Alone with Caravaggio

Alone with Caravaggio

Have you ever visited the church of saint Augustine in Rome to see the Madonna dei Pellegrini’ ? Come to Rome,  and explore one of the most important painters  of the Baroque period. The mysterious moments of his life,  the people he worked for, after he moved to Rome from Milan: Monsiniors, Cardinals, Bankers and nobles. Popes and aristocrats… this man was called Michelangelo Merisi  from Caravaggio.

Discover where Caravaggio used to eat his artichokes, in one of the tattorias in the heart Of the city, or Via  della Pallacorda where he killed Ranuccio Tomasini.  He them had to leave Rome, and went on  to Malta where he needed a title to get his freedom from a death sentence that the Pope declared on him.  Each different city he moved to,  he painted astounding paintings. He eventually became a Knight of Malta, with diplomatic immunity… From the Penalty of death. But soon a new ghost:  another fight with a superior Knight of Malta. He and had to flee Malta from jail, to Sicily and then went back to Naples.  The most famous painter of the age.  From there, a final and tragic journey began,  in a boat with all his paintings to win the to pope Borghese’s pardon for his murder,  for his freedom!  He never made it to Rome. He died  in Porto Ercole at the age 40, 1610.

Learn about Lena, Caravaggio’s model.  The one that Caravaggio was in love with,  but not the only one.  She was promised to a lawyer who many times asked the mother’s permission to marry Lena. Somehow  she didn’t trust the lawyer,  so one day he offended Lena by calling her a ‘whore that sleeps with the painter Caravaggio’…  she was often being painted by him at  his studio.  Caravaggio went after the layer and stabbed him in the back.  We have the police file.  The lawyer sued Caravaggio.

. He was the artist of realistic paintings of naturalism,  of depth of shadows and chiaroscuro,  of the vibrant bloom of vivid life, and the violence of disease and abject misery. He probably saw the in campo dei fiori all the heretics that  burned in the’Campo del Fiore’ like Giordano Bruno and Beatrice Cenci,  an aristocratic woman that was beheaded by the church during the inquisition. Caravaggio saw all this violence in the streets of Rome and he was painting what he saw: dramatic moments of poor people,  sick people,  scene of saints depicted with violence and dirty feet .

He worked for one of the most important Popes: Mafeo Barberini (Urban VIII)  ‘Alone with Caravaggio’ we will explore 17 paintings that make Michelangelo Merisi one of the most important painters in the history of art.

Sant Agostino church Madonna dei Pellegrini

San Luigi dei francesi  (the calling of Saint Mathew trilogy)

Santa Maria del popolo,  the crucifixion of Peter…

Borghese gallery.

Doria phamphili

Palazzo Ludovisi.

Vatican Museum deposition of Christ

Capitoline Museum

If your destination is Caravaggio,  Rome is the the perfect place to see most of his experience that he had from 1594-1605.