Rossella Vodret

Tortured artist, career criminal, murderer: the troubled life of Caravaggio has the power to enthrall an art historian almost as much as his dramatic chiaroscuro paintings. Lasting merely 14 years—from his arrival in Rome in 1596 to his mysterious death in Porto Ercole in 1610—his career as an artist reached dizzying heights with lucrative commissions before spiraling downward as he was pursued for debts, disorderly conduct and eventually homicide. New details of Caravaggio’s life are coming to light at the same time as more of his paintings are being discovered and technically analyzed. Thus, this monograph presents the most up-to-date narrative of the life of the artist and his works, in which his turbulent essence shines through. His most famous and dramatic works such as The Entombment of Christ, The Calling of Saint Matthew, Young Sick Bacchus and more are accompanied by fresh analyses scrutinizing the iconography, formal properties and semiotics of each scene. Each work is also flanked by specific technical-diagnostic notes that integrate themselves into the reading of his extraordinary paintings.
Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571–1610), was born in Milan. His early commissions included works for Cardinal Francesca Maria del Monte and the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi. From 1600 to 1606 he was considered the most famous painter in Rome. After killing a wealthy young man he fled the city, still painting but on the run as a criminal. He died under mysterious circumstances in 1610.