One art historian has shown that Caravaggio (of “Bacchus” fame) now dominates the annals of Italian art instead of the world’s favorite Renaissance sculptor and painter.

Philip Sohm, an art historian at the University of Toronto who specializes in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, has charted the volume of writings on both Michelangelo and Caravaggio over the last half-century and found that people now pay more attention to the latter.

This New York Times article explains that the world of academia now prefers Caravaggio to Michelangelo because … well, “art history doctoral students may finally be struggling to think up anything fresh to say about Michelangelo.”

But Caravaggio’s emerging dominance jumps off the pages of academic writing, too, mostly because his life story is more interesting and controversial – gender studies scholars hypothesized his homosexuality in the 1970’s and one publication from 1604 described his lifestyle, writing: “After a fortnight’s work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him.” He killed a man in 1606 and then fled to Rome.

Caravaggio’s quarrelsome existence was cut short at age 38 and he left behind virtually nothing in the way of personal documentation. This is in direct contrast to Michelangelo, first Western artist whose biography was published while he was still alive. Four and a half centuries later, though, art history students are bored with Michelangelo and Caravaggio's elusive struggle holds the spotlight.