Editing Caravaggio (section)

=== Early life (1571–1592) ===

[[File:Canestra di frutta (Caravaggio).jpg|thumb|''[[Basket of Fruit (Caravaggio)|Basket of Fruit]]'', {{circa|1595–1596}}, oil on canvas, [[Pinacoteca Ambrosiana]], Milan]]

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi or Amerighi) was born in [[Milan]], where his father, Fermo (Fermo Merixio), was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the marquess of [[Caravaggio, Lombardy|Caravaggio]], a town {{Convert|35|km|abbr=on}} to the east of Milan and south of [[Bergamo]].<ref>Confirmed by the finding in February 2007 of his baptism certificate from the Milanese parish of Santo Stefano in Brolo. {{cite web |title=Biografía de Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) (1571–1610) |url=http://www.italica.rai.it/index.php?categoria=bio&scheda=caravaggio_prima_parte |publisher=Italica.rai.it |access-date=18 November 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090416123558/http://www.italica.rai.it/index.php?categoria=bio&scheda=caravaggio_prima_parte |archive-date=16 April 2009 }}</ref> In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague that ravaged Milan, and Caravaggio's father and grandfather both died there on the same day in 1577.<ref name="ParisArtStudies">{{cite web | url =http://www.parisartstudies.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=129 | title =Paris Art Studies Caravaggio | publisher =parisartstudies.com | year =2009 | access-date =21 May 2013 | archive-date =6 November 2020 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20201106195537/http://www.parisartstudies.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=129 | url-status =dead }}</ref><ref>[http://www.maltacultureguide.com/index.php?page=article&article_id=38 Malta Culture Guide] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160829173655/http://www.maltacultureguide.com/index.php?page=article&article_id=38 |date=29 August 2016 }}. Retrieved 21 February 2017</ref> It is assumed that the artist grew up in Caravaggio, but his family kept up connections with the [[Sforzas]] and the powerful [[Colonna family]], who were allied by marriage with the Sforzas and destined to play a major role later in Caravaggio's life.

Caravaggio's mother had to raise all of her five children in poverty.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lambert |first=Gilles |title=Caravaggio |publisher=Taschen |year=2000 |isbn=9783822863053 |page=19 |language=en}}</ref> She died in 1584, the same year he began his four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter [[Simone Peterzano]], described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of [[Titian]]. Caravaggio appears to have stayed in the Milan-Caravaggio area after his apprenticeship ended, but it is possible that he visited [[Venice]] and saw the works of [[Giorgione]], whom [[Federico Zuccari]] later accused him of imitating, and Titian.<ref>Harris, p. 21.</ref> He would also have become familiar with the art treasures of Milan, including [[Leonardo da Vinci]]'s ''[[The Last Supper (Leonardo)|Last Supper]]'', and with the regional Lombard art, a style that valued simplicity and attention to [[Realism (arts)|naturalistic]] detail and was closer to the naturalism of Germany than to the stylised formality and grandeur of Roman [[Mannerism]].<ref>Rosa Giorgi, ": Master of light and dark – his life in paintings", p.12.</ref>