Caravaggio in Rome

Michelangelo Merisi, generally known as Caravaggio after the town in which he was born, left an awful lot of paintings scattered about this town. Now we’re going to look at them all. All of them.  Every last one of ‘em. It’s going to be great!

Admittedly, this is an awful lot of Caravaggio to see in one day, and if you want to see it all, you’re going to have to do some serious moving.  But we at Enjoy Rome Magazine enjoy a great child-like faith in you, Gentle Reader, and we know you can do it.  Wake up early, have a cappucino, have another cappucino, you’re going to need both of ‘em.

8:45am. Get yourself in line for the Vatican Museums; if you’re there exactly when the museum opens, you’ll be able to rush right up to Room XII of the Pinacoteca and see the Deposition of Christ  here. Never mind that Sistine Chapel thing. See that some other time. We’re here to see their Caravaggio. That accomplished, head south past San Pietro to the Galleria Corsini.

10:30am Halfway to Trastevere is the Galleria Corsini, which houses the St. John the Baptist in the Desert (painting 6 here) in Room III.  Very good.  Head back across the river; it’s time to visit the Capitoline Museums.

Noon. In the Pinacoteca of the Capitoline Museums, located upstairs in Palazzo Nuovo, are housed two Caravaggios. Good Luck depicts a Gypsy reading the palm of a young man, and, in the process, stealing his ring.  The exuberant young St. John the Baptist provides a contrast to the version in the Galleria Corsini.

1:00pm. Head up Via del Corso to the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, where there are three Caravaggios.  The Rest on the Flight into Egypt shows an angel playing music (Noël Baulduin’s 1519 Quam pulchra es et quam decora, to be exact) to the Holy Family. Very similar to the Mary in the Rest on the Flight into Egypt is the Maddalena, posed in the same way.  And finally, there’s a copy by Caravaggio of the St. John the Baptist in the Capitoline.

3:30pm. Have some lunch before we visit some churches.  First up is San Luigi dei Francesi, the French national church; the Contarelli chapel contains two paintings of St. Matthew (the Vocation of St. Matthew and the Martyrdom of St. Matthew), and the altarpiece is St. Matthew and the Angel.

4:00pm. A few blocks north can be found Sant’Agostino. In the first chapel on the left is the Madonna dei Pellegrini, in which the Madonna welcomes two dirty pilgrims.

4:30pmHike up the Via della Scrofa to Santa Maria del Popolo, which contains the Calling of St. Paul and the Crucifiction of St. Peter.

5:00pm. Head across the Villa Borghese to the Galleria Borghese; be sure to get there by 5pm, the last entrance.  The pinacoteca upstairs has six paintings by Caravaggio: the Young Boy with the Basket of Fruit, the Sick Bacchus, the Madonna dei Palafrenieri, St. Jerome, David with the Head of Goliath, and a young San Giovannino, another reinterpretation of John the Baptist.

6:00pm. Exit the Villa Borghese onto Via Vittorio Veneto; almost at the Piazza Barberini is the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione, known for its Capuchin Crypt.  Never mind the dead monks, there’s a painting of St. Francis in the monastery attached to the church.

6:30pm. Cross Piazza Barberini to the Palazzo Barberini, which holds the astonishing Decapitation of Holofernes and the Narcissus. Relax: the tour’s done. You made it, slugger. We knew you could.

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