Top 10 astonishing facts about Caravaggio

Portrait of Caravaggio. Photo by Ottavio Leoni. Wikimedia Commons.

Top 10 astonishing facts about Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born on the 29th of September in Milan Italy.

He is famous for being a renowned yet controversial Italian painter of the late 1500s and early 1600s.

The best works that brought him tremendous fame were Sick Bacchus, The Musicians, Head of the Medusa, The Conversion of St. Paul, The Entombment of Christ, and The Beheading of St. John.

The Italian painter was active in Rome for most of his artistic life. He also moved around Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death.

He is revered for using tenebrous in his work. His paintings have been characterized as realistic observations of the human state, both physical and emotional.

His dramatic use of lighting had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

Here are 10 astonishing facts about Caravaggio:

1. He employed tenebrism in his work

Tenebrism also called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro.

Chiaroscuro on the other hand is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.

Caravaggio used violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness becomes a dominating feature of the image developing drama to an image through a spotlight effect.

He made use of this technique making it a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows that set his work apart from the rest.

Caravaggio’s innovations inspired Baroque painting incorporating the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism.

He also vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death as he worked with live models and worked directly onto the canvas.

2. Artists heavily under his influence were called the “Caravaggisti”

The Caravaggisti were artists who created artworks to mimic Caravaggio’s style.

The artists were heavily influenced by the tenebrism nature of Caravaggio’s work forgoing drawings to work on the canvas and using live models to mimic their movements and emotions.

He influenced classic artists like Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt directly or indirectly.

Michaelangelo Caravaggio’s effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism inspired countless artists.

3. He fled Naples after a death sentence

While he was still young he had already made a reputation for himself as a violent, touchy, and provocative man.

He led a tumultuous life notoriously brawling numerous run-ins with the police.

Caravaggio had once beaten a nobleman Girolamo Stampa da Montepulciano, a guest of the cardinal, with a club, resulting in an arrest and jail time served at Tor di Nona.

His episodes of brawling, violence, and tumult grew more and more frequent. His gravest problem arose on the 29th of May 1606 when committed murder.

  It was reported that he had argued numerously with Ranuccio Tommasoni, a gangster from a wealthy family.

The pair dueled with swords at Campo Marzio which resulted in the death of one.  Tommasoni’s wealthy family wanted justice.

Caravaggio’s patrons were unable to protect him and he was sentenced to beheading for murder which forced him to flee from Milan, first to Venice and then to Rome.

4. His death led to a rise in controversies

There is a grand controversy over the cause of Caravaggio’s death on the 18th of July 1610.

He had had a fever at the time of his death although what had finally taken his life still remains unknown.

Contemporary rumors held that either the Tommasoni’s family killed him for revenge.

Another rumor stated the Knights of Valletta or the aristocratic knight he had brawled with and seriously wounded killed him in revenge.

Historians have long time presumed he had died of syphilis, malaria, or possibly brucellosis from unpasteurized dairy.

Scholars have argued he was attacked and killed by the same enemies that had been pursuing him since he fled Malta.

After archaeologists conducted a year-long investigation of Caravaggio’s remains found in three crypts used DNA, carbon dating, and other methods to discover he had died of lead poisoning.

The archaeologists believe without a doubt that Caravaggio’s paints used at the time contained high amounts of lead salts may have caused his death.

5. His duel with Tommasoni led to a rise in controversies and rumors

Caravaggio’s duel with Tommasoni created numerous speculations.

It was believed the reason for the duel began as a quarrel over a gambling debt and a pallacorda game, a sort of tennis.

It is also believed the argument stemmed from jealousy over Fillide Melandroni. She was a famous Roman prostitute who had modeled for Caravaggio in several important paintings and Tommasoni was her pimp.

Rumors arose Caravaggio castrated Tommasoni with his sword before deliberately killing him.

Other rumors state the death was caused accidentally during the castration.

There is also believed the duel may have had a political dimension, as Tommasoni’s family was notoriously pro-Spanish, while Caravaggio was a client of the French ambassador.

6. Caravaggio was sued by his landlady

Caravaggio was known for his violence and provocative nature.

He had fled to Genoa for three weeks after seriously injuring Mariano Pasqualone di Accumoli and attacking him with a sword.

Mariano was a notary and they had disputed over Lena, Caravaggio’s model and lover.

Caravaggio’s patrons intervened and saved Caravaggio from the authorities.

Upon his return to Rome, he was sued by his landlady Prudenzia Bruni for not having paid his rent. He in turn threw rocks through her window at night out of spite and was sued again.

7. Scholars and Historians have debated the inferences of homoeroticism in Caravaggio’s works

Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male-male or female-female.

Caravaggio had never married or had any children. Historians and art scholars argued he had never drawn erotic female figures suggesting his interest was the male form.

Even though he was rumored to have fallen madly in love with a Roman prostitute Caravaggio was suspected to indulge in sodomy and homosexuality.

Apart from the circumstantial evidence derived from his paintings Caravaggio was accused of sharing a boy prostitute with his friend Onorio Longhi

8. Two thieves stole Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence from its frame

In October 1969 two thieves broke into the Oratory of Saint Lawrence and stole Caravaggio’s painting.

Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence from its frame was stolen in Palermo, Sicily. The painting has an estimated value of $20 million. The Italian police then set up an art theft task force to re-acquire lost and stolen artworks.

Nativity has since been claimed to be stolen by the Sicilian Mafia and displayed at important mafia gatherings. Other rumors claim the Nativity was damaged and has since been destroyed and to date, the whereabouts are still unknown.

9. In 2013, a touring Caravaggio exhibition called was opened in the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

A touring Caravaggio exhibition was opened in the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut in 2013.

It was called the Burst of Light: Caravaggio and His Legacy. it includes five paintings including Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness and Martha and Mary Magdalene.

Other Baroque artists like Georges de La Tour, Orazio Gentileschi, Francisco de Zurbaran, and Carlo Saraceni were also included in the exhibitions.

10. Caravaggio’s oeuvre level has created disagreements

Oeuvre is the body of work of a painter, composer, or author. Caravaggio’s oeuvre has created disagreements as to its size whether it counts as low as 40 or as high as 80.

 His artistic flare and use of Stylistic evidence, as well as the use of chiaroscuro, have convinced some experts of the uniqueness of his paintings.

Sadly, the attribution to Caravaggio is disputed by other experts. His epitaph was composed by his friend Marzio Milesi.