The main reason why I purchased this book was to assist me in viewing this artist's complete works when reading other mainstream books about Caravaggio, namely: 'Caravaggio: A Passionate Life' and 'M' - both excellent books. The colour plates were lovely and each had detailed text to assist you in your studies of his work. This is a nice and easy to read guide book to this artists beautiful work. The narrative provides enough detail about Caravaggio's life and work to give you the basic idea but do not expect a detailed account, you will have to look elsewhere. Overall this a quick reference guide and is well worth a look.