Caravaggio was an Italian baroque painter, who was the best exemplar of naturalistic painting in the early 17th century. His use of models from the lower classes of society in his early secular works and later religious compositions appealed to the Counter Reformation taste for realism, simplicity, and piety in art. Equally important is his introduction of dramatic light-and-dark effects-termed chiaroscuro-into his works. Originally named Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio was born September 28, 1573, in the Lombardy hill town of Caravaggio, from which his professional name is derived. He was the son of Fermo Merisi, steward and architect of the Marquis of Caravaggio. Orphaned at age 11 , he spent years as apprentice to Simone Peterzano of Milan before going to Rome in 1593, where he entered the employ of the Mannerist painter Giuseppe Cesari. Among his best-known early works are genre paintings (scenes from everyday life) with young men. At some time between 1588 and 1592, Caravaggio went to Rome. He was already in possession of the fundamental technical skills of painting and had acquired, with characteristic eagerness had developed a style that was nearer to representing nature and events. Caravaggio arrived in Rome and settled into the cosmopolitan society of the Campo Marzio. This decaying neighborhood of inns, eating houses, temporary shelter, and little picture shops in which Caravaggio came to live suited his circumstances and his temperament. He was virtually without means, and his inclinations were always toward anarchy and against tradition. These five years were an anguishing period of instability and humiliation. Caravaggio was "needy and stripped of everything" and moved from one unsatisfactory employment to another, working as an assistant to painters of much smaller talent. He earned his living for the most part with hackwork and never stayed more that a few months at any studio.
