Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi was born in Milan, to «highly esteemed citizens» from Caravaggio, on 29^th September 1571, the feast day of the Archangel Michael for whom he was named. Long debated by art historians, his birth date was confirmed only in 2007 with the lucky discovery of his baptism certificate  in the archives of S. Stefano in Brolo, a city parish. His parents, Fermo Merisi and Lucia Aratori, had moved to Milan shortly after their wedding in Caravaggio, which was attended by marchese Francesco Sforza. He lost his father at an early age, but young Michelangelo was able to rely on the good relationship between his maternal grandfather - Giovanni Giacomo Aratori, Sforza's proxy - and marchesa Costanza Colonna, sister of the powerful Cardinal Ascanio.
A notary's deed of 6^th April 1584 states that Michelangelo, aged twelve, undertook to serve a four year apprenticeship in the workshop of Simone Peterzano, a painter from Bergamo, former pupil of Titian and exponent in Milan of the reform of painting inspired by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo's promotion of cultural and religious renewal.
During his early training Caravaggio had the chance to assimilate the master's Venetian-Lombard manner and probably came into contact with the devotional realism of the Bassano and Campi brothers, with the portraiture of Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo and Giovanni Battista Moroni, with the extravagances of Giuseppe Arcimboldi and the rigorous, refined painting of Ambrogio Figino.
When his mother died in 1590 and the family property had been divided up, Caravaggio moved to Rome some time after July 1592, preceded by his uncle Ludovico Merisi, who was a priest, and marchesa Colonna.
In the capital Merisi was the guest of Pandolfo Pucci, Canon of St Peter's, for whom he made copies of devotional paintings to be sent to Recanati, the prelate's hometown. But dissatisfied by the scant hospitality received (the painter ironically nicknamed him Monsignor Salad) he found employment in Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino's workshop for a few months. Then, for reasons unclear, he left to set up on his own, aided by the painters Lorenzo Carli, a Sicilian, and Antiveduto della Grammatica of Rome for whom he painted second-rate pictures. After a brief stay in the Roman palazzo of Monsignor Fantino Petrignani, former Archbishop of Cosenza, Caravaggio entered the service of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte for whom he did easel paintings of sacred and profane genre (still lifes, musical and moralising iconographies) which introduced him to the circle of Roman art buyers.
His first public commissions arrived on the eve of the jubilee year. In 1599 he undertook decoration of the Contarelli Chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi, begun by Cavalier d'Arpino, and in September 1600 two canvases were commissioned for the Cerasi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo, in contrast with the classicism of Annibale Carracci. Between 1600 and 1605 Caravaggio was sought after by the most refined collectors (Costa, Giustiniani, Mattei, Massimo), the main religious orders (Oratorians, Augustinians, Carmelites, Capuchins) and by  the confraternities. However he also suffered some celebrated rejections, clashing with restrictive conceptions of "decorum".
At the end of August 1603 Caravaggio, together with the architect Onorio Longhi and other painters, was taken to court and subsequently imprisoned for spreading a "defamatory libel" in verse against the painters Tommaso Salini and Giovanni Baglione. Freed at the end of September Caravaggio went to The Marches, to Tolentino and to Ascoli Piceno where he painted St Isidore the Farmer for the Oratorians of St Philip Neri, a picture now lost and known only through copies.
The artist's hot temper and quarrelsome spirit, which often led him to the law courts, increased in 1605 and, after a flight to Genoa, culminated in the murder of young Ranuccio Tomassoni (28^th May 1606) following a banal challenge in a tennis match. Condemned to death, he escaped to the Colonna estates and reached Naples some months later.
In October 1606 he received a string of commissions for altar-pieces in that city, from private individuals and confraternities. After a few months, in July 1607, he left for Malta. On the island the Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, of whom Caravaggio did an official portrait, negotiated with the Holy See to have a knighthood bestowed on an unspecified murderer, identifiable as the painter from Lombardy. The investiture took place on 14^th July 1608. Once again involved in a fight, for which he was jailed in Forte Sant'Angelo, Caravaggio managed to escape to Syracuse. Here he met his friend of Roman days, the painter Mario Minniti, and received commissions including The Burial of St Lucy for the church of the same name. At the end of 1608 he was in Messina to carry out some works, one of which was The Raising of Lazarus in the church of the Padri Crociferi. Before leaving Sicily for Naples (autumn 1609) he painted the Palermo Nativity. The attempt made on his life during this second Neapolitan period did not prevent him from producing his last pictures, which were loaded onto a felucca but confiscated at Palo (Civitavecchia) in the course of a desperate bid to reach Rome. The precious cargo was perhaps intended for the collection of the covetous Cardinal Scipione Borghese, from whom the painter was awaiting pardon. Unable to recover his paintings Caravaggio, now alone and seriously ill, died in the S. Maria Ausiliatrice hospital, Porto Ercole, on 18^th July 1610.