ROME (AP) — Italy has purchased a rare portrait by Baroque painter Caravaggio for 30 million euros ($35 million), one of the largest state investments ever in a single artwork, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday.
Painted around 1598 and thought to have been painted by Caravaggio in 1963, this portrait depicts the nobleman Maffeo Barberini, who later became Pope Urban VIII.
After more than a year of negotiations, the painting was acquired from a private collection by the Italian government and will now enter the permanent collection of Palazzo Barberini in Rome.
“This is an extremely important work,” Culture Minister Alessandro Giulio said in a statement, noting that the painting was a turning point in Caravaggio’s modern rediscovery and that its purchase would help strengthen the presence of his work in Italian public collections.
The new acquisition follows Ecce Homo, a recent painting by Antonello da Messina, and is part of a wider project in Italy to enhance the country’s cultural heritage and make some of its art historical masterpieces accessible to scholars and the public.
“Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini” depicts the future pope in his thirties, dressed as a clergyman of the Apostolic Chamber, at a critical moment in his rise to power.
The work was made famous by art critic Roberto Longhi’s 1963 article “Caravaggio’s True “Maffeo Barberini”” and has since been widely attributed by critics to Caravaggio (also known as Michelangelo Merisi).
Longhi called the painting “one of the founding moments of modern portraiture,” emphasizing how Caravaggio ushered in a new psychological intensity.
Caravaggio revolutionized painting in the early 17th century, introducing the dramatic use of light that became a cornerstone of the Baroque style. He is currently one of the most studied artists in the world, but the number of his confirmed works remains extremely limited.
At the Palazzo Barberini, the portrait will be exhibited together with other works by Caravaggio – one of the most important collections in the world – and in particular with another of Caravaggio’s masterpieces, Judith Killing Holofernes, which was also purchased by the Italian government in 1971.
