Vatican · 450th birthday of Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, was born in Milan in 1571. He received his artist’s name from the Lombard town of Caravaggio, where his family originated. After training in Milan, he went to Rome, where he initially worked under difficult financial conditions. Later, he received commissions for churches and private collections. His Roman works include paintings for San Luigi dei Francesi and Santa Maria del Popolo.

His painting is characterised by lifelike figures, strong contrasts of light and dark, and lighting that highlights individual people or actions from a dark pictorial space. He often depicted religious figures using contemporary models and without idealising distance. As a result, biblical scenes appeared like events observed at close hand. This pictorial language influenced numerous painters of the European Baroque.

Caravaggio’s life was also marked by legal disputes and violence. After killing a man in a dispute in Rome in 1606, he fled the Papal States (Kirchenstaat). In the following years, he stayed in Naples, Malta and Sicily, among other places. He died in Porto Ercole in 1610 while attempting to return to Rome.

The detail used on the coin comes from an early work from his Roman period. The painting combines a portrait of a figure with a detailed depiction of various fruits and leaves. Ripe, damaged and withering plant parts are rendered with the same precision as the young model’s pose and clothing. The painting is now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It originally belonged to the collection of the painter Giuseppe Cesari and came into the possession of Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the early 17th century.

For the Vatican, the anniversary provided an opportunity to commemorate a painter closely associated with Rome and ecclesiastical art. Caravaggio’s works were often created for Catholic patrons; the Vatican Museums (Vatikanische Museen) also house his The Entombment of Christ (Grablegung Christi).