Since the late 1980s, one can note the establishment of a very efficient branch of Caravaggio-research that is devoted to confirming the traditional understanding of Caravaggio's artistic working method. According to this research, Caravaggio is percepted as a modern painter before his time, who - negating disegno - developed his images by painting spontaneously in front of the model. Whilst considering the arguments in discussion, the author shows that neither historical sources nor asthetic evidence - as a result of technical analyses of Caravaggio's paintings - can be used to legitimize the art historical idea of an exclusively pictorial approach of the artist. The image of Caravaggio introducing a revolutionary technique of alla-prima-painting without preliminary drawings seems to root in misunderstood topoi of seicento art-literature. In opposition to the traditional research, the author develops a plea of a Caravaggio-disegnatore, who made use of the medium of drawing as a highly elaborated artistic technique. This is indicated not least by exact geometrical orders that can be found as compositional underpinnings on Caravaggio-s paintings, a phenomenon that corresponds to the fact that one can find only very minor pentimenti in most of his pictures.