Abstract

This essay considers, among other paintings, two of the most important of Caravaggio's works in reference to the theological debate concerning the inspiration of the Bible and of the Gospel of Matthew, a lively debate among contemporaries of the painter. The focus of the essay is to demonstrate a method for the analysis of figurative representations of religious themes. Liberating these works from the confines of art history, it analyzes them in the context of the Christian experience, as it was in the period in which these paintings were made