Caravaggio: When Art History's Greatest Painter Was Also Its Most Dangerous Criminal

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio revolutionized Western art while simultaneously terrorizing Rome with his violent temper. By day, he painted religious masterpieces for the Pope. By night, he brawled in taverns, attacked rival artists with swords, and racked up an arrest record that would make modern criminals blush.

In 1606, Caravaggio killed a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni during what started as a tennis match and ended in a street brawl with swords. Forced to flee Rome with a death sentence on his head, he spent his final years painting breathtaking works while running from assassins and the law. He painted his own face as the severed head of Goliath in one masterpiece - literally offering his head to the Pope as an apology.

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