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Sep 29, 1571
Caravaggio's birth day:
The real name of Caravaggio is Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. He was born in Milan, Italy. -
Childhood (1571-1584):
His father, Fermo Merisi, worked as administrator and decorating architect for the Marques of Caravaggio. Her mother, Lucia Aratori, came from a wealthy family from the same place. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio due to the plague that struck Milan. Caravaggio's father died in 1577. -
Early years (1584-1592):
He began working as an apprentice to the Lombard painter Simone Peterzano. After completing his apprenticeship he began to move on the Milan-Caravaggio circuit, and probably visited Venice, where he must have known the works of Giorgione (which Caravaggio was accused of copying) and Tiziano. -
Stay in rome (1592-1600):
In 1592 Caravaggio arrived in Rome, where he worked in a painting workshop. During that time he painted several pictures, one of them was Boy peeling fruit, his first known work. -
The most famous painter in Rome (1600-1606):
In 1600, Caravaggio was hired to decorate the Contarelli Chapel, in the Roman church of San Luis de los Franceses. The two works done for this commission were: The Martyrdom of Saint Mateo, and The Vocation of Saint Mateo.
One of the few secular and not religious paintings of that time was The Triumph of Love, painted in 1602 for Vincenzo Giustiniani. -
He killed (1606):
The night of May 29, 1606, he killed, probably by accident, a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni.
Caravaggio fled to Naples. He soon became the star of Neapolitan painting. At this stage he made Seven Works of Mercy and the Madonna of the Rosary.
After spending time in Naples, he went to Malta.
After being in Malta, Caravaggio settled in Sicily. After spending nine months there, he returned to Naples. -
He died (1610):
On July 28 a "notice" announced that Caravaggio had died. A few days later another "notice" stated that the painter had died of fever in Porto Ércole. The body was not found. A poet, close friend of the painter, gave the date of his death as July 18, a victim of fever in Porto Ércole, near Grosseto, in Tuscany.
In 2010, a corpse from the 16th or 17th centuries that could correspond to Caravaggio was found in a Porto Ércole cemetery.
