Caravaggio, always back and forth
I continue my walk through the Museum when I discover a lovely Santa Catalina in one of the other rooms. I get closer to the painting. It might be the most perfect representation ever made, or at least the best I have ever seen.
It is "Santa Catalina of Alexandria" painted around 1597 by Caravaggio.
One of the most important painters of all times, Caravaggio, was born in 1571 with the name of Michel Angelo Merisi. His nickname comes from his family's hometown. He first studied in Milan and then moved to Rome with orders from the church already. Almost all of his paintings are religious but he scandalized his clients as much with the realism of his figures as the models coming from lower social classes. So much so that in "The Virgin's death" (a painting now to be found in the Louvre) had for a model an unknown woman who had appeared drown in the Tiber, with her pale and swollen body. It logically created a great scandal and indignation among the experts of the time. It did not end up well: with his difficult personality and a life full of irregularities he ended up murdering someone, murder for which he had to ask for asylum to the Prince Colonna. He then appeared in Naples, later in Malta, Syracuse, Mesina, Palermo. Always running, back and forth because of pending trials with justice. Tireless traveler, although not for touristic motives, he died in exile in Porto Ercole in 1610.
