A Portrait Attributed to Caravaggio on Show for the First Time in Rome

It’s an event that has art historians agog: the exhibition in Rome of a portrait attributed to Caravaggio never before shown in a museum. A unique opportunity to admire and explore a crucial milestone in the artist’s career.

The Palazzo Barberini, home to Rome’s National Gallery of Ancient Art, has devoted an entire room to a portrait attributed to Caravaggio. This is totally fitting for the return to the palace of the model, Baroque Rome’s most outstanding pope: a patron of the arts, man of the Church, scholar, poet and collector. Better known as Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini (1568-1644) is portrayed here in the prime of life: an ambitious prelate in his thirties at the dawn of a brilliant career. Seated at an angle, he wears a dark green talar robe over a long, pleated white shirt. Against a shadowy neutral background, his face, framed by a biretta, and his hands, illuminated by a powerful light, emphasize his confident air and restless gaze. His left hand grasps a letter, while his right arm lies on the armrest, his forefinger pointing at an invisible person to whom he seems to be giving an order. Beside him lies a large scroll of parchment — possibly alluding to his appointment as Clerk to the Apostolic Camera in March 1598: a milestone in his cursus honorum within the Roman Curia that led to his cardinalship in 1606. This would establish a more accurate date for this portrait, seen by only handful of art historians since its discovery over 60 years ago. What baffles the scientific community today is not the name of the painter, for which there is a relative consensus, nor even the model’s identity, which seems to be generally accepted, but the exact period of its creation, which remains unclear. Observation and study could provide an answer to this mystery. “This is the Caravaggio painting everyone wanted to see,” says Thomas Clement Salomon, the new director of Rome’s National Gallery of Ancient Art. “We’re proud and thrilled to have brought off this feat, as it has never been loaned for an exhibition and has never before been seen in a museum: it’s the preview par excellence. As portraits by Caravaggio are extremely rare, the exhibition of one to the public and to experts is an extraordinary event.”

“This is the Caravaggio painting everyone wanted to see,” says Thomas Clement Salomon, the new director of Rome’s National Gallery of Ancient Art. “We’re proud and thrilled to have brought off this feat.”

Rediscovered in a Florentine Antique Shop

Art historians are delighted to get close to a painting previously only visible to many in a photograph. Roberto Longhi discovered the portrait in a Florentine antique dealer’s store, and published it in 1963 in his magazine Paragone. There was not the slightest doubt for the man who had staged the first major exhibition on the chiaroscuro genius a few years earlier. He firmly believed it was a work by Caravaggio, and a photograph would long be the only evidence of the painting’s existence. Having remained in the Barberini Collection for over three centuries, the painting was sold as part of the illustrious family’s estate in the 1930s. At that time, Michelangelo Merisi was not as famous as he is today, and the Italian State made no move to acquire it. In the early 1960s, the portrait was extensively restored before moving to the residence of a Florentine family. Since its discovery, Longhi’s attribution has been endorsed by most leading experts, including Federico Zeri, Mia Cinotti (as noted in her 1983 monograph on the artist), Francesca Cappelletti, Gianni Papi, Maria Cristina Terzaghi, Rossella Vodret, Alessandro Zuccari and Keith Christiansen. Doubts remained, however, as to the man depicted: it might have been another member of the Barberini family, or perhaps the Giustiniani family, also clients of the master. But there is evidence supporting the theory that the person who commissioned it was the future Urban VIII. His Sienese physician and biographer Giulio Mancini, a cultivated collector who had worked with the painter, reported that the latter “made portraits for Barbarino.” This information was repeated in 1672 by historian and theorist Giovanni Pietro Bellori, who specifically mentions two works Caravaggio created for the then cardinal: “In addition to the portrait, he painted The Sacrifice of Issac” (now in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery). “The exhibition of this painting is a real event,” says Caravaggio specialist Gianni Papi. It fills a significant gap in Michelangelo Merisi’s activity during his period in Rome from 1592 to 1606. We know that portraiture was important for him, and that he received commissions from figures in the Curia and friends. But almost all his works, which are cited in numerous sources and inventories, have been lost or destroyed.

“The style is very close to the St Catherine of Alexandria Caravaggio painted in around 1598, now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid,” says the art historian.

“In this portrait of Maffeo Barberini, we can clearly recognize Caravaggio’s style and technique for separating the sclera from the iris in the eye, his restrained palette, his naturalistic clarity and the tension that imbues this scene, which seems to have been taken from life. The gesture and gaze are eloquent: very different from traditional portraits of prelates. I think this work dates from the very early 17^th century.” Gianni Papi bases his theory on four payments Caravaggio received between 1603 and 1604 for a painting with an unspecified subject commissioned several years earlier by Maffeo Barberini. During this period, Pope Clement VIII sent the prelate as papal nuncio to the court of Henri IV in Paris. The future pontiff asked Merisi to take part in this delicate diplomatic trip, which proved decisive for his career. Maria Cristina Terzaghi, for her part, opts for the very end of the 16^th century: “The style is very close to the St Catherine of Alexandria Caravaggio painted in around 1598, now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid,” says the art historian. This was precisely the time when he began, as Bellori puts it, to “ingagliardire gli oscuri”, i.e. to make use of the powerful contrasts of light and shadow that became his stylistic trademark. The physical resemblance to Maffeo Barberini may not be obvious, but Giulio Mancini tells us that this was not important for Caravaggio. “As we can see here, psychological character takes precedence. This portrait truly speaks to us. Those painted by Merisi are so rare that this one will help to shed light on this little-known area of his work, and will be an essential point of comparison for future attributions.” This painting is coming “home”, says the Palazzo Barberini, which would now like it to stay there. “For the moment, its acquisition by the State is a dream we’re trying to make come true,” says Thomas Clement Salomon. It could then join the three works by Caravaggio already hanging in the National Gallery of Ancient Art: St Francis in Meditation, Narcissus and Judith and Holofernes. In any event, it will obviously not be able to leave the country, given the restrictive legislation governing the export of cultural goods. But it will cost several tens of millions of euros to bring it into the public collections. For example, Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo, which reappeared at an auction in Madrid in 2021, fetched €36 M. It will join the portrait of Maffeo Barberini for a major exhibition dedicated to the painter this March at the Palazzo Barberini.

Worth Seeing
“Caravaggio. The portrait unveiled”
National Gallery of Ancient Art
Palazzo Barberini, Rome
Until February 23, 2025
barberinicorsini.org