Yes. On May 28, 1606, the painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, killed a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni with a sword, in a street fight in Rome in which both sides came armed. A papal court sentenced him to death, and he never lived in Rome again.
Ranuccio, a street tough from a wealthy family, was rumored to be the pimp of Fillide Melandroni, who posed for Caravaggio, and his family had long feuded with the painter's friends.
Cool Stories About Art is a newsletter to learn art the fun way.
Join 200,000+ readers and get:
10 new art stories / month
The entire archive of content (140+ articles)
Comment, ask questions, and chat with other readers
That Caravaggio killed Ranuccio is certain. Almost everything else is in doubt, even the date: most sources give May 28, though a few say May 29.
The version most people know comes with a tennis game attached: a quarrel over a point, a few rackets, then a sword. Historians who have gone back to the court records and the letters of the time are far less sure of it, and they disagree even about who was on the street.
Who came to the fight
Ranuccio did not come to that street alone, and neither did Caravaggio. The records of the case name the men who stood with each of them.
What You'll Discover
What the tennis story hides.
What the surgeon found in the wound.
What the death sentence let anyone do.
Whose face is on Goliath's head.