Caravaggio's art and artistic personality were forged, as Graham-Dixon demonstrates, by the counter-reformationary climate in Milan fostered by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo. But we should not underestimate the effect of the character of the Lombard people themselves whose passion for realism was somewhat at odds with the cultural traditions of late-16th-century Rome. The intensity of Caravaggio's early work is doubtless the result of his innovatory practice of painting directly from posed models and objects placed in the studio with the careful play of light, usually directed from a high source. His tendency to exaggerate distinctive details was seen as startlingly at odds with the conventions of southern Renaissance art, although it was not at all out of keeping with either the north Italian or northern European tradition,  which may go some way to explaining why so many of Caravaggio's numerous followers came from northern cities such as Utrecht in Holland.

The question of Caravaggio's sexuality has always been intensely debated. Throughout his short life Caravaggio consorted not only with the catamites who flourished in his early patron Cardinal del Monte's household in Counter-Reformation Rome, but also with the whores who plied their trade on the streets in and around Piazza Navona, although he is now widely seen as a gay icon. It is surely not solely modern attitudes that make the androgynous youths who people many of his early compositions seem so highly homoerotic.

Graham-Dixon's biography will surely quickly establish itself as the outstanding introduction to Caravaggio's life and art. Through his many previous books and television broadcasts, he has shown that he has developed a remarkable ability to focus his readers' and viewers' attention with highly original close readings of pictures devoid of the kind of intimidating jargon that besets so much modern art history. To read this book will make a visit to those astonishing pictures in the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi and the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome all the more pleasurable an experience.