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7 pertiche of land in Canigio Nuovo (which is divided, with three quarters going to Fermo’s brothers, the rest to Lucia’s children);

land and a vineyard in Rovere, 8 pertiche;

2½ pertiche of land on the road to Calenzano;

an orchard outside Porta Prato, 1 pertica.

One pertica, in Lombardy at that time, was the equivalent of approximately 6,500 square feet. So altogether the Merisi family, Fermo’s wife and her four children ended up with roughly 18.5 pertiche. That is 120,250 square feet, just under three acres. The land’s value amounted to about 3,000 imperial lire, or 500 gold scudi: not a lot of money.

Nothing is known about Caravaggio’s early education but he certainly received one. An inventory of his possessions made several years afterwards, when he was a fully fledged painter working in Rome, reveals that he owned several books. The pictures that he would paint, later in life, are without doubt the works of a questing, curious and literate mind. His brother Giovan Battista, who was destined for the Church, would later study at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome. The Jesuits were among the most intellectually demanding of the religious orders, so Caravaggio’s brother must have been given at least the rudiments of an education in classical and Italian literature. Numerous grammar schools had been set up across the diocese of Milan at the instigation of Carlo Borromeo, who believed that educated souls were less likely to stray into temptation. Caravaggio’s brother probably attended one such school, which makes it more likely that Caravaggio did too.

By 1583 Giovan Battista Merisi had decided that he was destined for the Church. He was following in the footsteps of his father’s brother, Ludovico, who was a priest. By 1584, it seems, Caravaggio had decided to become a painter. On 6 April of that year, at the age of thirteen, he signed a contract of apprenticeship with Simone Peterzano. The contract was signed in Milan, where Peterzano had his workshop, and it spelled out the nature of Caravaggio’s commitment to his dominus, or ‘Master’, and described what he was to expect in return:

The said Michelangelo will stay and live with the said Master, Simone, to learn the art of painting for the next four years beginning from today, and that the said Michelangelo will train in that art night and day, according to the custom of the said art, well and faithfully, and that he will commit no deceit or fraud upon the goods of the said Master, Simone.

The said Master, Simone, is required and obliged to support the said Michelangelo in his house and workshop, and instruct him in that art all that he can, so that at the end of the four years he will be qualified and expert in the said art, and know how to work for himself. The said Michelangelo is required to give and pay to the said Master, Simone, for his recompense, twenty-four gold scudi at the rate of six imperial lire to the scudo, to be paid in advance every six months by the said Michelangelo to the said Master, Simone, of which he now receives ten scudi in advance payment, of which Michelangelo promises to pay the remainder.

These were not exactly standard terms. Caravaggio and his family had to pay Peterzano 24 gold scudi each year of the apprenticeship, six months in advance – a total of 96 scudi. Payment for apprenticeships was not an invariable part of such contracts, in that the apprentice’s labour was regarded as recompense to the Master for his tuition. When the Master also provided board and lodging, as in Caravaggio’s case, some payment from the apprentice was customary, but Peterzano’s fee on this occasion was unusually high. For example, when the painter Gerolamo Lomazzo had been apprenticed in Milan in 1556, he had been required to pay just 8 gold scudi a year. Peterzano’s only other known apprentice, Francesco Alicati, was actually paid 24 scudi a year for his contributions in the workshop.48 The implication is that Alicati already had some skills