Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic It is Easter week, Jubilee year, and all-out Caravaggio season in Rome. More than half of the artist\u2019s total surviving works are currently and exceptionally in the city that formed and loved him. In Palazzo Barberini\u2019s magnificent monograph exhibition Caravaggio 2025, two dozen paintings tell the deeply moving story of his brief, revolutionary, fast-changing oeuvre; they include rare loans, unprecedentedly uniting groups of pictures dispersed across continents, and works entirely new to Caravaggio shows.\u00a0A further 15 paintings allow a Caravaggio trail, which visitors can devise as they wish, stretching from early marvels at the Galleria Borghese and Doria Pamphilj \u2014 the luscious tease \u201cBoy with a Basket of Fruit\u201d, the enchanting, refined \u201cRest on the Flight into Egypt\u201d, where Joseph holds up a score for the violinist-angel serenading the Holy Family \u2014 to works in churches and basilicas and, most monumental of all,\u00a0the Vatican\u2019s \u201cEntombment of Christ\u201d, the heavy dead body seemingly being lowered into our space by bowed, bent mourners visibly struggling with its weight. Opened exceptionally during the exhibition is the Casino Boncompagni Ludovisi, showing Caravaggio\u2019s only ceiling painting, \u201cJupiter, Neptune and Pluto\u201d.Even Caravaggio devotees will make discoveries at the Barberini, beginning with charismatic, suave \u201cMaffeo Barberini\u201d (1598) in copper-green cassock,\u00a0dash of reflective white lead on his eyes giving his gaze a dazzling intensity as he extends his arm towards us with a sudden impatient gesture, conversing across the centuries. The individualism and ambition of two young arrivals striking out in Rome \u2014 Caravaggio, born in Milan, was then 27; the Florentine Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII, just 30 \u2014 shines from this boldly intimate portrait, never shown publicly until Palazzo Barberini displayed it last autumn to herald this exhibition.Another newcomer, the controversial \u201cEcce Homo\u201d \u2014 Pilate leaning discomfortingly across a balcony into our space, trying to read the crowd; an open-mouthed torturer in the shadows \u2014 appeared unattributed in a 2021 Madrid auction catalogue, estimate \u20ac1,500. Rapidly accepted as an autograph work, it reportedly sold for \u20ac36mn and was loaned in 2024 to the Prado; this is its inaugural display in a Caravaggio show, to be judged alongside known masterpieces.Mostly chronologically arranged, the Barberini exhibition opens with the blaze of Caravaggio\u2019s early challenge to the Roman Renaissance: the cacophonous altarpiece \u201cThe Conversion of Saul\u201d (1600-01), commissioned then rejected by lawyer Tiberio Cerasi. The extreme physical rendering of Jesus, plunging forcefully into natural reality, towards Saul in a chaos of tangled limbs, discarded clothes, helmets, horse\u2019s swishing tail and rearing head, was unthinkably daring in 1600: Caravaggio had brought the divine into our earthly world.In the Cerasi chapel at Santa Maria del Popolo is \u201cConversion on the Way to Damascus\u201d, the reject\u2019s stupendous successor, which was accepted: Saul, flat on the ground, foreshortened from the head, arms outstretched in astonishment, dwarfed by the haunch of his enormous skewbald horse. In 1958, poet Thom Gunn wrote about waiting for the light in this dim chapel, watching \u201cthe large gesture of solitary man\/Resisting, by embracing, nothingness\u201d. One reason for Caravaggio\u2019s contemporary appeal is that doubters as well as believers relate to his religious paintings.With such works, Caravaggio smashed high Renaissance distinctions between idealised artifice and everyday life. Classical inspiration remained \u2014 at the Barberini, the figure of the sulkily withdrawn adolescent \u201cSaint John the Baptist\u201d (1604-06) quotes the antique statue\u00a0the \u201cDying Gaul\u201d, although the rough sunburned hands and neck are those of a labourer \u2014 but Caravaggio also took models from Rome\u2019s streets. All his characters convince as flesh and blood beings, in an art of mystic realism that gave biblical texts visual immediacy and infused every canvas, secular and sacred, with eternal dramas of fate, innocence and violence, hope and despair.\u00a0It\u2019s there already in the feverish worldly paintings made for Caravaggio\u2019s first patron Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte in 1596-97, hung at the Barberini entrance with \u201cSaul\u201d. Each stars Caravaggio\u2019s favourite companion, the blushing boy with pouting painted lips nicknamed Cecco de Caravaggio, and undercuts pleasure with distrust. The lovely na\u00eff is cheated in \u201cThe Fortune Teller\u201d \u2014 the gypsy surreptitiously removes his ring \u2014 and in the game of chance and deceit \u201cThe Cardsharps\u201d. In the Metropolitan Museum\u2019s voluptuous \u201cThe Musicians\u201d, where Cupid is probably posed by Cecco, a lutist strums to a madrigal setting of Jacopo Sannazaro\u2019s sonnet about youthful hubris \u2014 \u201cIcarus fell here, these waves do know it\u201d.Opposite, Cecco reappears, hardly changed, as the angel in the glistening nocturne \u201cSaint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy\u201d, Caravaggio\u2019s first religious painting, also commissioned by del Monte, who is depicted as his saint namesake, swooning dreamily into the boy\u2019s arms \u2014 as sensually yearning as \u201cThe Musicians\u201d.A joy at the Barberini is the strong early work, redressing recent exhibitions\u2019 emphasis on late Caravaggio. A star gathering are the paintings 1598-1600, from Madrid, Detroit and Rome, modelled by Sienese courtesan Fillide Melandroni. Her assertive character, delicate yet determined features, wide eyes and high cheekbones, and exquisite fashions, lend sacred narrative the personal charge and glamour of portraits.Majestic in lapis lazuli blue and gold in \u201cSaint Catherine of Alexandria\u201d, she strokes the sword of martyrdom like a tender lover. In \u201cMartha and Mary Magdalene\u201d, her plainly dressed, earnest sister radiates a divine light, falling on the Magdalene in rich purple and crimson; Melandroni\u2019s expression compellingly blends pride, resistance, regret, dawning faith.Then, almost stunned at her own power, Melandroni is a resolute \u201cJudith Beheading Holofernes\u201d, her beauty contrasted with her grizzled old servant and the Assyrian general, screaming at the moment between life and death.In this pivotal painting, Caravaggio\u2019s youthful luminosity develops into the mature chiaroscuro theatricality with which he spotlit, from a haunted darkness, acute instants of moral choice or recognition, physical agony or terror.They unfold from 1603-10, growing more sombre, more compacted, after 1606, when he was on the run for murder:\u00a0Judas kiss, John\u2019s flight, Jesus\u2019s quiescence, Caravaggio himself an eager onlooker, in \u201cThe Taking of Christ\u201d; Milan\u2019s pared-down \u201cSupper at Emmaus\u201d with its meagre still life, intent apostles and uncomprehending inquisitive innkeeper; the decapitated head, another self-portrait, still howling, in \u201cDavid with the Head of Goliath\u201d; finally the arrow piercing the breast so quickly that victim and aggressor look almost bemused in \u201cThe Martyrdom of Saint Ursula\u201d.Beyond the show, wandering from church to church, you hardly need a map \u2014 crowds swarming at the entrances signal the great Caravaggio altarpieces still in their original sites. At San Luigi dei Francesi is the Saint Matthew cycle, beginning with the tax collector singled out to be an apostle as he sits in a busy inn; Pope Francis remembers visiting these paintings frequently as a young cleric. At the Basilica di Sant\u2019Agostino, two euros in a coin slot illuminate the \u201cPilgrim\u2019s Madonna\u201d, infant and mother huddled in a doorway, worshipped by a couple of ragged passers-by with filthy clothes and bare feet, inevitably recalling the homeless encountered on Rome\u2019s streets today. The city is shrine to many great, timeless artists, but none catch the breath of life around us as Caravaggio does.To July 6, caravaggio2025.barberinicorsini.orgFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic It is Easter week, Jubilee year, and all-out Caravaggio season in Rome. More than half of the artist\u2019s total surviving works are currently and exceptionally in the city that formed and loved him. In Palazzo Barberini\u2019s magnificent monograph exhibition Caravaggio 2025, two dozen paintings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":282181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-282180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282182,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282180\/revisions\/282182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}