The Sicilian Renaissance from Antonello da Messina to Caravaggio

Sicily is rightly renowned for its ancient, Islamic/Norman, and Baroque art, but the island

kingdom also played a highly significant role in the development of the Renaissance.

Antonello da Messina (1430-79) was born and raised in the Sicilian port of Messina,

where he was the first Italian artist to paint intense portraits and religious images in oils,

a technique he then taught to the Bellini workshop in Venice. Antonello’s hometown and

Palermo both still boast some of the most extraordinary public fountains of the sixteenth

century. Caravaggio (Michelangelo da Merisi, 1571-1610) left his mark on the island,

too. He spent the last few years of his tragically short life in Sicily painting some of his

most dramatic and haunting canvases, a fitting culmination to the Renaissance in Sicily.