The paintings in the Contarelli Chapel form a group of three large-format canvases painted by Caravaggio between 1599 and 1602, initially commissioned by Cardinal Matteo Contarelli for the Church of St. Louis of the French in Rome, and eventually honored after his death by his executors. The intervention of Cardinal Del Monte, Caravaggio's patron, was decisive in obtaining this contract, which was the most significant of the painter's young career when he was not yet 30. The works evoke three major stages in the life of the apostle Saint Matthew: his calling by Jesus Christ, his writing of the Gospel guided by an angel, and his martyrdom. They are still preserved in the Church of St. Louis of the French.

The Caravaggisti were stylistic followers of the late 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. Nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. But it can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio himself was forgotten almost immediately after his death. Many of his paintings were re-ascribed to his followers, such as The Taking of Christ, which was attributed to the Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst until 1990.