CARAVAGGIO, Michael Angelo Amerighi da, a celebrated painter, born in 1569 in the village of Caravaggio, from which he took his name. He adopted a style of strange contrasts of light and shadow of colours, laid on with a sort of fury, emblematic of that fierce temper which led the artist to commit a homicide at Rome. To avoid the consequences of his crime he fled to Naples and to Malta, where he was imprisoned for another attempt to avenge a quarrel. Escaping to Sicily, he was attacked by a party sent in pursuit of him, and severely wounded. Being pardoned, he
Caravaggio set out for Rome, where, being arrested by mistake, he expired at a gate of the city in his fortieth year. His best pictures are the Entombment of Christ, now in France; St Sebastian, in the Roman Capitol; and the Supper at Emmaus, in the Borghese Palace. See PAINTING.