The Crucifixion of Saint Peter (Italian: Crocifissione di san Pietro) is a work by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, painted in 1601 for the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome.

[1] The contract for the altarpiece with Carracci has not been preserved but it is generally assumed that the document had been signed somewhat earlier, and Caravaggio had to take into consideration the other artist's work and the overall iconographic programme of the chapel.

Caravaggio gained the Cerasi commission right after his celebrated works in the Contarelli Chapel had been finished, and Carracci was busy creating his great fresco cycle in the Palazzo Farnese.

The contract gave a free hand to the painter to choose the figures, persons and ornaments depicted in the way as he saw fit, "to the satisfaction however of his Lordship", and he was also obliged to submit preparatory studies before the execution of the paintings.

Caravaggio received 50 scudi as advance payment from the banker Vincenzo Giustiniani with the rest earmarked to be paid on completion.

He completed them sometime before 10 November when he received the final instalment from the heirs of Tiberio Cerasi, the Fathers of the Ospedale della Consolazione.

Caravaggio's biographer, Giulio Mancini mentioned these paintings being in the collection of Cardinal Sannesio around 1620 but he thought them retouched copies of the originals.

[11] This time the heirs sold the paintings to the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, Juan Alfonso Enríquez de Cabrera who transported them to Madrid two years later.

[12] The panel was registered for the last time in the inventory of the possessions of Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, the tenth Admiral of Castile, in 1691.

According to ancient and well-known tradition, Peter, when he was condemned to death in Rome, requested to be crucified upside-down because he did not believe that a man is worthy to be killed in the same manner as Jesus Christ.

Comparing the two paintings in the Cerasi Chapel, Mahon saw the Conversion of Saint Paul "much more animated than its companion" which does not succeed conveying such a vivid sense of movement.

The most striking feature of the painting is its pronounced realism: the saint is "very much the poor fisherman from Bethsaida, and the executioners, their hands heavily veined and reddened, their feet dusty, are toiling workmen", says Helen Langdon.

The young Honthorst was strongly influenced by the works of Caravaggio, and later became one of the Utrecht caravaggisti who tried to emulate the naturalism and tenebrosity of the Italian painter.