In Rome you can be ecstatic at Michelangelo Merisi's paintings, 'Caravaggio. Our goal is to show you the man who painted them — a genius, a troublemaker, and a murderer, hunted on these same streets four centuries ago.
The journey begins in Piazza del Popolo, inside the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo. In the Cerasi Chapel, two of his most dramatic canvases face each other: The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, painted with the raw and theatrical light that made Caravaggio famous — and dangerous.
From here on out the story becomes dark. In Via della Pallacorda, on the night between May 28 and 29, 1606, Caravaggio killed Ranuccio Tomassoni in a brawl over a game of pallacorda, one of the first forms of tennis – the crime that ended his life in Rome and forced him to flee south as a wanted man. A few steps away, in the Alley of Divine Love, stood the house where he lived his most productive years and where, according to legend, he found inspiration for the Supper at Emmaus and for that use of light in works that, probably, few others will be able to use with this skill.
In the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, in the Contarelli Chapel, you'll find yourself in front of three canvases that made him famous: The Calling of Saint Matthew, Saint Matthew and the Angel, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew — his first major public commission, still one of the most visited corners of Caravaggio's Rome.
Just around the corner, inside the Basilica of Sant'Agostino, the Madonna dei Pellegrini hides a scandal all its own: the Madonna's face belonged to Maddalena Antognetti, known as "Lena," a courtesan whose presence on the altar of a church shocked 17th-century Rome. Outside, Palazzo Madama, now the seat of the Italian Senate, was once the residence of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, the patron who plucked Caravaggio from obscurity and launched him to Rome's largest commissions.
But the tour itself doesn't end there. It ends as Caravaggio himself might have wished: at the table. In one of the local restaurants, perhaps little known, where we recreate a real episode from 1604, when Caravaggio threw a plate of artichokes in the face of a waiter for a discussion about how they had been cooked. You'll taste Roman or Jewish-style artichokes yourself and decide which side to take — a warm human final chapter of a walk through genius, jealousy, and murder in the streets of Rome.
