The Rome Index
Caravaggio in Rome
Six free Caravaggios in Rome's churches — and the painter's turbulent life in the city.
Who Caravaggio was
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio arrived in Rome around 1592 and spent a decade producing the paintings that defined European art for a century — before killing a man in a brawl in 1606 and fleeing the city permanently. He died in exile in 1610, aged 38.
The free church Caravaggios
San Luigi dei Francesi: The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew — three paintings in the Contarelli Chapel, the commission that established his career. Sant'Agostino: Madonna di Loreto. Santa Maria del Popolo: Conversion of Saint Paul, Crucifixion of Saint Peter.
Why they still stop people
Caravaggio painted from life using real people — prostitutes, peasants, labourers — at a time when saints were expected to look like saints. The violence is specific and physical; the darkness is not metaphorical but literal. Standing in front of the originals in the churches they were made for remains one of the most powerful art experiences in Rome.
The criminal record behind the paintings
Beyond the famous 1606 killing that ended his Roman career, Caravaggio's police record includes numerous earlier arrests for brawling, weapons violations and other disturbances — a genuinely turbulent personal history that ran parallel to, and arguably fed directly into, the raw emotional intensity of his artistic output.
Why his religious paintings caused controversy
Several of Caravaggio's religious commissions were initially rejected by the churches that commissioned them, objecting to his use of visibly working-class, unidealised models for sacred figures — a radical realism that scandalised contemporary sensibilities even as it's now considered central to his artistic significance.
