Mario Minniti

Who was Mario Minniti?

Mario Minniti was an Italian artist active in Sicily after 1606.

Born in Syracuse, Sicily, he arrived in Rome in 1593, where he became the friend, collaborator and model of the key Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. His main fame today is his identification, or proposed identification, as a model in many of Caravaggio's early works, including Boy with a Basket of Fruit, The Fortune Teller, The Musicians, Boy Bitten by a Lizard, Bacchus, The Lute Player, The Calling of Saint Matthew, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.

He ceases to appear as a model after about 1600, when he is believed to have married, but he may have been involved with Caravaggio and others in the 1606 street brawl which resulted in the death of Ranuccio Tomassoni at Caravaggio's hands - his biographer records that he fled to Sicily following a homicide, from where he petitioned for a pardon, and it is known that he sheltered Caravaggio on the latter's stay in Sicily in 1608-1609, procuring for him the important commission for the Burial of Saint Lucy. In Sicily he established a successful workshop producing religious commissions and eventually became a respected local businessman.