Chalk portrait of Caravaggio
by Ottavio Leoni, c. 1621.
Michelangelo Merisi da Carvaggio (1571-1610) was always known as Caravaggio for the name of his native town near Milan. Caravaggio began his painting career with study in Milan and a possible visit to Venice where he would have seen the great oils of Titian and Tintoretto. But while still in his twenties he went to Rome. For ten years he worked in Rome with trips to Naples and Sicily: he changed painting forever. His achievement so totally transformed the way that painters worked that for decades afterwards followers all over the world described themselves as "Caravaggisti."
