painter's trade. This is a much firmer starting point than a legend of a completely self-taught genius. It places him within a workshop culture of materials, repetition, copying and commissions, even if no surviving drawing can be securely assigned to the apprentice's own hand.[4]
The date of Caravaggio's arrival in Rome is less settled than many timelines suggest. The Metropolitan Museum's long-standing overview uses an activity span from 1592. A later Italian Ministry of Culture announcement about newly identified archival documents suggests revising the arrival to 1596. Those positions cannot both function as an exact, unqualified date. The safe account says that Caravaggio established himself in Rome during the 1590s, while the initial journey and first years remain an active documentary question.[2][6]
Early Roman pictures often show young people at close range rather than large public sacred events. The Cardsharps catches a trick unfolding across a table, while Boy with a Basket of Fruit and Bacchus make familiar bodies and objects their principal event. Keith Christiansen's Met essay stresses the proximity of figures, direct observation and use of light to pull a viewer into the action. These effects were an artistic choice shaped by patrons and genre, not simply a visual diary of the painter's own life.[2]
The 1597 deposition of the Milanese barber Pietropaolo Pellegrini, highlighted by the Rome State Archive, is the basis for the proposed later arrival date. Pellegrini said he had known Caravaggio for about a year and a half. That dates a reported acquaintance, not necessarily the artist's first entry into Rome. The same archival project brought together 90 documents, including 15 previously unpublished ones, concerning lodgings, debts, injuries and legal conflicts. Its evidence permits a more detailed account of ordinary living arrangements than either the familiar early-1590s chronology or an invented story of perpetual destitution.[6]
The Archivio di Stato di Roma has since explained what a newly recovered inventory adds to that early-Rome question. Documents place Caravaggio in the workshop of the Sicilian painter Lorenzo Carli by March 1596. Carli's inventory, dated 10 April 1597, records the kind of business conducted there: devotional images, portraits and copies of celebrated Madonna icons in Roman churches. This gives the young painter an identifiable commercial setting before the famous private-collector pictures. It does not identify a surviving Carli-shop canvas as Caravaggio's or prove precisely which tasks he performed on every commission.[22]
The archive also revises the dating of a once-used piece of evidence. A list of painters at the Quarantore devotion, sometimes placed in 1594–95, is now dated by its researchers to 1597. Removing that supposed early anchor is part of why a late-1595 arrival has become plausible. Yet a documented presence in Carli's shop in March 1596 sets a latest possible arrival, not the date the artist crossed Rome's boundary. The archive proposes that Faustina Juvarra, Carli's wife, may have modelled for early paintings; “may” is essential, because the inventory cannot establish her identity in the faces of Saint Catherine or Judith.[22]
The painter's connection with Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte was decisive in his early career. The Met's Musicians belongs to this setting, where learned collectors valued music, performance, natural observation and novel painting. Support from such patrons gave a young artist money, access and an audience. It also complicates the cliché of a permanently isolated street outsider: Caravaggio worked within sophisticated networks even when his conduct generated court records.[2][9]
A newly recovered early biography helps explain how that network may have formed, while also showing the limits of a remembered anecdote. Gaspare Celio's account, drafted around 1614 and later revised, says the painter Prospero Orsi gave Caravaggio lodging, saw him painting a Lute Player and introduced him to del Monte when the cardinal wanted a young painter who could make copies. The text was found and edited by archivist Riccardo Gandolfi. It gives Orsi an active role between the young painter's commercial work and a cardinal's household, rather than having patronage arrive by magic. But Celio wrote after these events; the story of Orsi finding Caravaggio asleep near Pasquino is testimony to how their meeting was remembered, not a dated lodging contract. Nor does the title Lute Player alone identify which surviving version Celio had in mind.[28][29]
Stage Two: Roman Patronage and Public Chapels, c.1599–1606
Caravaggio's public reputation changed with the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi. The Calling of Saint Matthew and Martyrdom of Saint Matthew present sacred history as an encounter among recognisable people in compressed space. A third work for the altar, Saint Matthew and the Angel, exists in two designs: the first was later in Berlin and is now missing, probably destroyed in 1945; the second survives in the chapel. The first/second distinction is part of the commission's history, not evidence that one surviving canvas moved between countries.[5][10]
At Santa Maria del Popolo, the Cerasi Chapel brought the Conversion of Saint Paul and Crucifixion of Saint Peter into another public church setting. These pictures depend on large movements and focused light rather than decorative crowds. The chapel context matters: they were made for particular walls, sightlines and devotional use. A modern online thumbnail or museum exhibition may isolate each from the architecture that shaped its effect.[2][5]
A 24 September 1600 contract for the Cerasi Chapel called Caravaggio an eminent painter in Rome. The wording, cited in Christiansen's study of the post-Roman works, is a useful check on the idea that his fame arrived only after his death. He was already securing prominent public work while also making pictures for collectors. The chapel paired his canvases with a central altarpiece by Annibale Carracci; viewing the space as a coordinated commission is more revealing than judging one painting in isolation.[17]
Caravaggio also continued painting for private collectors. Ciriaco Mattei commissioned the earlier London Supper at Emmaus, and his household is linked to the Capitoline Saint John the Baptist. The National Gallery in London describes Mattei and his brother Asdrubale as enthusiastic patrons. Their commissions show that the artist's public religious works did not replace the intimacy of pictures intended for a private room.[11]
Other Roman work pressed sacred subjects toward unusual immediacy. The Madonna of Loreto brings pilgrims close to Mary and the child; The Death of the Virgin poses difficult questions about naturalism and decorum. Some paintings were rejected or moved, but it is inaccurate to say that every work shocked and was refused. The actual commission and collection history differs from object to object.[2][5]
The documentary record also records disputes and legal trouble. The Italian Ministry of Culture has highlighted Roman archival material concerning unpaid rent, injuries and the fatal conflict with Ranuccio Tomassoni. A 1605 landlord complaint describes six months of rent arrears and damage to a ceiling. Another lease had explicitly allowed the painter to uncover part of a ceiling to accommodate large canvases. The documents show the practical scale of his work and the strain in some relationships; they do not allow a modern writer to diagnose his personality, sexuality or mental health from paint effects.[6]
The Rome State Archive's record of a 1603 libel case gives something rarer than a later character sketch: Caravaggio speaking in a legal proceeding. Giovanni Baglione had complained about insulting verses circulating against him and named Caravaggio, Orazio Gentileschi and Onorio Longhi. Under questioning, Caravaggio described a skilled painter as someone able to practise the art well and imitate natural things well; among his examples he named Annibale Carracci and Antonio Tempesta. The court file shows professional rivalry and the painter's stated criteria in that setting. It does not establish who wrote each verse, or that every work Caravaggio made followed one unchanging theory of painting.[30]
In May 1606, Tomassoni died after a fight involving Caravaggio in Rome. The artist fled. A ball game and gambling debt appear in accounts of the dispute, but the precise immediate cause and Caravaggio's intention remain debated. The secure turning point is the death and flight, which ended his Roman career in the form it had taken during the chapel years.[3][6]
Stage Three: Flight, Naples and Malta, 1606–08
Caravaggio's departure did not end his commissions. The sequence established by the Met and Prado takes him first through the Colonna network to Naples, where his reputation could travel ahead of him. He painted for churches and high-ranking patrons. The huge Seven Works of Mercy remains tied to its original Neapolitan confraternity, while the Flagellation of Christ belongs to a different patronage and later museum history.[1][3][8]
The Brera Supper at Emmaus is usually placed in this transitional period, possibly at the Colonna estate of Paliano before Naples. Its quieter treatment of the subject contrasts with the wide and colourful London version. It is sensible to discuss that difference in the setting of a changed life, yet the painting's design is not a direct psychological test of the painter after the fight. The Brera owner's provenance, dating and technical study supply firmer evidence.[12]
Brera identifies Ottavio Costa as an intermediary in selling that Supper to the Patrizi family. The painting remained with that Roman family until its acquisition for Brera in 1939. Its reflectography and radiography reveal an earlier design beneath the surface, supporting its status as an original worked-through composition. The story connects shelter with the Colonna, a patron able to arrange a sale, and a painting whose material evidence survives; none of those links requires guessing Caravaggio's thoughts on the road south.[12]
He reached Naples between late September and early October 1606, according to Christiansen's reconstruction. A payment of 200 ducats on 6 October records a commission from Niccolò Radulovich for an altarpiece with a specified programme, but the painting's fate is uncertain. The Seven Works of Mercy was complete by January 1607. Its original confraternity setting remains part of the work's meaning. An uncertain commission, a documented payment and a surviving altarpiece are three different kinds of evidence; the Radulovich record should not be silently attached to any extant canvas.[17]
In 1607, Caravaggio went to Malta, where he worked for the Order of Saint John. St John's Co-Cathedral places his arrival in July 1607 and his admission as a Knight of Obedience on 14 July 1608. Its account says the grand master obtained papal permission despite the artist's Roman past. The monumental Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in Valletta is his largest known canvas and the one often singled out for his signature in the painted blood. The cathedral dates its installation in the Oratory to 29 August 1608: the work can be related to a specific devotional room and date, not just a vague Maltese phase.[18][19]
The cathedral reports a late-August brawl involving wounded knights, imprisonment at Fort St Angelo, escape and formal expulsion on 1 December 1608. Those dates make the compressed sequence of knighthood, conflict and departure legible. The Order's recorded judgement was severe, but it should be read as an institutional act; it does not explain the motivations or exact circumstances of every participant.[18]
The order and his patrons are part of the biography, not marginal footnotes. Caravaggio needed access to commissions, safe passage, housing and political protection as he moved. Portraits such as Alof de Wignacourt and His Page belong to this network. That fact helps explain how a fugitive from Rome could still produce major works in a new centre.[1][2]
Stage Four: Sicily, Naples and the Final Journey, 1608–10
After leaving Malta, Caravaggio worked in Sicily. The Met's overview places him there in 1608–09. Church commissions brought him to Syracuse and Messina; a Palermo Nativity is often placed in these years, though its date is debated. The Burial of Saint Lucy and Raising of Lazarus use large spaces, compressed groups and strong contrasts. The Adoration of the Shepherds makes a humble birth scene through people and materials given unusual gravity.[2][8][23]
The Sicilian regional authority identifies the Burial of Saint Lucy as a 1608 work made for the church of Santa Lucia al Sepolcro in Syracuse. Its regional museum guide places the two Messina altarpieces between late 1608 and summer 1609. A 10 June 1609 gift of the Raising of Lazarus to a church by Giovan Battista de' Lazzari is a particularly useful documentary marker. These records anchor the works to communities and buildings; the paintings were not simply episodes in the painter's travel story.[20][21]
The location where the Messina Adoration of the Shepherds was painted is less secure than its destination. The owning Museo regionale Accascina says its place in the 1608–09 sequence, before or after the Raising of Lazarus, is uncertain. In a 2024 study of previously unknown Bank of Naples payments, Vincenzo Sorrentino argues that the Adoration was probably executed entirely in Naples and sent to Sicily in autumn 1609. The payment is documentary evidence for a transaction; the place where Caravaggio applied the paint remains a historical inference from it. The work's intended Messina setting and present museum do not, on their own, prove it was made in the city.[24][25]
The Palermo Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence was later stolen in 1969 and remains missing. It is a different kind of absence from the Berlin Saint Matthew: the Sicilian work was stolen long after Caravaggio's life, and its current whereabouts are unknown. Neither loss authorises a claim that an online image is a freely reusable high-resolution photograph.[10][13]
The painting's date and its theft are distinct questions. In a 2024 research event, the Rome State Archive reported studies arguing that the Palermo altarpiece was actually made in Rome around 1600, rather than in Sicily in 1609 as older biographies held. The archive also displayed a reproduction of a 1974 letter concerning an attempted illicit sale after the theft. That account does not make the Rome date a settled consensus or solve the crime. It does show why a biography should not use the missing picture as an unquestioned diary entry for Caravaggio's Sicilian journey: its original commission and production chronology require their own evidence.[23]
Caravaggio returned to Naples in 1609. He was attacked and injured there. Works from the last period include The Denial of Saint Peter in the Metropolitan Museum and The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, linked to Marcantonio Doria and often treated as his last documented commission. The paintings can be read for abbreviated handling and concentrated expression, as museum studies do, while the exact sequence of all late works remains a research question.[3][8][14]
Sorrentino's three bank records widen the view beyond those surviving canvases. They place Lanfranco Massa, already known as the intermediary who sent Saint Ursula to Doria in Genoa, among the agents moving commissions through Naples. They also name Ippolita Cattaneo de Marini, a Genoese patron previously absent from the usual list. Her payment documents a commission; the study does not securely identify its painting among works known today. This is a useful reminder that a biography built only from surviving museum pictures undercounts both patrons and work. The Genoese connections were part of an active market during the last Neapolitan stay, not merely an epilogue to the Roman years.[25]
For Saint Ursula, the evidence comes closer to a dated production sequence than it does for many paintings. The Met reports that Doria's agent wrote in May 1610 of the finished picture; it was shipped later that month and reached Genoa on 18 June. The owning Gallerie d'Italia calls it the artist's last recorded work. That description refers to the surviving documents, not proof that he never touched another canvas in the weeks before his death.[3][14]
He hoped to return to Rome, with a papal pardon anticipated or sought through patrons. Instead he died at Porto Ercole in July 1610; 18 July is the commonly given day, including in the Met's account. That account also recounts arrest at Palo and separation from a boat carrying paintings, drawing on early testimony. The precise sequence of the final journey is more fragile than the fact of death before the end of July. His exact medical cause is not settled by the sources used here. Stories of murder, malaria, lead poisoning or an identifiable modern diagnosis should not be written as fact without primary and specialist evidence.[1][3][31]
A 2025 study by archivists Barbara Adamanti, Eloisa Azzaro and Cinzia Cardinali separates the contemporary death notices from a much-disputed loose sheet found in Porto Ercole parish papers. Notices sent from Rome on 28 and 31 July 1610 report the painter's death at Porto Ercole; the later notice says he was travelling from Naples towards Rome in expectation of relief from his capital ban. The loose sheet instead gives 18 July 1609, names an otherwise unverified Santa Maria Ausiliatrice hospital, and has handwriting the authors judge incompatible with the two priests proposed as its contemporary scribes. It was found among later parish material, not in a continuous 1610 death register. The archivists do not establish exactly when or why it was composed, and their examination does not identify a cause of death or a grave. Thus the sheet should not be used as a straightforward eyewitness death certificate, even while contemporary dispatches support Porto Ercole as the reported place of death.[31]
The paintings and debts continued to move after the artist's death. Research by Andrea Zappulli in the historical archive of the Bank of Naples identifies a 1611 shipment of a Saint John from Naples to Cardinal Scipione Borghese's Roman collection, probably the canvas now in the Galleria Borghese. The museum's own record places that painting with Costanza Colonna in Naples in 1610, in Borghese ownership by 1611, and in a 1613 description of his collection. The matching title and route are persuasive, but Zappulli retains “probably” for the identification.[26][27]
A second document published by Zappulli concerns the 1612 return of an advance made to the painter by the Theatine order for a work apparently never completed. It records a financial obligation handled after death, not an additional extant painting or a securely known subject. Together, the shipment and repayment show why the final journey cannot be reduced to the moment at Porto Ercole: patrons, intermediaries and creditors continued to sort out paintings and commissions in the following years.[26]
How Caravaggio Painted
Caravaggio's art is often introduced through chiaroscuro, the contrast of light and shade. That is useful, but it is incomplete. His pictures build relationships among bodies, hands, objects and the viewer's space. The Met notes that figures come close to the picture plane, while the National Gallery's technical account of the London Supper at Emmaus describes brushed guides, revisions and planning beneath an apparently sudden scene.[2][11]
The older myth of a painter who simply copied nature with no preparation is too neat. No drawing securely accepted as his survives, but absence of a surviving corpus does not prove he never drew or planned. Technical examination can reveal incisions, brushed indications and changes on the canvas itself. The painting technique guide follows that evidence, while the drawings page explains the survival problem.[11][15]
Models were important, and ordinary people appear in sacred roles. The presence of physical detail does not identify each sitter by name. A claim that a specific youth was Cecco, a particular Magdalene was a named woman, or every Pilate represented a known patron needs its own documentary or strong scholarly basis. More reliable close reading starts with what the painting actually shows and what the owner record establishes.[2]
Theatrical comparisons can help describe light and gesture, but Caravaggio's pictures were made for differing places: private collections, church walls, altars, and civic or religious institutions. The light of the Contarelli Chapel, the scale of Malta's Beheading and the intimate table of the Mattei Supper work differently. Their effects should be explained from their object histories, not forced into one formula.[5][11]
What the Records Say and What They Do Not
Firm anchors include the 1584 apprenticeship contract, identifiable Roman chapel commissions, the May 1606 death of Tomassoni and Caravaggio's subsequent movement through southern Italy, Malta and Sicily. Debated points include his exact first arrival in Rome, motives for many quarrels, the autograph status of several paintings and the medical cause of death. Separating these points keeps a dated event from being confused with a later interpretation.[1][2][3][4][6]
The legacy biography's account of childhood plague experience as the cause of later violence is unsupported. Epidemics and family loss may be part of the period's social history, but an artist's later actions cannot be deduced from those circumstances. Likewise, the intensity of a late David with the Head of Goliath may invite a self-reflective reading, but it is not a recorded confession of his inner state.[1][2]
The portrait drawing attributed to Ottavio Leoni is a useful illustration of documentary limits. The owning Biblioteca Marucelliana identifies a portrait of Caravaggio among Leoni's drawings. It was made after Caravaggio's death, according to the common c.1621 dating, so its existence does not mean Leoni sketched him from life that year. The old website JPEG resembles this work, but its source and reuse terms are not tracked. The drawing is Leoni’s portrait of Caravaggio, not a self-portrait by the painter.[7]
Historical biographies by writers such as Baglione and Bellori remain important, yet their judgements were not neutral transcripts. A rejected altarpiece story, a dramatic death scene or a maxim about naturalism may have passed through rivalry, literary convention or later retelling. Contemporary testimony can be quoted or summarised with its author and date; it should not automatically override archival and object evidence.[10][11]
Influence and the Problem of Attribution
Caravaggio's close figures, dramatic lighting and direct religious narrative influenced painters across Europe. The Met's overview places his followers in the story of seventeenth-century painting, and the paintings directory maps the wider circle of related works. Influence can be strong without implying a painting is by Caravaggio. Indeed, the success of his language makes disputed attributions more frequent.[2]
The rediscovered Madrid Ecce Homo shows how the accepted corpus can change with new evidence. Conversely, the Basel Saint John the Baptist is now identified with Juan Bautista Maíno, and the Paul V portrait page distinguishes a Borghese copy from a disputed prototype. These are useful pages in a Caravaggio cluster because they teach how a painter's reputation and his actual works are separated.[16]
The paintings directory distinguishes secure works, disputed attributions, copies, lost works known through records or photographs, and works by followers. Counts of “all Caravaggios” vary depending on where that line is drawn. This biography concentrates on the most secure route through the life and signals where further work is still open.[2][16]
Explore the Caravaggio collection
| Name | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio: The Messina Nativity | 1608–09; precise order relative to Resurrection of Lazarus remains unresolved | Artwork |
| Amor Victorious by Caravaggio | 1601–02 in the Berlin owner record | Artwork |
| Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1598, according to the Uffizi | Artwork |
| Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | after 1597, probably around the turn of the seventeenth century, according to the Ambrosiana | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1594–95 in the National Gallery's current catalogue; URL suffix “1596” is inherited | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: The Florence Version Attributed to Caravaggio | disputed; Longhi's catalogue record preserves historical 1592–93 and other proposed ranges, including c.1597 | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit by Caravaggio: The Royal Collection Painting | about 1592–93 in the owner's current exhibition record | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit in Florence: A Derivation from Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio Paintings in Rome: Churches, Museums and a Practical Route | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio Quotes: What the Documents Actually Record | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio's Lute Player: The Del Monte Painting Once Shown at the Met | about 1596–97 in the Met catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio's Painting Technique: Grounds, Incisions, Revisions and Light | — | Guide |
| Christ at the Column by Caravaggio: The Rouen Flagellation | c.1606 in the owner caption; owner prose gives 1606–07 | Artwork |
| Christ on the Mount of Olives by Caravaggio: The Lost Berlin Painting | — | Artwork |
| Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the Roma Capitale church record | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1603 in the 2019 KHM record; “1607” is an inherited URL suffix | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns in Prato: Attributed to Caravaggio | about 1602–03 in the collection presentation | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | 1606–07 or 1609–10 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue; the later Naples period is favoured by many scholars, while the owner keeps the question open | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Prado Painting | about 1600 in Prado material; “1599” survives only in the legacy URL | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1600–01 in the KHM's 2019 exhibition record; “1607” is a legacy route label | Artwork |
| Did Caravaggio Make Drawings? What Survives and What Paintings Reveal | — | Guide |
| Ecce Homo: Caravaggio's Madrid Rediscovery and the Genoa Painting | — | Artwork |
| John the Baptist in Caravaggio's Paintings: A Guide to the Different Versions | — | Artwork |
| Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio | beginning of the seventeenth century in the owning museum's account; about 1599–1600 in the Kimbell's 2025 loan label; around 1602 in one specialist catalogue | Artwork |
| Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: Caravaggio's Ludovisi Ceiling | about 1597; the archive connects the work with Cardinal del Monte's 1597 commission | Artwork |
| Madonna and Child with Saint Anne by Caravaggio: The Palafrenieri Altarpiece | 1605 in the Galleria Borghese object field; completed and delivered by 8 April 1606 | Artwork |
| Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio: The Pilgrims at Sant'Agostino | broadly c.1604–06; institutional records differ slightly in their starting year | Artwork |
| Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio: The Vienna Altarpiece | around 1603 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's object record | Artwork |
| Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio: The Detroit Painting | about 1598 in the Detroit Institute of Arts record | Artwork |
| Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield | 1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598 | Artwork |
| Narcissus, Attributed to Caravaggio | dependent on attribution; the Zeri catalogue gives a broad 1610–50 range under Spadarino | Artwork |
| Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: Caravaggio's Missing Painting | somewhere in 1600–09 in the parliamentary report; a specific 1609 execution and place remain debated | Artwork |
| Penitent Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio | 1597 in the owner's catalogue, during Caravaggio's early Roman activity | Artwork |
| Portrait of a Courtesan: Caravaggio's Lost Berlin Portrait | Berlin's data field says c.1590, while its own text compares a Caravaggio work of c.1598; precise date unresolved | Artwork |
| Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli? Caravaggio's Pitti Knight of Malta | 1608 in the Restituzioni object heading; within Caravaggio's Malta period | Artwork |
| Portrait of Maffeo Barberini: The Seated Corsini Painting | c.1596–97 in the national catalogue | Artwork |
| Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini: Caravaggio's Newly Acquired Painting | around the late 1590s / age thirty; “1598” in the inherited address is approximate, not an exact document date | Artwork |
| Portrait of Pope Paul V: A Caravaggio Attribution and a Borghese Copy | — | Artwork |
| Prints After Caravaggio: Who Made Them and What They Show | — | Guide |
| Reclining Saint John the Baptist: A Disputed Caravaggio Attribution | often proposed for the artist's final years; the later museum list does not give a precise year. | Artwork |
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Caravaggio | about 1597 in the owner's catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio: The Thyssen Painting | about 1598–99 in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio: The Cremona Painting | 1603–06 in the owner account; c.1605–06 in a KHM exhibition caption | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Prayer: Caravaggio's Carpineto Painting | 1606 in a 2016–17 exhibition work list | Artwork |
| Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio | c.1595–96 in the owner wall text | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome in Meditation: Caravaggio's Montserrat Painting | 1605 in the owner record; an owner publication reports scholarship placing it about 1605–06 | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | c.1606 in the owner catalogue; the “1605” URL suffix is inherited | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Malta Painting | around 1607–08; foundation dates Malaspina's commission to 1608 | Artwork |
| Saint John in the Wilderness at Toledo Cathedral | exact 1598 not established by the cited cathedral account. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at Galleria Corsini, Rome | about 1606 in the national record; older proposals ranged from the late 1590s onward. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Capitoline Museums, Rome | 1602. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Galleria Borghese | 1609–10 in the current Borghese record. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Spring: The Bonello Painting in Malta | early seventeenth century in the institutional account; a precise 1608 is not established there. | Artwork |
| Saint Matthew and the Angel: Caravaggio's Lost First Altarpiece | — | Artwork |
| Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1609–10, likely late Naples period in the Gallery's account | Artwork |
| Salome with the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's Madrid Painting | — | Artwork |
| Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio: The Painting Made in Malta | about 1608, Malta period | Artwork |
| Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge: Is It by Caravaggio? | — | Artwork |
| Supper at Emmaus (1606): Caravaggio's Brera Painting | — | Artwork |
| The Annunciation by Caravaggio in Nancy | c.1607–10 in the collection record; 1608–10 in the museum's restoration account | Artwork |
| The Basel Saint John the Baptist: Once Labelled Caravaggio, Now Maíno | about 1608–10 in that schedule, rather than the legacy URL's 1600. | Artwork |
| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | about 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608 | Artwork |
| The Burial of Saint Lucy by Caravaggio in Syracuse | 1608, during Caravaggio's Syracuse stay | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | about 1599–1600 | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio | about 1602–04 in the Trust's object text | Artwork |
| The Cardsharps by Caravaggio | about 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record | Artwork |
| The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel | commissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Caravaggio | 1606–07 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | about 1601 | Artwork |
| The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio | commissioned 1601; completed late 1605 or early 1606, according to the Louvre | Artwork |
| The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | 1610 | Artwork |
| The Doria Pamphilj Saint John the Baptist: A Second Youth with a Ram | linked compositionally to the Capitoline 1602 picture; an exact production year for this canvas is not established by the owner pages used here. | Artwork |
| The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition | about 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material | Artwork |
| The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio: The Capodimonte Altarpiece | around 1607, in the first Naples period | Artwork |
| The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio: The Louvre Version and Its Roman Counterpart | — | Artwork |
| The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | early 1600s in the Met catalogue; no more exact owner date asserted here | Artwork |
| The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the SPSG presentation | Artwork |
| The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | usually 1602; also catalogued 1602–03, for the installed final altarpiece | Artwork |
| The Lute Player by Caravaggio: The Hermitage Painting | about 1596 in the Hermitage collection publication; the Hermitage Friends restoration page gives about 1595–96 | Artwork |
| The Magdalen in Ecstasy: Caravaggio, Copies and a Disputed Original | — | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | 1599–1600; unveiled with The Calling in 1600 | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| The Musicians by Caravaggio | 1597 | Artwork |
| The Resurrection of Lazarus by Caravaggio in Messina | 1609; delivered 10 June 1609 in the owner account | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi: A Former Caravaggio Attribution | about 1615–17 in the Nicholas Hall catalogue; “1598” is an inherited URL label, not the accepted date | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1603 in the Uffizi catalogue | Artwork |
| The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio | 1606–07, according to the Pio Monte | Artwork |
| The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio: The London Painting | 1601 | Artwork |
| The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio | 1602 | Artwork |
| The Toulouse *Judith Beheading Holofernes*: A Caravaggio Attribution Debate | c.1606–07 if identified with the recorded Naples work; that identification is debated | Artwork |
| Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Youth with a Ram: Why Caravaggio's Saint John Looks So Unusual | — | Artwork |
No matching pages found.
Discussion
Share a close observation about Caravaggio or a source that clarifies its history.
Which detail changes your reading?
Is there a collection record or document worth comparing?
What remains uncertain?
Join the Conversation
Frequently Asked Questions
Where was Caravaggio born?
The Prado records him as baptised in Milan in 1571. His familiar name comes from the Lombard town associated with his family.[1]
Who taught him to paint?
A contract dated 6 April 1584 placed him with the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano for a four-year apprenticeship.[4]
When did he arrive in Rome?
Did Caravaggio kill someone?
Did he stop painting after fleeing Rome?
How did Caravaggio die?
Is the portrait on the old biography page a self-portrait?
No. It resembles a drawing of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni in Florence's Biblioteca Marucelliana. Its small local file has no verified reuse permission.[7]
References
- Museo Nacional del Prado, artist record: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
- Keith Christiansen, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caravaggio (1571–1610) and His Followers.
- Keith Christiansen, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caravaggio's Final Days.
- Treccani, Simone Peterzano and the 1584 apprenticeship contract.
- National Gallery, London, Caravaggio artist profile and Roman chapel context.
- Italian Ministry of Culture, new Roman archival documents on Caravaggio.
- Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence, Ottavio Leoni drawings, including a portrait of Caravaggio.
- Museo Nacional del Prado, Caravaggio's southern Italy and Malta itinerary.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Musicians, Cardinal del Monte context.
- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, lost first Saint Matthew and the Angel.
- National Gallery, London, The Supper at Emmaus, NG172 and technical account.
- Pinacoteca di Brera, Supper at Emmaus, 1606.
- FBI, stolen-art record for the Palermo Nativity.
- Gallerie d'Italia, Martyrdom of Saint Ursula.
- National Gallery, London, Technical Bulletin: three paintings by Caravaggio.
- Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid Ecce Homo exhibition and attribution.
- Keith Christiansen, “Thoughts on the Ecce Homo and Caravaggio’s Post-Roman Paintings,” chapter four of The Ecce Homo Unveiled, 2024.
- St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, Caravaggio in Malta, admission and expulsion chronology.
- St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, history of the Oratory and the Beheading installation.
- Regione Siciliana, Burial of Saint Lucy and its original Syracuse setting.
- Regione Siciliana, museum guide to Caravaggio in Messina.
- Archivio di Stato di Roma, research note on Lorenzo Carli's workshop and the 1597 inventory, 14 November 2022.
- Archivio di Stato di Roma, “Caravaggio. La Natività di Palermo nel mistero della genesi e della scomparsa”, 2024 research event.
- Museo regionale Accascina, Messina, Adorazione dei pastori object record.
- Vincenzo Sorrentino, “Caravaggio 1609. Tre pagamenti inediti e una nuova committente,” Paragone. Arte LXXV, 2024, pp. 54–72, abstract and bibliographic record.
- Andrea Zappulli, “Un prezioso imballaggio e un anticipo da restituire: il San Giovanni Borghese di Caravaggio da Napoli a Roma e le tracce di una committenza teatina,” Quaderni dell’Archivio Storico, 2023 issue, published 2024.
- Galleria Borghese, San Giovanni Battista, inventory 267 and provenance.
- Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, Riccardo Gandolfi's critical edition of Gaspare Celio's Le Vite degli artisti, publisher description of the rediscovered manuscript and its edition.
- Clovis Whitfield, “Gaspare Celio's biography of Caravaggio,” specialist reading of Gandolfi's published text, 2020.
- Archivio di Stato di Roma, “Il processo del 1603,” its account and excerpts of the Baglione libel trial, 2022.
- Barbara Adamanti, Eloisa Azzaro and Cinzia Cardinali, “Polifonia di storie evocate da un’annotazione della morte di Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,” Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato III/1, 2025, pp. 148–165 (PDF pp. 149–166).
