Italy buys rare Caravaggio portrait for 30 million euros

The acquisition deed, after more than a year of negotiations with the private owners, was signed today at the Ministry of Culture in the presence of the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, the general director of Museums, Massimo Osanna, the director of the National Galleries of Ancient Art of Rome, Thomas Clement Salomon, and the notary Luca Amato

“This is an extraordinary masterpiece by Caravaggio, a work of exceptional importance, attributed to the Master by Roberto Longhi, which is today offered to the full enjoyment of the public and the international scientific community, a few months after its first exhibition in a museum, which took place at Palazzo Barberini – declared Minister Giuli – This acquisition, together with the recent one, of the ‘Ecce Homo’ by Antonello da Messina, is part of a broader project to strengthen the national cultural heritage that the Ministry of Culture will continue to carry forward in the coming months, with the aim of making some masterpieces of art history otherwise destined for the private market accessible to scholars and enthusiasts. I would like to thank all the institutions, officials and technicians who worked with great competence and dedication so that a result of this importance could be achieved”.

The acquisition for the sum of 30 million euros represents one of the most significant investments ever supported by the Italian State for the purchase of a work of art and testifies to the Ministry of Culture’s commitment to strengthening public collections with works of absolute importance in the history of art. During the negotiation phases, thanks to an agreement with the owners, the work was exhibited to the public in the rooms of Palazzo Barberini for a few months starting from November 2024 and until the conclusion of the major “Caravaggio 2025” exhibition which welcomed over 450,000 visitors allowing the scientific community and the general public to appreciate it live. On that occasion, Italian and international critics unanimously confirmed the attribution to Caravaggio, underlining the exceptional importance of the painting.

‘The Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini’ depicts the future Pope Urban VIII (1568–1644) in his thirties, in the role of cleric of the Apostolic Chamber, at a crucial moment in his rise to power. The work was made known by Roberto Longhi in the famous article Il vero “Maffeo Barberini” del Caravaggio, published in “Paragone” in 1963, and has since then been widely recognized by critics as a work by Merisi. Longhi himself recognized the painting as one of the founding moments of modern portraiture, underlining how in it Caravaggio inaugurated a new psychological intensity and an ability to represent the living presence of the character without resorting to rhetorical elements.

In the limited corpus of works attributed with certainty to Caravaggio – around sixty-five paintings all over the world – portraits represent an extremely rare typology: only three are known and certain. “The Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini” therefore constitutes an exceptional testimony to the portraiture of the Lombard master and a fundamental piece for understanding the evolution of his pictorial language between the end of the 16th and the early years of the 17th century.

Caravaggio is today one of the most studied and admired artists in the world, but the number of certain works remains extremely limited and the appearance on the market of paintings attributed to him with certainty is a very rare event. For this reason, the entry of the Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini into Italian public collections represents a result of great importance both on a scientific and cultural policy level, ensuring the national heritage of a masterpiece destined to strengthen the opportunities for study, knowledge and enjoyment of Caravaggio’s work.

The acquisition, explains the MiC in a note, also takes on a particular symbolic value for the National Galleries of Ancient Art. At Palazzo Barberini the painting will in fact be able to dialogue with Caravaggio’s other paintings, with one of the most important Caravaggio collections in the world and, in particular, with another masterpiece by Merisi, the “Judith Beheading Holofernes” which was also the result of a purchase by the Italian State in 1971. That operation marked a decisive moment in the modern rediscovery of the painter and contributed to strengthening the presence of Caravaggio’s works in Italian public collections.

Over fifty years later, the entry of the “Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini” represents a new moment of particular importance in the Italian policies of expanding public heritage and strengthening the national museum system, offering new opportunities for valorising Merisi’s work. (by Paolo Martini)