Caravaggio (1571-1610), one of the most notable Italian painters and a representative of the Baroque period, will be the subject of an exhibition in Rome during the Jubilee, a Catholic celebration currently underway in the Italian capital.
“Caravaggio 2025” will be on display from March 7 to July 6 at Palazzo Barberini, and will bring together at least 20 of the artist’s rarely exhibited works, including “The Portrait of Maffeo Barberini”, recently presented to the public, and “Ecce Homo”, on display at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Spain, and never seen in Italy”.
As Maria Cristina Terzaghi, one of the curators of the exhibition, explains, “Ecce Homo” left Naples “at the behest of the vice-queen, wife of the Count of Castrillo, who decided to leave the city and return to Madrid after the outbreak of the plague, taking the painting with her, which she never returned to”.
“Today [the work] belongs to a private collector who lent it to the Prado, which, in turn, lent it to us for this exhibition,” added Terzaghi.
The initiative, the result of a collaboration between the National Art Galleries and the Borghese Gallery, also includes Caravaggio classics such as “The Sick Young Bacchus,” “David with the Head of Goliath” and “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.” “These are paintings that probably accompanied the artist during his final escape,” says Francesa Cappelletti, director of the Borghese Gallery and co-curator of the exhibition.
Born in Milan, Michelangelo Merisi, known as "Caravaggio," carried out much of his work in Rome. In his later years, after killing a man, he lived in Naples, Malta, and Sicily.HANDLE)
