a fine parish church, with a
miraculous cross celebrated for its healing power, in honour of which a
yearly festival is held on the 3rd of May. The hills which extend to the
north are rich in marble and iron. Despite the lack of railway
communication, the town is a considerable industrial centre, with large
iron-works, tanneries and manufactories of paper, chocolate and oil.

CARAVAGGIO, MICHELANGELO AMERIGHI (or MERIGI) DA (1569-1609), Italian
painter, was born in the village of Caravaggio, in Lombardy, from which
he received his name. He was originally a mason's labourer, but his
powerful genius directed him to painting, at which he worked with
immitigable energy and amazing force. He despised every sort of idealism
whether noble or emasculate, became the head of the Naturalisti
(unmodified imitators of ordinary nature) in painting, and adopted a
style of potent contrasts of light and shadow, laid on with a sort of
fury, indicative of that fierce temper which led the artist to commit a
homicide in a gambling quarrel at Rome. To avoid the consequences of his
crime he fled to Naples and to Malta, where he was imprisoned for
another attempt to avenge a quarrel. Escaping to Sicily, he was attacked
by a party sent in pursuit of him, and severely wounded. Being pardoned,
he set out for Rome; but having been arrested by mistake before his
arrival, and afterwards released, and left to shift for himself in
excessive heat, and still suffering from wounds and hardships, he died
of fever on the beach at Pontercole in 1609. His best pictures are the
"Entombment of Christ," now in the Vatican; "St Sebastian," in the Roman
Capitol; a magnificent whole-length portrait of a grand-master of the
Knights of Malta, Alof de Vignacourt, and his page, in the Louvre; and
the Borghese "Supper at Emmaus."

CARAVAGGIO, POLIDORO CALDARA DA (1495 or 1492-1543), a celebrated
painter of frieze and other decorations in the Vatican. His merits were
such that, while a mere mortar-carrier to the artists engaged in that
work, he attracted the admiration of Raphael, then employed on his great
pictures in the Loggie of the palace. Polidoro's works, as well as those
of his master, Maturino of Florence, have mostly perished, but are well
known by the fine etchings of P.S. Bartoli, C. Alberti, &c. On the sack
of Rome by the army of the Constable de Bourbon in 1527, Polidoro fled
to Naples. Thence he went to Messina, where he was much employed, an