Porto Ercole, 17 July 1610

Last night was the 400th anniversary of the death of Michaelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio in Porto Ercole. He apparently was murdered as a revenge for the murder of another man who belonged to a gang. Caravaggio was on his way back to Rome from Sicily and Naples where he had fled to receive a pardon from the Pope. His offense had occured in Rome which at the time was a Papal State.

Caravaggio was known as a dissolute man but also a very great artist, Rome has witnessed this year one great exhibit at the Scuderie of the Quirinale Palace. His style was to present in painting scenes of the bible using as his models ordinary street people. Per example his model for the Madonna was often a common prostitute or he would use other street people to portray Saints, angels or biblical figures. Giving a feeling of truth and a realism not seen from other artists before him or even from his contemporaries.

So open from 9pm to 9am where four places in Rome displaying works by Caravaggio, the church of St-Louis of the French, the Basilica of Santo Agostino, the Church of Santa Maria Del Popolo, and the Galleria Borghese at Villa Borghese. We visited the first two churches fairly quickly despite the crowds, this was an all night free event. Then we went to Villa Borghese, the crowds where enormous, we waited in the beautiful park of the Villa well over 2 hours to enter. Villa Borghese is probably one of the most famous museums of Rome and the permanent collection is renowned around the world. I had not yet visited this museum in my 3 years in Rome, but I would say that if this if the only museum you see in Rome, that would be fine. When we entered finally around 3:00 am, I was struck by the wealth of the art on display, it is difficult to explain, there is so much to look at all at once. From the intricate colored marble floors, to the mosaics from imperial villas, to the numerous marble statues and the painted frescoed walls and ceilings not to mention the paintings on display.



Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V Borghese, had the palace built 1613-1615 simply to display all the works of art he had collected. Borghese used the immense wealth that he acquired as Cardinal Nephew to assemble one of the largest and most impressive art collections in Europe. In the classic pattern of papal nepotism, Cardinal Borghese wielded enormous power as the Pope's secretary and effective head of the Vatican government. On his own and the Pope's behalf he amassed an enormous fortune through papal fees and taxes, and acquired vast land holdings for the Borghese family.



Borghese also greatly admired Caravaggio's naturalistic and psychologically complex later religious paintings, such as the brooding (but still sensual) youthful Saint John the Baptist (1605/6), which the collector acquired from the artist's estate shortly after his death, and the intense David with the Head of Goliath (1609/10), which represents the Biblical hero extending outwards a decapitated head with the features of the artist
Borghese appropriated Caravaggio's Madonna and Child with St. Anne, a large altarpiece commissioned in 1605 for a chapel in the Basilica of Saint Peter's, but rejected by the College of Cardinals because of its earthly realism.

We can only be thankful to such men as Cardinal Scipione Borghese for their good taste which have come to us in the masterpieces we could admire last night.