Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane

“We really know very, very little about Caravaggio except that he had a quarrel about artichokes and killed somebody, possibly over a bet on a tennis match, or possibly over a woman. Out of this, Graham Dixon, who is a superb art historian, has made an absolute blood-and-guts, pacy book. Caravaggio was an arrogant, rebellious murderer. Graham Dixon manages to pull the tempestuous life out of the tempestuous times. This is the Rome of the popes and Machiavellian power games and the struggles of the Counter-Reformation…This book, I think, is brilliant. It reads like a thriller.” Read more...

Five Biographies of Artists

Sue Prideaux, Biographer