The Last Caravaggio: A Masterpiece's Journey and Exhibition

The Financial Times, through an extensive article by critic Jackie Wullschläger, reviews the exhibition "The Last Caravaggio" that the National Gallery in London dedicates, from April 18 to July 21, 2024, to Caravaggio's "The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula", owned by Intesa Sanpaolo, the most important of the 35,000 works in the Bank's collection, normally displayed at its museum of the Gallerie d'Italia in Naples. The journalist recounts the curious history of the painting, its purchase by the Commercial Bank, now in the banking group, and its subsequent attribution to Caravaggio, appreciating that the "home" of the masterpiece is now precisely in that bustling Toledo street in Naples where, already at the time, Caravaggio found among the ordinary people, on the street, the subjects for the sacred roles reproduced in his paintings. The exhibition, defined by the publication as "the very welcome free exhibition", is held on the occasion of the bicentenary of the National Gallery as part of a long-standing relationship that has been going on for several years between the Bank and the prestigious museum. In Naples, at the Intesa Sanpaolo museum, from April 24, 2024, to July 14, 2024, two masterpieces by Diego Velázquez will arrive from the National Gallery: Immaculate Conception and Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos.