Caravaggio 2025: The Baroque teacher raised by the Jubileo de la Esperanza

The adventures of Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610), Caravaggio, were linked to the religious context of Rome since its inception as a painter.

The ordinary jubilee of 1600, under the papacy of Clemente VIII, was a fulfolding impulse for his career.

That year, he received his first public commission for the chapel Contarelli In the church of San Luigi of the French (San Luis de los French of Rome), where he painted the famous series about San Mateo: “The vocation of San Mateo”, “San Mateo and El Ángel” and “The martyrdom of San Mateo.”

“It was a crucial moment for Caravaggio. From that commission, its success grew exponentially and its style began to influence a whole generation of artists,” explains Thomas Clement Salomon, one of the three commissioners of the exhibition Caravaggio 2025, Organized by the Barberini Palace, of which he is director, and the national galleries of ancient art.

The extraordinary retrospective, which will host until next July 6, 24 works of his, including two unpublished paintings, “portrait of maffeo barberini” and “Ecce Homo”, exhibited at the Prado Museum in Madrid and discovered only a few years ago, is in this sense a kind of tribute to the Holy Year.

“The jubilee is a special moment for Rome, and Caravaggio is an artist who has a very strong connection with the city,” explains Clement Salomon to ACI Press.

In fact, the exhibition also represents a symbolic return of the artist to the city that marked his destiny. “Although he was born in Milan, Rome was his true home. Here he achieved success, here he had his most important patrons and left an indelible mark here,” emphasizes the director.

The journey of the sample is articulated in four sections, covering its sole artistic life that includes about 15 years, since its arrival in Rome, around 1595, then passing through Naples, Sicily and Malta, until its return to Rome and death in Porto Ercole in 1610.

Conceived as part of the cultural events of the Jubileo de la Esperanza, the exhibition is also a unique opportunity to appreciate Caravaggio’s predilection for reality, which made it one of those preferred by the Catholic Church to publicize the Christian event.

“He was the first painter who painted the true, not beautiful. He rejected Renaissance idealism and chose to paint real models: friends, lovers, people of the people,” says the commissioner.

This extreme realism, however, was not exempt from controversy. On several occasions, his works were rejected by the patron or the Catholic Church itself for their crudeness. “When he painted the death of the Virgin for Santa Maria Della Scala, the Church refused to accept it because, it was said, he had used as a model a deceased prostitute,” recalls the director.

In any case, the religious genre takes on special intensity in his work. Just take a walk through the church of San Luigi of the French (San Luis de los French of Rome) and stop at the three canvases about San Mateo painted by the artist to understand the mystery of the Christian faith.

“He is an artist who, through his painting, allows us to enter the scene he represents. It is a bridge between sacred history and the spectator. His way of illuminating the evangelical episodes makes us live with intensity,” says the expert. An example of this is the work “San Francisco in Ecstasis”, the first example of the artist’s religious work in Rome.

The works created specifically for this Church and those of Santa Maria del Popolo (Santa Maria del Pueblo) are not part of the exhibition. “We have not asked for loans to the churches because it would be to denaturalize their function,” says Clement Salomon, who says that, in any case, there is a guide within the exhibition that tells the pilgrims the ideal itinerary to discover the deep spirituality of Caravaggio’s works.

His agitated personal life has contributed to the image of a tormented artist. Impulsive, Caravaggio was involved in numerous disputes, the most serious of them the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni in 1606, which forced him to flee from Rome. “After that episode, his painting changes. He becomes darker, more introspective, as if his own personal torment was reflected in his works,” explains the expert.

An example of this is “the capture of Christ”, assigned to the exhibition of Caravaggio 2025 by the National Gallery of Dublin. “It is an impressive painting. You feel as if you are inside the scene, seeing Judas betraying Jesus. Caravaggio even self -portrait in the work, illuminating the scene with a flashlight. It is a testimony of his narrative genius,” says Clement Salomon.

While Caravaggio spent most of his life in Rome, his works today are scattered throughout the world, from New York to London. In this sense, getting loans for this exhibition has meant a challenge. “Bringing a caravaggio is like achieving extradition,” jokes the director. “Each picture is worth hundreds of millions of euros, and they are the jewels of the collections that house them. Museums do not want to part with them even temporarily,” explains Clement Salomon.

Despite these difficulties, the exhibition has works from important institutions such as Metropolitan Museum of Art from New York, the Detroit Museum, the Museum of Kansas City and private collections that rarely allow access to their works. “It is a unique opportunity to see these paintings together and establish unpublished comparisons,” says the commissioner.

New discoveries and scientific debate around his work

Another objective of Caravaggio 2025 It is updating knowledge about the artist. “The dating of its paintings remains a topic of debate,” explains the director. “For example,” Ecce Homo “, which was believed to be painted in Rome, could have been carried out in its Neapolitan stage. The exhibition will allow us to analyze its style and technique in detail,” he adds.

This discovered in Madrid, was effectively painted in Naples (1606-1609), and in the exhibition it has been placed next to one of Caravaggio’s masterpieces, “Flagellation.”

Thus, another recent finding is the “portrait of maffeo barberini”, future Urban Pope VIII, which is exhibited to the public for the first time. “It is an indisputable masterpiece, but we have also included another portrait attributed to Caravaggio that continues to generate controversy among experts. We want the exhibition to serve as a forum for scientific discussion,” says the expert.

Besides, Caravaggio 2025 It has other exceptional works, such as “Saul’s conversion”, an earlier version of the famous painting of Santa Maria del Popolo, which comes from the Odescalchi collection. “It is a unique opportunity to see this masterpiece, which is not normally accessible to the public,” he concludes.