(just zooming on the picture above) 

 A famous "basket" today on the "Pianacoteca Ambrosiana" (Milan, Italy).
 

Other basket, this time on the hands of an typical  boy among those painted by earlier Caravaggio. 
 
 

This is the "martirio di S.Matteo"  (The St.Mattew's martyre)  cited on the text.

 
 

 

The conversion of st.Paul.  Ironically, the second version is more unconventional than the first one. In the new painting S.Paul is comverted wiht the closed eyes; without any sign of preternetural  phoenomena. (the God appared on the first version). The grace in this case works inside the spirit, and we see only a ball of light (The arrow is just an my personal interpretation, but... follows the light!)

 

Michelangelo Merisi's family is from Caravaggio, a small town between Milan, Bergamo and Crema. His father was a servant of the Marquese of Caravaggio, and works in Milan. It is unclear whether Michelangelo was born in Milan or Caravaggio, nevertheless today he is known by his family's hometown: Caravaggio. 

He was born during the second half of the XVI century (in 1571). At 12 his father (Fermo Merisi) died. Michelangelo had started his work in painting quite early, around the towns of Lombardy, in Bergamo, Brescia, Lodi, Cremona. In 1590 his mother dies as well and the inheritance is divided among the brothers. Each one went his own way, and Michelangelo's way went to Rome. 

Rome and the Reinassance 
 

During those years Rome employed many artists: people didn't work only for the Pope and the Vatican nor for all the churches and chapels which were being built during those years, but also for all the noble families who were building or decorating their lavish palaces situated in the city or the countryside. Those mercenaries used to pay for the work they commissioned, but some of them directly employs artists in their palaces. Caravaggio is not immediately hired in one of these palaces, but he started painting "heads" in the studio of Lorenzo Siciliano and then at Antiveduto Grammatica. It is unclear what those heads were: certainly they were for tourists, cheap and unimportant. In the contract signed with Grammatica, Caravaggio commited himself to painting three heads a day for a "grosso" (the money at that time) each. He moved then to the studio of Cavalier Arpino, a painter of little importance or fame. He stayed there ofr a month, but soon the two developed for some mysterious reason a strong dislike for each other. 

Sorry - the English version is still in progress 

His realistic religious scenes, have contemporary settings and customs. And these scenes are very very far from the idealised types and picturesque situations, the same idealisations (to tell the truth) used both on the XV century, or  today, in the XX century... Caravaggio preferred to represent the real life with his terrible and dramatic emphasis. 
These considerations show  the Caravaggio shoked his contemporaries...