Artist Caravaggio's faith shines at churches run by Pope Leo XIV's order and in new exhibit

The sanction of the Pilgrims' Madonna references not lone the 2 figures earlier Mary, but besides the information that connected this spot, the Augustinians person welcomed pilgrims en way to the adjacent Vatican since the extremity of the 13th century.

It was to commemorate a pilgrimage to Loreto — a shrine successful cardinal Italy wherever contented says Mary's location was miraculously airlifted — that the painting's well-connected patrons commissioned it, said Alessandro Zuccari. A subordinate of Italy's prestigious Accademia dei Lincei, helium wrote the section connected spirituality successful the Caravaggio grounds catalog.

A rebel artist

In fact, contempt his adventurous beingness and bluntly realistic art, Caravaggio worked for prestigious, pious patrons, including a cardinal, and is documented to person participated successful Catholic rites including Eucharistic adoration, Zuccari added.

That hardly fits the estimation for a transgressive "accursed artist" that Caravaggio — whose afloat sanction was Michelangelo Merisi — accrued implicit the centuries.

"We don't cognize what Caravaggio thought, due to the fact that helium near nary writings," Zuccari said. "I'm convinced, arsenic are different experts, that Caravaggio has his ain spirituality."

Out of astir 70 paintings by Caravaggio, much than 50 correspond saints oregon Biblical scenes — adjacent those destined for backstage collections, not churches, helium added.

Religious themes crossed Caravaggio's enactment astatine caller exhibit

Some of the best-known are among the 2 twelve paintings connected presumption astatine Palazzo Barberini, covering the clip from Caravaggio's accomplishment successful Rome astir 1595 to his decease successful 1610. They see works connected indebtedness from Dublin to Kansas City.