The Caravaggio Affair

2015 • 52 minutes

About this movie

By the time Caravaggio died he had changed the face of the art world forever. But the paintings that now fetch millions and adorn the walls of the world's most prestigious galleries were painted by a murderer with a bounty on his head. In this captivating investigation archaeologists work tirelessly to track down Caravaggio's long lost remains, and finally establish the cause of the troubled young genius' demise. It was a hot July day in 1610 when Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, one of the greatest painters of all time, vanished. Before his disappearance, Caravaggio had reinvented religious painting through his use of contemporary Italian settings and dramatic lighting. But the renegade artist attracted as many enemies as he did followers. Tracing the radioactive half-life of the metal that Carravaggio handled on a daily basis leads the archaeologists ever closer to his remains, and an answer to the 400 year old mystery of whether he was murdered by assassins, lost at sea, or died by disease in an investigation resembling CSI, renaissance style.