City tour with...Caravaggio
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One of the most studied, famous and loved painters, who definitely embodies the idea of a damned artist. He is very well known for his painting style (which is completely different from his contemporaries), for his adventurous life and his bad deeds; we have decided to revive him in a different way … Are you still wondering who we are talking about? Are you sure that the word LIGHT doesn’t mean anything to you? Right, it’s Caravaggio!! Would you like to discover him together with us?
Details
Lenght: 2 hours;
Start time: Every day at 9am or 2pm;
Itinerary: S. Maria del Popolo - San Luigi dei Francesi - Sant'Agostino;
Useful info: We recommend wearing comfortable shoes and clothes that are suitable to the weather. Since the tour includes the visit to some churches, visitors are requested to have their shoulders and knees covered, in compliance with the requirements in force in such places.
Insights
Michelangelo Merisi, born in Milan on 29 September 1571, was an Italian painter whose works influenced what would become the Baroque painting. He was famous for his unquiet and adventurous life; he died young in 1610. During his stay in Rome he attended for a while the workshop of Cavalier d’Arpino; he then knew Francesco Maria del Monte, who bought some of his paintings and gave him work for about three years. This also implied a change in Caravaggio’s style; he tended to prefer canvasses of a large format and more complex compositions.
At the turn of the 17th century Caravaggio was awarded the first commissions for important public works (Church of St. Louis of the French), that opened him the way for other important projects (Cerasi’s Chapel). Among his patrons was the Marquis Giustiniani, who kept him away from several legal problems.
During his stay in Rome he created many masterpieces of art but also committed several crimes. In 1606 he eventually committed murder: when he was sentenced to death by decapitation he left the city as fast as possible and from that moment on he started a long pilgrimage that took him to Naples, Malta and Sicily, then to Naples again, from where he decided to travel to Ladispoli, by the Orsini family. Having lost his luggage, he ended up in Porto Ercole, where he died.
