Image: Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Rome
The Italian state has acquired Caravaggio’s ‘Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini’ for €30 million, securing the painting for the nation’s public collections. Following the completion of the required administrative procedures, the work will be assigned to the National Galleries of Ancient Art in Rome and remain permanently at Palazzo Barberini.
The purchase deed was signed at Italy’s Ministry of Culture in the presence of Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, Director General of Museums Massimo Osanna, National Galleries of Ancient Art director Thomas Clement Salomon and notary Luca Amato. The ministry described the transaction as one of the most significant investments ever made by the Italian state to acquire a work of art.
The painting depicts Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII (1568–1644), at around the age of 30. He is shown as a cleric of the Apostolic Camera, during a crucial period in his rise to power. The portrait was brought to wider attention by the art historian Roberto Longhi in his 1963 article ‘Il vero “Maffeo Barberini” del Caravaggio’, published in the journal ‘Paragone’.
Longhi attributed the work to Caravaggio, an attribution that has since been broadly accepted by specialists. The museum stated that Italian and international criticism reaffirmed the attribution when the painting was displayed publicly at Palazzo Barberini during the negotiations for its acquisition. That presentation began in November 2024 and continued through the conclusion of the exhibition ‘CARAVAGGIO 2025’, which attracted more than 450,000 visitors.
The painting occupies a particularly rare position within Caravaggio’s surviving work. Of the approximately 65 paintings attributed with certainty to the Lombard master worldwide, only three are known and securely identified as portraits. The Maffeo Barberini therefore provides an unusually important example of Caravaggio’s approach to portraiture and of the development of his pictorial language between the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
At Palazzo Barberini, the newly acquired work will join other paintings by Caravaggio and one of the world’s most important collections of Caravaggesque art. It will also be shown in relation to ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’, another Caravaggio acquired by the Italian state in 1971. That earlier purchase helped strengthen the painter’s presence in Italy’s public collections; the new acquisition adds a rare portrait to the holdings of the National Galleries of Ancient Art.
The museum said the acquisition follows a recent state purchase of Antonello da Messina’s ‘Ecce Homo’ and forms part of a broader effort by the Ministry of Culture to reinforce Italy’s public heritage with works of major historical and artistic importance. The portrait’s permanent destination is Palazzo Barberini, Via delle Quattro Fontane 13, Rome.
