As my taxi zooms through the late-night traffic of Rome, I wonder what to expect when I arrive at the Palazzo Barberini for the Caravaggio 2025 Exhibit. The year 2025 was declared a Jubilee Year in 2024 by Pope Francis, bringing millions of people to Rome as pilgrims, me among them. The church’s Jubilee Year was in part the motivation for this unprecedented exhibit of the work of Caravaggio, as it would allow visitors to Italy to experience an “exhibition [that] offers new, in-depth reflections on this master’s artistic and cultural revolution, exploring for the very first time and within such a broad context the innovation he injected into the artistic, religious and social landscape of the time,” according to the website of the Barberini Corsini National Gallery.
But who exactly was Caravaggio? A contemporary of Shakespeare and Cervantes, Caravaggio was an Italian painter who lived from 1571 to 1610. His birth name was Michelangelo Merisi, and he was from the town of Caravaggio in northern Italy, eventually taking the city’s name as his own. He is known as much for the story of his stormy life as his art. He was widely considered among the best painters of his time, a reputation that has remained until today.
As I discover at the exhibit, you don’t see Caravaggio paintings so much as fall into them, given their exquisite beauty. Moreover, many of his paintings depict religious imagery that brings the stories of biblical figures to life, and since his subject was often Christ, the religious dimensions of his work were part of my pilgrimage as well: Caravaggio’s Jesus has become my image of Christ — God and man, divinity and humanity fused in strength and sacrifice.
Bounding up the cobblestone pathway to the museum, I see that there is already a long line waiting to see the exhibit at 10:30 p.m. I have a ticket for an 11 p.m. viewing, which seemed late to me, but there are already many others waiting in line. As the exhibit was an unusually rare gathering of so many of Caravaggio’s pieces from around the world, tickets sold out quickly and the exhibit was eventually extended.
Dark and Light
I walk into the beautiful Barberini palace-turned-museum, and soon I am standing in front of my first real Caravaggio. The painting is titled “Narcissus.” It is clear to me why the curators have put the work so prominently in the exhibit: a young man peers into a pool of water and falls in love with himself, unable to look away. Likewise, we see ourselves in Caravaggio and cannot quite look away either, for his work is so beautiful it captures the viewer’s imagination and makes for a sort of aesthetic arrest: Caravaggio depicts the real world, but somehow more beautifully.
Caravaggio creates his work not only with oil paint but also with dark and light itself. Caravaggio was a master of chiaroscuro, the artistic technique of placing dark and light in contrast; darkness and light, good and evil, are the motifs in the life and work of Caravaggio. In fact, art historians have a special term for the extent to which he took chiaroscuro: tenebrism, in which nearly all the background of a painting falls into absolute darkness.
Darkness and light were at work in Caravaggio’s life as well. While he was still known as Michelangelo Merisi, the darkness that would haunt his life found him. His father and grandfather both died on the same day in 1577, throwing his family into poverty. His mother raised her five children alone. She died the same year Caravaggio would begin his apprenticeship. He was only 14, working under Simone Peterzano, who himself had been trained under Titian. Here we see an interesting theme in Caravaggio’s life: next to poverty and struggle, we also see access to privilege. His family had connections to powerful families like the Colonna, and he would use these connections frequently. Even his early paintings showed promise, and soon he moved to Rome, a major center for art. According to his biographer, Troy Thomas, Caravaggio was poor when he arrived in Rome, but not without connections.
The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
While the overwhelming number of paintings in the exhibition are religious in nature, some paintings show that Caravaggio knew “how the other half lived,” from these early years of struggle. One example that caught my attention was the painting “The Cardsharps.” One of his earlier works, it captures a young man being tricked by two older men who cheat him during a game of cards, conveying the pathos of innocence lost in a world of dishonest cynicism. In “The Fortune Teller,” a young woman reading the palm of a naive man slips off his ring. Caravaggio may have known the upper echelon of his society, but he also knew the cardsharps and more than a few dens of iniquity.
The cumulative effect of Caravaggio’s attention to detail reproduces something beyond photorealism. In places, the artist seems to create an almost three-dimensional reality. You feel as if you could touch a patch of pallid skin or the lushness of a piece of silk or satin. The halo on a saint seems to be a real piece of gold, but the saints also seem infinitely human.
One painting illustrates this, becoming a clue to the life and work of Caravaggio. In English, the work is titled, “Saint Catherine of Alexandria,” which was on loan from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and was the center of the marketing materials for this exhibit. It was painted sometime between 1598 to 1599. Even for the untutored 21st-century viewer, it is a striking image of the saint, who was a martyr. In a lifelike portrait, we see the images of her martyrdom, a broken wheel, a long sword in her hand, a martyr’s palm at her feet, symbolizing her eventual fate. Her long and flowing dress is dark blue and black, highlighted by golden highlights and a contrasting white blouse. But Caravaggio proves his artistic talent here, for as I looked more deeply into the painting, Caravaggio’s use of light and dark drew my eyes to the highlighted part of the painting, the saint’s head, neck and hand. She holds the instrument of her death, but the light, which comes from the viewer’s right, shows her expression with exquisite detail. Her eyes capture her pensive, quizzical glance as she anticipates her fate, a confidence mingled with wonder.
Beyond its artistic achievement, the painting hints at the range of Caravaggio’s life: It spanned the spectrum of his society. Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, Caravaggio’s first major patron, commissioned the painting of this saint. Yet St. Catherine of Alexandria, who died in the fourth century, is depicted in contemporary clothing, a common anachronistic technique of Caravaggio’s. But the plaque next to the painting gives an interesting piece of information: The model for the painting was a woman named Fillide Melandroni. She was a well-known courtesan of the time and a stunningly attractive woman. Caravaggio’s choice of model shows the various worlds with which he was comfortable.
Artist and “Bad Boy” of the Counter-Reformation
Caravaggio’s mastery of lighting and composition does more than draw one’s eye to the subject; they prompt a deeper reflection into what he is showing you. Caravaggio’s work might be said to anticipate the lighting of a stage or film. Yet, Caravaggio was clearly gifted by God with a prodigious skill that brought him the attention of the church hierarchy of his day, who sought to deploy him in the battles of the Counter-Reformation. As the Catholic Church attempted to push back against the Reformation’s sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”), it sought a painting style that was realistic, accessible and impactful. While Protestant churches stripped away art, the Catholic Church upped the ante with even more art and beauty in its churches. Even today, stepping into any Baroque church will give one the feeling of being lifted to heaven, a place Caravaggio could evoke with ease.
Yet, no discussion of Caravaggio would be complete without a balancing consideration of his proclivity for violence. Andrew Graham-Dixon’s biography of Caravaggio talks about his life in terms of the “sacred and profane.” Caravaggio scaled the heights of society, drawing the attention of cardinals and nobles, but was also given over to violent rages (once over a plate of artichokes) and rivalries with other artists of the time. The New York Times, in the headline of its piece describing the exhibit, called Caravaggio “the bad boy” of the Italian Baroque period. That is both an exaggeration and an anachronism, but as I have come to learn, not entirely untrue. Caravaggio was indeed embroiled in countless fights and vendettas. In fact, Caravaggio murdered Ranuccio Tomassoni on May 29, 1606, and had to flee Rome. (Their fight has been variously attributed to an altercation over a tennis game or a love triangle.) To me, Caravaggio seems more of a troubled soul rather than a Baroque version of a fame-addled rock star. His sins weighed heavily on him, and this is reflected in his work. He often puts his self-portrait in place of a villain in his later paintings: one of the soldiers arresting Christ or the head of Goliath in David’s hand.
An Artist on the Run
This propensity for violence drove Caravaggio through the Italian peninsula and surrounding islands, leaving beautiful pieces of work in his wake. Viewers can find his work in Naples, Sicily and Malta, among other places. Hence, his artwork traces a trail through early modern Italy. Therefore, he was also able to treat the same subjects more than once.
One such case is the conversion of St. Paul, which he painted twice. I see one version early on in this exhibit; it is known as either “The Conversion of Saint Paul” or “The Conversion of Saul.” Again, Caravaggio proves himself the master of not only the chiaroscuro, but also of creating the right dramatic moment. Caravaggio was a talented man, but he knew what it was to fall from grace and find himself blinded. The large canvas I am standing in front of is some nine and three-quarters feet high and six feet across. It depicts St. Paul’s conversion on the way to Damascus, one of Scripture’s most defining moments. The tale is told several times in Scripture, but none mention a horse. Caravaggio, always a thoughtful reader of the texts he sought to dramatize, adds something quite interesting here by including the horse.
Caravaggio, the master dramatist, knew that a fall from a horse would add visual drama to the scene; a man just falling on the ground would lack the proper gravitas. The contorted horse divides the painting, and the blinded Paul is left alone in the lower left-hand corner, a powerful foe of the early Christian church knocked off his steed and forcibly reoriented, blinded by the light. No viewer can walk away without thinking about opening one’s own self to conversion. The immense canvas captures Paul’s dramatic blinding and a chaotic attempt to bring him to his feet. Paul is stripped nearly nude. The overwhelming impression is of the characters pulling away from a jet-black background, swirling in the powerful force of God calling out to Saul away from his persecution of Jesus. Here conversion isn’t always beatific or heartwarming — it can be forceful and upsetting, a knocking of one off one’s own horse. St. Paul says he was the worst of sinners before his conversion, and Caravaggio captures the divine force necessary to knock the Pharisee Saul down and pick him up as St. Paul.
One of the paintings by Caravaggio that has fully influenced my image of Christ is on exhibit: his 1606 painting known as “Supper at Emmaus.” Christ is seated among a group of his disciples who are unaware of his true identity. He gestures to them, illustrating the Gospel truth over a meal of bread and wine. An unrecognized Jesus surprises us, just as he did those on the real road to Emmaus. Christ is centered and, while his gaze is turned down and away, we are drawn in. This is the Christ whose image Caravaggio has left in my mind: loving, strong, serious — and resurrected. The painting itself illustrates Caravaggio’s own journey: He had painted the same scene in 1601, in brighter and more vibrant colors and with a different cast of characters. This version I see, painted after the murder of Tomassoni, is muted, darker and perhaps illustrative of the guilt the artist felt.
With Peter, Paul and Matthew in Rome
Much of Caravaggio’s work was meant for churches, so I leave the museum in search of examples. I head to the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, St. Louis of the French. It was Caravaggio’s first major commission in Rome. When the doors of the church open, I head in with another set of art lovers. Here the Italian language is replaced with French everywhere, and the austerity of the museum setting has been replaced by a gorgeous Baroque church. At the front of the church, to the left of the altar, I find the Contarelli Chapel, dedicated to the life of St. Matthew.
Here there are three paintings of the saint’s life. The one to the far left shows his call, which Caravaggio depicts anachronistically with people dressed in modern clothing for his time. Jesus calls Matthew from his work as a tax collector. The next shows Matthew hard at work writing the Gospel, taking inspiration from the angel at his side. The last one depicts Matthew in his martyrdom, being killed at the altar while celebrating Mass. Caravaggio’s work here seems to anticipate the cinematic; they lend themselves easily to the practice of visio divina. This practice, a parallel to lectio divina, is the careful consideration of works of art. In a time and place where few could read texts from the Bible, the church employed its best artists to give its faithful images to read. Powerful and dramatic, the three paintings make me think: How do I heed Christ’s call in my life? What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What will I do for Christ?
My next stop is Maria del Popolo church to discover two more paintings: “The Death of Saint Peter” and “The Call of Saint Paul.” They are part of a triptych, the middle part of which is a painting by another artist. “The Call of Saint Paul” treats the same topic for the second time that day. What captures me now is the death of St. Peter, who was crucified upside down. I knew the reason why Peter asked to be crucified upside down: He felt he did not merit to die in the same way his Lord had. But seeing St. Peter’s death has a visceral impact: He really is dying, and not easily. Caravaggio does not show his audience a scene; he forces his viewers to experience an elderly man, beaten down, lashed and nailed to a cross, facing his end. But many pilgrims stand in awe. Indeed, this church is full of pilgrims, in a city full of pilgrims. I catch a mother and daughter in prayer.
Seeking Redemption
In 1610, Caravaggio secured a papal pardon for his crimes and headed back to Rome. He was briefly arrested when landing at Porto Ercole, and he died under mysterious circumstances, probably an unknown illness, soon after his release. Some of the final paintings would arrive in Rome after his death, hinting at how his work would outlast him in so many ways.
When I began this work, I was warned not to pass moral judgments about Caravaggio. And indeed, the moral shortcomings of the man Michelangelo Merisi seem dwarfed by the transcendence achieved by the artist Caravaggio. Yet, he was a deeply troubled man, his all-too-short life ending in a fever dream. But at the hour of his death, Caravaggio had been going back to Rome, grasping at that papal pardon. In this, he was not unlike the rest of us pilgrims in this Holy Year, for he was seeking the same goal: redemption. What happened to his soul is between him and God, but his artistic legacy still offers us an avenue for our own pilgrimages to Christ.
All photos courtesy of Richard Sasso