Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known simply as Caravaggio (1571-1610), was an Italian painter who was active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the last four years of his life, he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death in 1610.

His paintings have been identified by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both emotional and physical, with an overly-dramatic use of lighting, which had a developmental influence on Baroque painting.