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Human remains found in a church in Tuscany almost certainly belong to Renaissance artist Caravaggio, Italian researchers said. The team said they were 85% sure that the set of bones of a man who died in about 1610, aged between 38 and 40, were that of the painter. The remains had been kept in an ossuary in a church crypt in Porto Ercole, after reportedly being exhumed in 1956. Caravaggio was known for his "chiaroscuro" painting technique. The method, in which light and shadow are sharply contrasted, revolutionised painting. Mystery The researchers, from four Italian universities, said they believed Michelangelo...

A crypt in the Tuscan town of Porto Ercole, Italy, could contain the 400-year-old bones of artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, anthropologists said. A team from Bologna University and Ravenna University planned to use infrared scanners, CAT scans, DNA analysis and carbon dating to solve the mystery of where Caravaggio, a master of chiaroscuro lighting, was buried, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Friday. The crypt in Porto Ercole was the mostly likely of eight possible burial sites, said Caravaggio expert Maurizio Marini. Local church records said Caravaggio died in the town in 1610. On Wednesday, the anthropologists began sorting...

'Do you realise how much strength is needed to strangle a man?" asked Francesco Marino Mannoia. The magistrate listened carefully. "It can take as long as 10 minutes," Marino Mannoia went on, "and sometimes the victim slips out, bites and kicks. Some even manage to break free for a while. But at least it's a professional way of doing the job." This witness was genuine, magistrate Giovanni Falcone decided after listening to such insights into life in the Sicilian mafia. He considered Marino Mannoia an exceptionally bright and honest pentito - the Italian term for a mafioso who turns informant...

The Meaning of the Bridge of Angels The Bridge of Angels (in Italian, Ponte Sant'Angelo) spans the Tiber River in Rome. Only a few steps away from St. Peter's Basilica, the bridge reflects the psychological shift from secular to sacred the occurs when pilgrims crossed from the busy streets of Rome over to the churches of the Vatican. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the famed Italian sculptor, originally designed the bridge's angel sculptures in the seventeenth century. Though few of the angels standing today were done by his hand, Bernini's vision for the bridge lives on. Five angel sculptures flank each...

Finally, what with a snow day and all, I have time to write one more installment of the history of art. Today’s “lesson” is Baroque art. Baroque art dates from 1600-1715 or so. (The dates are different with different media. The end of Baroque art coincides with the death of King Louis XIV in 1715; Baroque music ends with the death of Bach in 1750.) The expansion in Baroque artistic space reflects the expansion of political empires (into the New World) and the expansion of scientific knowledge (the invention of microscopes and telescopes: with space expanding outward and contracting inward)....