In the first half of the 20th century, Michele was one of many painters that made a living on Capri, the beautiful island off the west coast of Italy that has been a pleasure resort since Roman times. Capri was attractive to artists and writers from all over Europe for its climate, the natural beauty of the island (and its inhabitants), its cheap living and, it may be said, permissive morality. 

Unusually amongst Capri painters, Michele was a native, not an import like Sargent and other colonists, and learned to paint on the island from the age of twelve under the Sicilian landscape painter Antonio Leto (1843-1913), who passed his impressionistic technique to his pupil. Michele romanticised Capri as never before.