Caravaggio, Polidoro Caldara Da
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, etc. 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, and gained a considerable fortune, with which he was about to return to the mainland of Italy when he was robbed and murdered by an assistant, Tonno Calabrese, in 1543. Two of his principal paintings are a Crucifixion, painted in Messina, and "Christ bearing the Cross" in the Naples gallery.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
