Caravaggio’s enigmatic Portrait of Maffeo Barberini, soon to be exhibited in Rome

Caravaggio’s enigmatic painting, the one about which we lost track for more than half a century, has never been presented either in a museum or as part of an exhibition dedicated to Michelangelo Merisi. THE Portrait of Maffeo Barberinirepresented in ecclesiastical attire a few years before he became cardinal and then pope under the name Urban VIII, seemed to have vanished into thin air. Today, however, it has resurfaced and will soon appear before the public eye, amid the baroque wonders of the Roman palace which bears the same surname as the 17th century pontiff.

While the immense canvas measuring 124 by 90 centimeters had left the premises in the 1930s, during the dismemberment of the Barberini collection, in the middle of the fascist period, it will be exhibited in an entirely dedicated room from November 22 and will thus offer a remarkable preview of the major exhibition on the cursed painter, scheduled for March 2025, on the occasion of the Jubilee. Besides…