Portrait of Maffeo Barberini by Michelangelo da Caravaggio
The Italian government has purchased an early Caravaggio portrait that previously attracted blockbuster crowds in Rome.
From March to July 2025, Portrait of Maffeo Barberini by Michelangelo da Caravaggio was on display for the first time since it was positively attributed to the artist over sixty years ago. The portrait was the centerpiece of an exhibition at the subject’s former residence, Rome’s Palazzo Barberini, which is now home to the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica. The painting became such an attraction partly because of its rarity as a Caravaggio portrait. Of the sixty-five Caravaggio paintings still surviving, only three are portraits. The artist was primarily known for religious scenes, becoming one of the great painters of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s efforts to combat what it saw as the rising Protestant heresy.
While much of the Counterreformation took the form of ecumenical councils and wars of religion, art was often used by the Church to influence laypeople. Church figures patronized the great artists of the time to create religious scenes that would resonate with the common people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This resulted in the theatricality and intensity of Baroque art. However, Caravaggio created the Barberini portrait only a few years after first arriving in Rome. He was in the early stages of success, making his mark by combining his skill for realist painting with the drama and tenebrism for which he later became famous.
Likewise, Maffeo Barberini was in the early stages of a successful career in the Church. When Caravaggio painted his portrait, he had earned a law degree in Pisa and was only a few years away from being named the pope’s ambassador to France. In due time, he would be named a cardinal and later ascend to the papacy in 1623 as Urban VIII. He was a patron of the arts, commissioning and purchasing works by Gianlorenzo Bernini, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain. However, he also used his leadership of the Church to empower and enrich his family, giving his brother and two nephews the rank of cardinal. Barberini also pushed for the astronomer Galileo to be tried for heresy.
The Palazzo Barberini’s Caravaggio 2025 exhibition was the largest survey of the artist’s work since the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Age of Caravaggio in 1985. The Barberini show featured twenty-four of the Baroque master’s paintings, and was considered a blockbuster success. After three months, it had attracted 400,000 visitors, prompting organizers to extend the show by two weeks. The exhibition also included Ecce Homo and The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, one of the artist’s final paintings. After the exhibition’s success, the Italian government has decided to purchase the painting for €30 million, or about $34.7 million. It is one of the largest sums ever paid by the state for a work of art. The purchase is part of the Italian culture ministry’s broader plan to prevent works of importance from lingering in private collections. According to culture minister Alessandro Giuli, this policy will both strengthen Italy’s sense of cultural heritage and ensure that great works of art are more readily available to scholars.