In Messina, Caravaggio created a second painting, the Raising of Lazarus.

The painter imagines the scene in the catacombs, where Lazarus was buried.

The latter, obeying the gesture of Christ in the shadows, is hit by the saving light that gives him life again, mimicking the allusive gesture of the cross with his arms.

On the right side the pious women are arranged.

The two works, preserved at the Regional Interdisciplinary Museum “M. Accascina” of Messina, are among the highest and most intense creations of the last period.

Thus, a new relationship is established between space and the figures that occupy the lower part of the painting, gathered according to the incidence of light, in a tight and austere rhythm.