The interaction of the relief of figures caught in corporate effort and emotion, with a large void above, is quite different from the closely focussed individualised dramas of his early and middle periods. As in several paintings from this period of Caravaggio's career, the scene is set against blank walls that overwhelm the frieze of human actors.

The Gospel of John tells how he fell sick, died, was buried and then miraculously raised from the dead by Christ. Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was the patron saint of Giovanni Battista de' Lazzari, to whom Caravaggio was contracted to paint an altarpiece in the church of the Padri Crociferi.

The fee was a thousand scudi, more than double any Caravaggio had received previously. Through Minniti's intercession he procured a number of important commissions, including this for the church of the Padri Crociferi in Messina, where it was presented by the wealthy Genoese merchant Giovanni Battista de' Lazzari on 10 June 1609. In August 1608 Caravaggio fled from Malta, where he had been imprisoned for an unknown crime, and took refuge in Sicily with his friend, the artist Mario Minniti. 1609, in the Museo Regionale, Messina, is a painting by the Italian artist Caravaggio (1571–1610).

Lazarus resurrection