[close] As presented here with "blood, and bone and sinew" (Times Literary Supplement), the story of Caravaggio is the story of a wild and tempestuous life that was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege.The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved.No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M.As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same."AUTHORBIO: PETER ROBB was born in Australia and has lived in Naples and Southern Italy for most of the past two decades.His first book, Midnight in Sicily, was a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Public Library Book of the Year.REVIEW: "It is clear that Caravaggio is Robb's oyster, and he makes him ours too." (The Boston Globe)REVIEW: "Partisan, sharply personal, and well worth reading." (The Wall Street Journal)REVIEW: "His biography....comes across almost like an eyewitness account.His commentaries on the paintings convey a kind of informed passion in confrontation with genius....his account achieves both intimacy and vibrancy because of the richness of layering, its nonstop accumulation of analyzed detail." (Richard Bernstein, New York Times)REVIEW: "Robb's ambitions are lofty and, plainly put, it is hard not to be seduced by his prose." (The Washington Post)REVIEW: "Passionate, perceptive....[Robb] succeeds brilliantly in bringing to life one of the handful of figures in art history whose genius blazed so brightly that it illuminated an entire age and changed forever the course of European art." (The Baltimore Sun)REVIEW: "That rarest of hybrids, a cerebral thrill ride, and its indulgences are more than balanced by the brilliance of insight." (The Village Voice)REVIEW: "A feast of art appreciation, storytelling, and witty speculation." (Bookpage)REVIEW: "Just as Caravaggio took art to the edge, Robb takes biography there." (Publishers Weekly) [close]