Game final. It is the final phase of the game of chess, characterized by the small number of surviving pieces on the chessboard. It is also the title of the last room of the event exhibition dedicated to Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio (1571-1610) at the national galleries of ancient art in Rome, inspiration for a reflection that looks straight to Sicily. In Messina, in particular.
“Caravaggio 2025”, edited by Francesca Cappelletti, Maria Cristina Terzaghi and Thomas Clement Salomon, brings together until 6 July (with prolonged evening hours) at Palazzo Barberini 24 masterpieces with the most prestigious museums in the world. Occasion to admire works rarely accessible such as the first version of the “conversion of Saul” of the Cerasi Chapel, from a private home, as well as the only Merisi wall painting in the Ludovisi casino, open extraordinary.
One of the most ambitious exhibitions ever dedicated to Caravaggio, the genius that polemically broken the assumptions of the Renaissance aesthetics, because unlike the previous ones, from that of Roberto Longhi at the Royal Palace of Milan in 1951 which marked its modern rediscovery, there are only works unanimously (or almost) recognized by criticism as in his hand. No Caravaggesco. No copies or derivatives. Caravaggio is unique and incomparable. But precisely for this reason an exhibition that “detached” the two works still sub -Judice would have been preferable: the “portrait of Maffeo Barberini”, for the first time granted on loan by private collector, and the “except homo” discovered in Madrid in 2021.
It is in the precious comparisons up close between works from one end of the globe to the other that the main value of the event lies. And if you get it for an exhibition immediately sold out makes it clear that the value of the sustainability of the visit was underestimated, the choice of Palazzo Barberini, with the largest “Caravaggist” collection in the world, as well as a symbol of the link between Caravaggio and its patrons, rewards the discomfort. Thus, next to the “St. Francis in meditation”, to the “San Giovanni Battista”, to the “Giuditta and Oloferne” and to the “Narcissus”, from the permanent collection of the galleries, “the” Bari “, the” musicians “and the” Santa Caterina d’Alessandria “, belonged to the family collections.
Another strong point the lighting. Almost always “wrong” in the exhibitions on Caravaggio, for the reflections that interfere with the correct reading of the pictorial surfaces, here instead allows a perfect vision of each work, designed for a visitor who stations in the center in front of it.
Otherwise, however, from what was communicated the four sections do not cover the entire artistic parable of Merisi, until the death in Porto Ercole in 1610. We must reach the end of the path to grasp the weak point of the operation. It starts with the Roman debut room in 1595 with the “clear” genre paintings, far from the mighty chiaroscuro of maturity. Among these, the “Mondofrutto”, to whom the alleged original announced on the “courier” by the scholar Gianni Papi would have approached, for the benefit, however, in our opinion, of the first. In the second room in addition to the unprecedented comparison between the two portraits of Maffeo Barberini, in a prominent position there is the “Santa Caterina d’Alessandria”, as is convenient for a canvas that represents a capital turning point in the production of Caravaggio for that “engaged the dark” (Bellori). In the next room with the works of religious subject performed between Rome and Naples from Merisi to the apex of success, the defiled position, in a corner, of the appealing “Ecce Homo” of Madrid, for the first time in Italy, is noted. A location that does not seem to speak in favor of the recent attribution, already falter for that pilate almost juxtaposed to Christ, venumed in the presence of the solid spatial construction of the “flagellation of Christ” of Capodimonte placed next to him. Thus we come to the fourth and last room dedicated to the daring final phase of the artist’s life, between Malta, Sicily and Naples again. Only three works: “Portrait of Knight of Malta”, “San Giovanni Battista”, “Martyrdom of Sant’Orsola”. We said, we said, the paintings of the Sicilian period. The “burial of Santa Lucia” of Syracuse, which also went to the Mart of Rovereto in 2020, an opportunity in which the ICR of Rome verified its stability of the conservative conditions, compatible with transport. The fact is that the FEC, who is the owner, did not have the hesitation to send the “flagellation” of Naples instead. The two masterpieces of the Fascina Regional Museum of Messina did not arrive: the “Resurrection of Lazzaro” and the “adoration of the shepherds”. At the time of Rome, masterpieces have come from the Met of New York, from the Royal Collection of Londa, from the National Gallery of Ireland. Not from Sicily, because they are among the 23 works of the region recognized in 2013 as in love. A rule desired by the then Crocetta government in a dispute with some US museums to close the taps of the easy loan. Or at least so he said. In reality, far from “armored loans”, the rule provides for a derogation that moves the evaluation of specialist issues from the technicians to the government junta. It has already happened. Therefore, well did the Councilor of Cultural Heritage, Francesco Scarpinato, to reverse the trend and not deprive, resorting to shortcuts, the Museum of Messina of its identity masterpieces, which alone are worth a visit.
The fact is that in Rome this “game final” made of its most stimulating legacy has ended up weakening King Caravaggio.