Peachment's imagined Caravaggio, while still a child, overhears his parents discussing one of his sketches, and realizes he has a talent which sets him apart from the world. He leaves family and home forever to map out a solitary traveller's life.

Caravaggio became a revolutionary of his time, a rebellious and dangerous man to know, a man governed by his genius, his indiscriminate sexual appetite and his murderous rage. His name was sought far and wide in the late-Renaissance world for his art. And there was a price on his head for at least one murder.

This is Caravaggio's confession, told in humorous, blasphemous, often brutal prose, which cleverly beguiles the reader into understanding the art that was so celebrated and the life that caused so much outrage.