Michelangelo Merisi was born in Caravaggio in 1571. At twenty he leaves for Rome, to fulfil his dream of becoming a painter. Here his artistic fervour clashes with a dirty and dangerous city that rejects his art. In Rome Caravaggio also finds a great friend in the painter Mario Minniti, who will become his brotherly companion and often save Caravaggio from his own destructive anxiety. It is thanks to him that Caravaggio finds a job in his first art workshop. Painting, however, will only be one part of the life of this tormented and quarrelsome man, an omnivorous lover, a visionary, in constant conflict between light and shadow, just like his paintings…