Caravaggio’s portrait of Maffeo Barberini, which has never been publicly displayed until now, can be viewed at the Palazzo Barberini, part of the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, until February 23, 2025.
The painting dates to the early 1600s and depicts the son of a Florentine nobleman who was crowned Pope Urban VIII in 1623.
The painting belongs to an anonymous Florentine family that acquired it in the 1960s. The public first learned of its existence in 1963 when Italian art historian Roberto Longhi wrote about it in an art journal, stating that it is undoubtedly one of Caravaggio’s works. Other experts, including Keith Christiansen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sebastian Schütze, a Vienna University art historian, have since confirmed this attribution.
