CARAVAGGIO'S PITIFUL RELICS

In his first ecclesiastical commission, Caravaggio offered an unconventional representation of martyrdom that collapsed the borders between art, contemporary religious persecution, iconoclasm, and relics in early Christian catacombs. Yet his art controversially an d eventually led to a criminal trial. After he had fled from Rome in disgrace, his major altarpiece depicting the death of the Virgi n Mary, portraying her mortality rather than her sanctity, was removed. Caravaggios materiality came into conflict with changing no tions of t...[Read more]