Michelangelo Merisi (Michael Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 ??18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610.

His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting.