Caravaggio was an Italian baroque painter who was the best
exemplar of naturalistic painting in the early 17th century. His use of
models from the lower classes of society in his early secular works
and later religious compositions appealed to the Counter Reformation
taste for realism, simplicity, and piety in art. Equally important is his
introduction of dramatic light-and-dark effects—termed
chiaroscuro into his work.

Originally named Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio was born
September 28, 1573, in the Lombardy hill town of Caravaggio, from
which his professional name is derived. He may have spent four
years as apprentice to Simone Peterzano in Milan before going to
Rome in 1593, where he entered the employ of the Mannerist painter
Giuseppe Cesari, also known as the Cavaliere d'Arpino, for whom he
executed fruit and flower pieces (now lost). Among his best-known
early works are genre paintings (scenes from everyday life) with
young men—for example, The Musicians (1591?-1592, Metropolitan
Museum, New York City)—which were done for his first important
patron, Cardinal Francesco del Monte. Scenes such as the Fortune
Teller (1594, versions in the Louvre, Paris, and the Museo
Capitolino, Rome) were especially appealing to the artist's
followers.

Caravaggio's personal life was turbulent. He was often arrested and
imprisoned. He fled Rome for Naples in 1606 when charged with
murder. There he spent several months executing such works as the
Flagellation of Christ (San Domenico Maggiore, Naples), which
were crucial to the development of naturalism among the artists of
that city. Later that year he traveled to Malta, was made a knight, or
cavaliere, of the Maltese order, and executed one of his few
portraits, that of his fellow cavaliere Alof de Wignacourt (1608,
Musée du Louvre). In October of 1608, Caravaggio was again
arrested and, escaping from a Maltese jail, went to Syracuse in
Sicily. While in Sicily he painted several monumental canvases,
including the Burial of Saint Lucy (1608, Santa Lucia, Syracuse) and
the Raising of Lazarus (1609, Museo Nazionale, Messina). These
were multi-figured compositions of great drama achieved through
dark tonalities and selective use of lighting. These works were
among Caravaggio's last, for the artist died on the beach at
Port'Ercole in Tuscany on July 18, 1610, of a fever contracted after a
mistaken arrest.