Caravaggio

In this opening episode of Power of Art, renowned historian Sir Simon Schama combines analysis with dramatic reconstruction to reveal the dark secrets woven into Caravaggio’s most famous work. With a cast including Andrew Garfield, Schama takes us back to the tumultuous times and violent life of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Italy, a revolutionary artist of the Counter-Reformation and Baroque era whose paintings forever changed religious art. Sentenced to death by decapitation in 1606 for the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni, Caravaggio fled, moving between Naples, Malta, and Sicily. Shama retraces his steps and concludes that this period led to the darker themes found in his later work, culminating in ''David with the Head of Goliath.'' The head was Caravaggio's last, tragic self-portrait.