Dramas of Light and Dark at Palazzo Barberini

Overview

Genius. Murderer. Visionary. Step into the turbulent world of Caravaggio on an exclusive small-group tour of Rome’s most unmissable exhibition. Join our expert art historian for a deep dive into 24 staggering masterpieces, from violent religious visions to vivid portrayals of Rome’s gritty underworld. With never-before-seen paintings and once-in-a-lifetime loans, this unmissable exhibition at Palazzo Barberini brings you face-to-face with a true master of light, shadow, and drama. Caravaggio’s art changed the game - and this show will too. This is history in the making. Spaces are limited, so book now!

Description

 

Caravaggio as You’ve Never Seen Him Before

 

The Caravaggio 2025 exhibition at Palazzo Barberini is an unmissable cultural event, bringing together an extraordinary collection of the artist’s greatest works from across the globe. With 24 of his original paintings on display, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness the full scope of Caravaggio’s brilliance under one roof - including rarely loaned pieces like The Cardsharps and The Taking of Christ as well as newly rediscovered treasures such as Ecce Homo and Portrait of Maffeo Barberini.  

Set against the opulent backdrop of Rome’s most stunning Baroque palace (and one-time home of Caravaggio’s most important patron), this exhibition will take us on a remarkable journey through Caravaggio’s glittering but turbulent career from his early days in the Eternal City to his tragic demise in 1610. Led by an expert art historian, our small-group tour will bring these masterpieces to life, delving into Caravaggio’s revolutionary use of light, shadow, and raw emotion that forever changed the course of art history.  

 

Caravaggio’s Rome: A City of Rogues and Rivals

 

At the dawn of the 1600s, Rome was a city of stark contrasts - grandeur and decay, piety and corruption, nobility and vice lived side by side. Caravaggio, a restless young painter with everything to prove, threw himself headfirst into its turbulent streets. His early works capture the grit and energy of everyday life, drawn from the taverns and gambling dens where he roamed in search of inspiration.  All rendered with a naturalism that had rarely been seen before - or since. 

In The Fortune Teller, a wily gypsy slyly removes a young man’s ring while looking him straight in the eye. The hapless dupe in The Cardsharps (loaned from the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas), meanwhile, is easily swindled by a couple of rogues on the hunt for their next mark. Caravaggio’s genius? Making us complicit in the con, bewitched by the magic of his brushstrokes. 

With the guidance of our expert storyteller, you’ll discover how Caravaggio’s tough early years in Rome, when he was often forced to work for pennies and lived on his wits, shaped his revolutionary style and soon made him the darling of the city’s art-loving elites.   

 

Divine Visions  in the Darkness

 

As Caravaggio’s reputation soared, so too did the ambition of his paintings. No longer just chronicling the streets, he turned his attention to religious subjects - transforming them into dramatic tableaux that had no precedent in the story of art. His altarpieces turned biblical history into visceral, cinematic experiences lived out by real people, where divine encounters were steeped in shadow and suffering.  

In one of the show’s absolute highlights, The Taking of Christ (on loan from Dublin), Judas’ betrayal is reimagined as a shadowy nighttime ambush, lit only by a single flickering lantern. Elsewhere, Judith Beheading Holofernes freezes a moment of shocking brutality, the biblical heroine’s blade slicing through her victim’s neck in a spray of crimson that must have recalled any number of contemporary executions in the blood-thirsty Rome of 1600.

 

Artist on the Run

 

Caravaggio’s art was inseparable from his own tumultuous life - forced to go on the run after killing a rival in a botched duel, his later works reflect his own fears, guilt, and spiritual reckoning. But even as a fugitive with a price on his head, Caravaggio remained Italy’s most famous artist, leaving a trail of masterpieces as he sought to stay one step ahead of the law across Naples, Sicily and Malta. 

The Flagellation of Christ (on loan from Naples’ Capodimonte Museum) presents a tormented Christ, travesty of an ancient ideal of beauty, writhing under the weight of his oppressors, while the furious, almost abstract Martyrdom of St. Ursula captures the saint’s final moments as an arrow pierces her chest.  The truly shocking David with the Head of Goliath, meanwhile, is a desperate plea for forgiveness rendered in paint. 

Join us as we decode Caravaggio’s intense, deeply personal vision, revealing how his masterpieces blurred the lines between faith, violence, and the human condition.  

 

 Revolutionizing the Sacred: Caravaggio’s Human Touch  

 

Caravaggio’s genius wasn’t just about blood and shadows - he also transformed the way religious stories were told. Rather than presenting saints as remote, otherworldly figures, he painted them as real people - with all the material flaws, emotions, and complex psychological demons that entailed.  

Our small-group tour, led by an expert art historian, will explore how his works brought biblical narratives down to earth. In the rarely seen first version of the Conversion of Saul, originally intended for the Cerasi chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo but now in the private Odescalchi collection, the moment of the saint’s divine revelation is not a grand spectacle but a sudden collapse into blindness. In Saint Francis in Ecstasy, meanwhile, the mystical experience is almost imperceptible - a quiet, flickering presence of the divine moving in the dim light.  

The beautifully intimate Martha and Mary Magdalene, on loan from Detroit, relocates religious transformation to a quiet conversation between two sisters. Two amazing portrayals of John the Baptist, meanwhile, picture the saint not as an idealized prophet but instead as a young, brooding Roman boy fresh from the streets.  

With each brushstroke, Caravaggio erased the barrier between the sacred and the ordinary, a radical shift that helped define the new spirituality of the Baroque era.  

 

Lost and Found: The Rediscovery of a Master  

 

Even Caravaggio’s greatest works were not always recognized as such. In the centuries after his death, his paintings fell into obscurity - many were misattributed, neglected, or lost to private collections. This exhibition reunites long-separated masterpieces, returning many of them to the city where they were created for the first time in decades.

Among the most thrilling rediscoveries is Ecce Homo, identified just a few years ago in a private collection in Madrid. The Portrait of Maffeo Barberini meanwhile is on public display for the first time ever, and promises to revolutionise our understanding of Caravaggio’s skills as a portraitist.  

With the help of our expert guide, you’ll learn how Caravaggio’s legacy was slowly pieced back together and gain a new insight into the genius of one of history’s greatest painters. 

 

Witness the Genius of Caravaggio in a Small Group

 

Seeing a Caravaggio in person is special enough - but seeing 24 of them in one place, guided by an expert storyteller, is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Our intimate, small-group tour ensures that you get a deeper, more personal connection to the art of Rome’s great Baroque master - alongside the chance to have all your burning questions answered by a qualified art historian as you get up close and personal with some of the finest masterpieces ever painted. 

Whether you’re a lifelong Caravaggio admirer or discovering his work for the first time, this is a unique opportunity to experience the full scope of his revolutionary vision in a way that’s both engaging and unforgettable. Along the way, our expert guide will help you uncover the details, symbolism, and hidden stories woven into each masterpiece. 

This is the biggest Caravaggio event of our time - don’t miss it!