Caravaggio
- LAST REVIEWED: 27 October 2021
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0397
- LAST REVIEWED: 27 October 2021
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0397
Introduction
Michelangelo Merisi (b. 1571–d. 1610) was an Italian painter noted for formulating a distinctive style that combined direct observation, a dramatic application of light and shadow, and a plebeian approach to figures, which had a formative influence on Baroque style both south and north of the Alps. He was the firstborn son of Fermo Merisi, a master mason, and Lucia Aratori. Although baptized (and thus born) in Milan, Michelangelo Merisi was generally known as Caravaggio, the town from which his family originated. By 1592, Caravaggio had lost both his parents, and had supposedly completed a four-year apprenticeship with Simone Peterzano in Milan. Caravaggio is first documented in Rome in 1597, but scholars largely agree that the young artist arrived in Rome in the fall of 1592, eager to make a name for himself as an artist. Although the chronology and accounts of Caravaggio’s early years in Rome provided by his biographers are contradictory, it seems that the artist began his career producing secular works with the intention to sell them on the market to potential buyers, rather than by commission. He soon garnered the patronage, lodging, and protection of key Roman collectors and cardinal-patrons, most important among them, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. It was during Caravaggio’s years in the Del Monte household (1595–1602) that the artist received his first public commission to decorate the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi (1599–1602). It was in his public debut that Caravaggio developed his signature style. His use of tenebrism (dramatic contrasts of light and shadow), in particular, distanced his work from the prevailing mannerist and classical style exhibited by Caravaggio’s near contemporaries, the Cavaliere d’Arpino and Annibale Carracci. Although Caravaggio’s biographers suggest that his new, revolutionary style did not please his patrons and the learned public, purportedly resulting in rejected works, Caravaggio completed key public commissions, including the laterals in the Cerasi Chapel, and numerous altarpieces. Even in the cases of supposed rejected altarpieces, these works were appropriated by important Roman patrons, including the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. The murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni in 1606, forced the artist into exile in southern Italy, particularly Naples, Sicily, and Malta. Significantly, Caravaggio continued to receive commissions and produced a significant body of work even during his exile until his death in Porto Ercole in 1610, seemingly en route to Rome where a pardon from Pope Paul V was anticipated.
General Overviews
The number of general overviews on the life and career of Caravaggio is immense. One of the earliest notable 20th-century monographs, Friedlaender 1955, includes a catalogue raisonné and translations of select early biographies and documents. Hibbard 1985 and Puglisi 1998 similarly include useful appendices. Leading up to and following the four hundredth anniversary marking Caravaggio’s death in 1610, the number of general overviews increased, as did the variety of formats. Vodret 2010 provides a straightforward monograph, while Ebert-Schifferer incorporates new research, a chronology, and a catalogue of the artist’s works. Among those overviews that include authoritative and richly illustrated catalogue raisonnés are Schütze 2009 and Spike and Spike 2010. Fried 2010 and Zuccari 2011 are more theoretical and thematic in content.
Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille. Caravaggio: The Artist and His Work. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.
Readable and insightful general overview of Caravaggio placing his life and work within the context of available documents, a re-evaluation of sources, and the religious and cultural environment in which he worked. Includes a useful chronology of the artist’s life and catalogue of the artist’s works. Originally published in German as Caravaggio: Sehen, Staunen, Glauben: Der Maler und sein Werk (Munich: Beck, 2009).
Fried, Michael. The Moment of Caravaggio. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. Bollingen series 35, 51. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Based on author’s A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts delivered at the National Gallery of Art, 2002, this book centers theoretical readings of the relationship between the artist and his self-portraits, the function of violence and realism in his works, among other topics. Delves into the broader implications of Caravaggio’s style on the emergence of the gallery picture.
Friedlaender, Walter. Caravaggio Studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955.
Conceived as a series of studies on the artist rather than a biography or chronological overview of his work. Particular emphasis is given to Caravaggio’s character, style, and the role of religion. Includes a catalogue raisonné, selection of reprints of contemporary biographies on Caravaggio, and documents regarding his life and work, all with parallel English translations.
Hibbard, Howard. Caravaggio. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.
Solid research, thoroughness, and broad scope make Hibbard’s book still a standard in Caravaggio literature. Includes useful appendices on attributions, and reprints of contemporary biographies on Caravaggio, with parallel English translations. Originally published 1983.
Puglisi, Catherine R. Caravaggio. London: Phaidon, 1998.
Readable and well-researched monograph. Includes brief catalogue raisonné with addition of copies, excerpts of contemporary comments, biographies, and notices in translation.
Schütze, Sebastian. Caravaggio: The Complete Works. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2009.
Comprehensive and richly illustrated monograph of the artist, which charts his life from his beginnings in Lombardy, to his critical success in Rome, and to his final years in Naples, Malta, and Sicily. Includes a full catalogue raisonné. Originally published in German as Das vollständige Werk (Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2009).
Spike, John T., with Michèle K. Spike. Caravaggio. New York: Abbeville, 2010.
Informed monograph that explores Caravaggio’s life and works within the broad context of 17th-century culture. Originally published in 2001, this revised and updated edition includes color reproductions of all of Caravaggio’s extant works and a complete, searchable critical catalogue on CD-ROM.
Vodret, Rossella. Caravaggio: The Complete Works. Milan: Silvana, 2010.
Readable monograph that considers the artist’s life and works.
Zuccari, Alessandro. Caravaggio controluce: Ideali e capolavori. Milan: Skira, 2011.
Series of essays that examines themes associated with the artist’s motivations behind the formulation of some of his private and public works. Includes consideration of the role and influence of Oratorian humanism on Caravaggio, the artist’s sensitivity to contemporary concerns for the recovery of Christian origins and historical truth, and the poor.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Academies
- Aemilia Lanyer
- Agrippa d’Aubigné
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Alexander VI, Pope
- Amsterdam
- Andrea del Verrocchio
- Andrea Mantegna
- Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
- Anne Boleyn
- Anne Bradstreet
- Antwerp
- Aretino, Pietro
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Art and Science
- Art, German
- Art in Renaissance England
- Art in Renaissance Florence
- Art in Renaissance Siena
- Art in Renaissance Venice
- Art Literature and Theory of Art
- Art Market
- Art of Poetry
- Art, Spanish
- Art, 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
- Art, 17th-Century Dutch
- Artemisia Gentileschi
- Artisans
- Ascham, Roger
- Askew, Anne
- Astell, Mary
- Astrology, Alchemy, Magic
- Augsburg
- Augustinianism in Renaissance Thought
- Austria
- Autobiography and Life Writing
- Avignon Papacy
- Bacon, Francis
- Banking and Money
- Barbaro, Ermolao, the Younger
- Barbaro, Francesco
- Baron, Hans
- Baroque
- Baroque Art and Architecture in Italy
- Barzizza, Gasparino
- Bathsua Makin
- Beaufort, Margaret
- Bellarmine, Cardinal
- Bembo, Pietro
- Benito Arias Montano
- Bernardino of Siena, San
- Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder
- Bessarion, Cardinal
- Bible, The
- Biography
- Biondo, Flavio
- Bishops, 1550–1700
- Bishops, 1400-1550
- Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Bohemia and Bohemian Crown Lands
- Borgia, Cesare
- Borgia, Lucrezia
- Borromeo, Cardinal Carlo
- Bosch, Hieronymous
- Bracciolini, Poggio
- Brahe, Tycho
- Bruegel, Pieter the Elder
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bruno, Giordano
- Bucer, Martin
- Budé, Guillaume
- Buonarroti, Michelangelo
- Burgundy and the Netherlands
- Calvin, John
- Calvinism
- Camões, Luís de
- Caravaggio
- Cardano, Girolamo
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Cardinals
- Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa De
- Cary, Elizabeth
- Casas, Bartolome de las
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Catherine of Siena
- Catholic/Counter-Reformation
- Catholicism, Early Modern
- Cavendish, Margaret
- Cecilia del Nacimiento
- Cellini, Benvenuto
- Cervantes, Miguel de
- Charles V, Emperor
- China and Europe, 1550-1800
- Christian-Muslim Exchange
- Christine de Pizan
- Church Fathers in Renaissance and Reformation Thought, The
- Ciceronianism
- Cities and Urban Patriciates
- Civic Humanism
- Civic Ritual
- Classical Tradition, The
- Clifford, Anne
- Colet, John
- Colonna, Vittoria
- Columbus, Christopher
- Comenius, Jan Amos
- Commedia dell'arte
- Concepts of the Renaissance, c. 1780–c. 1920
- Confraternities
- Constantinople, Fall of
- Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal
- Convent Culture
- Conversion
- Conversos and Crypto-Judaism
- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- Cornaro, Caterina
- Cosimo I de’ Medici
- Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici
- Costume
- Council of Trent
- Crime and Punishment
- Croatia
- Cromwell, Oliver
- Cruz, Juana de la, Mother
- Cruz, Juana Inés de la, Sor
- Dance
- d'Aragona, Tullia
- Datini, Margherita
- Davies, Eleanor
- de Commynes, Philippe
- de Sales, Saint Francis
- de Valdés, Juan
- Death and Dying
- Decembrio, Pier Candido
- Dentière, Marie
- Des Roches, Madeleine and Catherine
- d’Este, Isabella
- di Toledo, Eleonora
- Dialogue
- Diplomacy
- Dolce, Ludovico
- Donatello
- Donne, John
- Drama, English Renaissance
- Dürer, Albrecht
- du Bellay, Joachim
- Du Guillet, Pernette
- Dutch Overseas Empire
- Early Modern Period, Racialization in the
- Ebreo, Leone
- Edinburgh
- Edmund Campion
- Edward IV, King of England
- El Greco
- Elizabeth I, the Great, Queen of England
- Emperor, Maximilian I
- England, 1485-1642
- English Overseas Empire
- English Puritans, Quakers, Dissenters, and Recusants
- Environment and the Natural World
- Epic and Romance
- Erasmus
- Europe and the Globe, 1350–1700
- European Tapestries
- Family and Childhood
- Fedele, Cassandra
- Federico Barocci
- Female Lay Piety
- Ferrara and the Este
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Filelfo, Francesco
- Florence
- Fonte, Moderata
- Foscari, Francesco
- France in the 17th Century
- France in the 16th Century
- Francis Xavier, St
- Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros
- French Law and Justice
- French Renaissance Drama
- Fugger Family
- Galilei, Galileo
- Gallicanism
- Gambara, Veronica
- Gardens
- Garin, Eugenio
- General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
- Geneva (1400-1600)
- Genoa 1450–1700
- George Buchanan
- George of Trebizond
- Georges de La Tour
- Ghetto
- Giambologna
- Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan
- Giustiniani, Bernardo
- Góngora, Luis de
- Gonzaga, Giulia
- Gournay, Marie de
- Greek Visitors
- Guarino da Verona
- Guicciardini, Francesco
- Guilds and Manufacturing
- Hamburg, 1350–1815
- Hanseatic League
- Henry VII
- Henry VIII, King of England
- Herbalism/Botany
- Herbert, George
- Hispanic Mysticism
- Historiography
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Holy Roman Empire 1300–1650
- Homes, Foundling
- Huguenots
- Humanism
- Humanism, The Origins of
- Hundred Years War, The
- Hungary, The Kingdom of
- Hus, Jan
- Hutchinson, Lucy
- Iconology and Iconography
- Ignatius of Loyola, Saint
- Infanticide
- Inquisition, Roman
- Ireland
- Isaac Casaubon
- Isabel I, Queen of Castile
- Italian Wars, 1494–1559
- Ivan IV the Terrible, Tsar of Russia
- Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples
- Jansenism
- Japan and Europe: the Christian Century, 1549-1650
- Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre
- Jesuits
- Jewish Women in Renaissance and Reformation Europe
- Jews
- Jews and Christians in Venice
- Jews and the Reformation
- Jews in Amsterdam
- Jews in Florence
- Jews in Rome
- Joan of Arc
- Jonson, Ben
- Joseph Justus Scaliger
- Juan de Torquemada
- Juana the Mad/Juana, Queen of Castile
- Julius II
- Kepler, Johannes
- King of France, Francis I
- King of France, Henri IV
- Knox, John
- Kristeller, Paul Oskar
- Labé, Louise
- Landino, Cristoforo
- Landscape
- Last Wills and Testaments
- Laura Cereta
- Law
- Lay Piety
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Leo X
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Leoni, Leone and Pompeo
- Leto, Giulio Pomponio
- Letter Writing and Epistolary Culture
- Libraries
- Literary Criticism
- Literature, French
- Literature, Italian
- Literature, Late Medieval German
- Literature, Penitential
- Literature, Spanish
- Locke, John
- London
- Lorenzo de' Medici
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Louis XI, King of France
- Louis XIII, King of France
- Louis XIV, King of France
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Lucretius in Renaissance Thought
- Luther, Martin
- Lyric Poetry
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra
- Malatesta, Sigismondo
- Manetti, Giannozzo
- Mannerism
- Mantovano (Battista Spagnoli), Battista
- Manuel Chrysoloras
- Manuzio, Aldo
- Margaret Clitherow
- Margaret Fell Fox
- Margery Kempe
- Marinella, Lucrezia
- Marino Sanudo
- Marlowe, Christopher
- Marriage and Dowry
- Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England
- Masculinity
- Medici Bank
- Medici, Catherine de'
- Medici Family, The
- Medicine
- Mediterranean
- Memling, Hans
- Merchant Adventurers
- Merici, Angela
- Midwifery
- Milan, 1535–1706
- Milan to 1535
- Milton, John
- Mining and Metallurgy
- Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della
- Mission
- Monarchy in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Female
- Montaigne, Michel de
- More, Thomas
- Morone, Cardinal Giovanni
- Music
- Naples, 1300–1700
- Navarre, Marguerite de
- Netherlandish Art, Early
- Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic), The
- Netherlands, Spanish, 1598-1700, the
- Nettesheim, Agrippa von
- Newton, Isaac
- Niccoli, Niccolò
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Nicolas Malebranche
- Nobility
- Opera
- Ottoman Empire
- Ovid in Renaissance Thought
- Panofsky, Erwin
- Paolo Veronese
- Papacy
- Papal Rome
- Paracelsus
- Paris
- Parr, Katherine
- Patronage of the Arts
- Perotti, Niccolò
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia
- Petrarch
- Petrus Ramus and Ramism
- Philip Melanchthon
- Philips, Katherine
- Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius
- Piero della Francesca
- Pierre Bayle
- Pilgrimage in Early Modern Catholicism
- Plague and its Consequences
- Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Hermetic Tradition
- Poetry, English
- Pole, Cardinal Reginald
- Polish Literature: Baroque
- Polish Literature: Renaissance
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The
- Political Thought
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Polydore Vergil
- Pontano, Giovanni Giovano
- Pope Innocent VIII
- Pope Nicholas V
- Pope Paul II
- Portraiture
- Portugal
- Poulain de la Barre, Francois
- Poverty and Poor Relief
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Printing and the Book
- Printmaking
- Prophecy
- Pulter, Hester
- Purgatory
- Purity of Blood
- Quirini, Lauro
- Rabelais, François
- Raphael
- Reformation and Hussite Revolution, Czech
- Reformation and Wars of Religion in France, The
- Reformation, English
- Reformation, German
- Reformation, Italian, The
- Reformation, The
- Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621
- Rembrandt
- Renaissance Poland-Lithuania, Art of
- Renaissance, The
- Reuchlin, Johann
- Revolutionary England, 1642-1702
- Rhetoric
- Ricci, Matteo
- Richard III
- Rienzo, Cola Di
- Roman and Iberian Inquisitions, Censorship and the Index i...
- Ronsard, Pierre de
- Roper, Margeret More
- Royal Regencies in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, 140...
- Rubens, Peter Paul
- Russell, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby
- Russia and Muscovy
- Ruzante Angelo Beolco
- Saint John of the Cross
- Saints and Mystics: After Trent
- Saints and Mystics: Before Trent
- Salutati, Coluccio
- Sandro Botticelli
- Sarpi, Fra Paolo
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Scandinavia
- Scholasticism and Aristotelianism: Fourteenth to Seventeen...
- Schooling and Literacy
- Scientific Revolution
- Scotland
- Scève, Maurice
- Sephardic Diaspora
- Sforza, Caterina
- Sforza, Francesco
- Shakespeare, William
- Ships/Shipbuilding
- Sidney Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke
- Sidney, Philip
- Siena
- Simon of Trent
- Sir Robert Cecil
- Sixtus IV, Pope
- Skepticism in Renaissance Thought
- Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1350–1650
- Southern Italy, 1500–1700
- Southern Italy, 1300–1500
- Spain
- Spanish Inquisition
- Spanish Islam, 1350-1614
- Spenser, Edmund
- Sperone Speroni
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stampa, Gaspara
- Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
- Switzerland
- Tarabotti, Arcangela
- Tasso Torquato
- Tell, William
- Teresa of Avila
- Textiles: 1400 to 1700
- The Casa of San Giorgio, Genoa
- The Radical Reformation
- The Sack of Rome (1527)
- Thirty Years War, The
- Thomas Wyatt
- Titian
- Toleration
- Tornabuoni, Lucrezia
- Trade Networks
- Tragedy, English
- Translation
- Transylvania, The Principality of
- Traversari, Ambrogio
- Universities
- Urbanism
- Ursulines
- Valeriano, Pierio
- Valla, Lorenzo
- van Eyck, Jan
- van Schurman, Anna Maria
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Vega, Lope de
- Vegio, Maffeo
- Velázquez
- Venice
- Venice, Maritime
- Vergerio, Pier Paolo, The Elder
- Vermeer, Johannes
- Vernacular Languages and Dialects
- Vida, Marco Girolamo
- Virgil in Renaissance Thought
- Visitors, Italian
- Vives, Juan Luis
- Walter Ralegh
- War and Economy, 1300-1600
- Ward, Mary
- Warfare and Military Organizations
- Weyden, Rogier van der
- Widowhood
- Witch Hunt
- Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
- Women and Learning
- Women and Medicine
- Women and Science
- Women and the Book Trade
- Women and the Reformation
- Women and the Visual Arts
- Women and Warfare
- Women and Work: Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
- Women Writers in Ireland
- Women Writers of the Iberian Empire
- Women Writing in Early Modern Spain
- Women Writing in English
- Women Writing in French
- Women Writing in Italy
- Wroth, Mary