Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - The Martyrdom of St Matthew (detail) - WGA04126

Trained in Milan and active in Rome (1592–1606), Naples (1606–7; 1609–10), Malta (1607–8), and Sicily (1608–9), Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) was one of the most revolutionary figures of European art. His practice of painting directly from posed models violated the idealizing premise of Renaissance theory and promoted a new relationship between painting and viewer by breaking down the conventions that maintained painting as a plausible fiction rather than an extension of everyday experience.