By Alvise Armellini and Crispian Balmer
ROME (Reuters) – A major exhibition dedicated to baroque master Caravaggio opens on Friday in Rome, including normally out-of-reach works from private collections and others not seen in the artist’s Italian homeland for centuries.
Caravaggio, born as Michelangelo Merisi, was a virtuoso of the chiaroscuro technique of lighting to make his subjects seem to come alive. He led a short and turbulent life, which included a forced exile from Rome after killing a man in a brawl.
The exhibition in the Palazzo Barberini museum covers 15 years of his professional life, from his arrival in Rome in 1595, where he established himself as a rare talent, until his death in 1610, aged 39, in southern Tuscany.
“The paintings we have here represent a journey through his remarkable life, showing his transformation as an artist from his first works in Rome, through to probably his final work, as he desperately sought to end his exile,” said Francesca Cappelletti, one of three curators for the exhibition.
Amongst the works on display is “Ecce Homo” (Behold the Man), a depiction of a suffering Jesus Christ in a crown of thorns, which was rediscovered in 2021 in Spain after it was lost in the 19th century.
Other highlights are the portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini, which went on public display for the first time a few months ago, and iconic Caravaggio pieces such as “Self portrait as Bacchus” and “The Cardsharps”.
The exhibition is “Caravaggio in its purest form, and in massive doses,” Cappelletti told reporters.
In total, the exhibition counts 24 paintings, drawn from private and public collections in Italy, the U.S., Spain, Ireland and Britain.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are going to be able to admire the greatest collection of Caravaggio paintings that will be impossible to put together again in the coming years, or even decades,” said another of the curators, Thomas Clement Salomon.
Running from March 7 to July 6, it is being held in conjunction with the Catholic Holy Year, or Jubilee, which is expected to bring up to 32 million tourists to the so-called Eternal City.
Palazzo Barberini has already sold some 60,000 tickets for the show and is billing it as one of the most important art events of the year in Europe.
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini and Crispian Balmer, editing by Keith Weir)
