50 Fun Facts About Caravaggio

What was Caravaggio's real name?

He is named after the Lombard town where he grew up, 35 km east of Milan.

In which city was Caravaggio born in 1571?

It was long assumed he was born in Caravaggio, where the family fled plague in 1576.

Caravaggio's dramatic form of chiaroscuro came to be known as what?

It shifts from light to dark with little intermediate value; followers were called tenebrosi.

Caravaggio's Milanese master Simone Peterzano was described as a pupil of which painter?

The four-year apprenticeship began in 1584, the year Caravaggio's mother died.

Caravaggio fled Milan for Rome in 1592 after 'certain quarrels' and the wounding of whom?

He arrived in Rome 'naked and extremely needy'.

In Rome, Caravaggio painted flowers and fruit in the workshop of which papal favourite?

Cesari was Pope Clement VIII's preferred artist; Caravaggio left after a serious illness.

What is Caravaggio's earliest known painting?

The Basket of Fruit boy's produce was later analysed by a horticulture professor, down to a fungal leaf lesion.

Which cardinal became Caravaggio's first major patron after seeing his work in a shop?

For his circle Caravaggio painted The Musicians, The Lute Player and Boy Bitten by a Lizard.

Which painting does Wikipedia call 'perhaps Caravaggio's first true masterpiece'?

It shows a naive youth of privilege falling victim to card cheats.

In The Fortune Teller, what does the Romani girl steal as she reads the boy's palm?

It was Caravaggio's first composition with more than one figure; the boy is likely Mario Minniti.

Boy Bitten by a Lizard exists in two versions, in London and which Florence foundation?

Both are thought to date from 1594–96; the model may be Mario Minniti.

Caravaggio's Medusa was painted on what kind of object?

Del Monte planned it as a gift to Ferdinando I de' Medici; the face is a self-portrait.

In which Florence museum does the Medusa hang?

Caravaggio's Bacchus is in the same gallery.

Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit hangs in which Milan library?

X-rays show it was painted over grotesques in the style of his friend Prospero Orsi.

Caravaggio's Saint Matthew cycle decorates which Roman church's Contarelli Chapel?

The Calling and the Martyrdom, delivered in 1600, were an immediate sensation.

The Calling of Saint Matthew shows Jesus summoning a man of which trade?

Matthew sits at a table with four other men; the commission was dated July 1599.

What offended the patrons in Caravaggio's first version of Matthew and the Angel?

The second version became The Inspiration of Saint Matthew; the first went to Vincenzo Giustiniani.

In the Conversion on the Way to Damascus, what dominates the picture rather than Paul?

Asked why, Caravaggio reportedly answered 'Because!'

The Death of the Virgin was rejected partly because the model was thought to be what?

Giulio Mancini said she was possibly his mistress; others blamed Mary's bare legs.

On whose advice did the Duke of Mantua buy the rejected Death of the Virgin?

It later passed to Charles I of England and is now in the Louvre.

Which Paris museum holds Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin?

It entered the French royal collection in 1671.

The Grooms' Madonna, painted for St Peter's Basilica, hung there for how long?

It is also known as the Madonna dei Palafrenieri.

Amor Vincit Omnia (1602) was painted for which collector in del Monte's circle?

Giustiniani also bought the rejected first Saint Matthew, now in Berlin.

The model for Judith Beheading Holofernes is thought to be which Roman courtesan?

The gore may draw on the 1599 public execution of Beatrice Cenci, which Caravaggio could have watched.

A disputed second Judith and Holofernes turned up in 2014 in an attic in which city?

It went on sale in 2019; some scholars attribute it instead to Louis Finson.

In 1603 Caravaggio was arrested for defaming which fellow painter with offensive poems?

Baglione sued him along with Orazio Gentileschi and Onorio Longhi.

A tavern waiter sued Caravaggio for throwing a plate of what in his face?

His police records and trial transcripts fill many pages; he was often jailed at Tor di Nona.

Whom did Caravaggio kill in a brawl in 1606, earning a death sentence?

Tomassoni was a gangster from a wealthy family; Caravaggio fled to the Colonna estates and then Naples.

One rumour held the fatal 1606 duel stemmed from jealousy over whom?

Tomassoni was her pimp; Vatican papers suggest a botched castration after the duel.

After the killing, Caravaggio sheltered on the estates of which powerful family?

Costanza Colonna Sforza, whose late husband's household had employed his father, kept a palace in Naples.

Which Grand Master of the Knights of St John made Caravaggio a Knight in Malta?

Caravaggio painted his portrait with a page; he hoped the Order could win him a papal pardon.

Which Malta painting is the only work Caravaggio ever signed?

It is also his largest work, 370 by 520 cm, and hangs in St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta.

With what formal phrase was Caravaggio expelled from the Knights of Malta in 1608?

He had been jailed after a brawl with an aristocratic knight, then escaped from Valletta.

In Sicily, Caravaggio met again which old friend and model, then living in Syracuse?

Minniti helped him win commissions on a tour from Syracuse to Messina.

Caravaggio's Nativity was stolen from an oratory in which Sicilian city in 1969?

Former mafia members have claimed knowledge of the painting's fate.

Which 1609 event in Naples left Caravaggio's face disfigured?

Rumours of his death circulated; Baglione says he was being 'chased by his enemy'.

Caravaggio died in 1610 at which Tuscan port?

A death notice found recently records a fever there on 18 July.

In 2010, what did archaeologists claim to have identified using DNA and carbon dating?

The bones came from three crypts; lead poisoning and murder have both been suggested as causes of death.

In David with the Head of Goliath, whose face is the severed head?

The sword bears H-AS OS, read as 'humility kills pride'; the picture hangs in the Galleria Borghese.

What do the letters H-AS OS on David's sword abbreviate?

'Humility kills pride'; the painting may have been sent to Scipione Borghese to win a pardon.

The Taking of Christ was rediscovered in 1990 in which Dublin building?

It had hung in the Jesuits' dining room since the 1930s, taken for a Honthorst copy.

The Taking of Christ had long been attributed to which Dutch Caravaggist?

Giuseppe Vasi made the misattribution in 1786 and the Mattei sold it as such in 1802.

Who holds the lantern at the right of The Taking of Christ?

The figure is believed to be a self-portrait, possibly standing in for Saint Peter.

Which Neapolitan work depicts the corporal acts of compassion in one canvas?

The Colonna connection brought him the commission; his last picture was The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula.

Which cardinal's will funded the chapel decoration that became the Calling and Martyrdom?

Contarelli is the Italian form of his name; final payment came in July 1600.

The Conversion on the Way to Damascus hangs in which Roman church?

An exasperated official there asked why the horse was in the middle.

Which historian said what begins with Caravaggio 'is, quite simply, modern painting'?

Caravaggio had fallen from favour until 20th-century scholars revived him.

Which Italian art historian coined the title 'Sick Bacchus'?

The painting is supposedly a self-portrait done while convalescing after leaving Cesari's workshop.

Which two Dutch masters, who never visited Italy, still show Caravaggio's influence?

Rubens, Ribera, Bernini and Velázquez are also named among those he affected.

Caravaggio preferred to paint how?

He worked rapidly and largely forwent drawings.