GALLERIA BORGHESE, Caravaggio_First Floor Room 8

You've finally reached the most moving part of the gallery: Caravaggio's rooms. No museum in the world has as many works by the painter as this one, and they let you retrace the entire arc of his career.

Start with his first painting called Young Sick Bacchus, which Caravaggio painted shortly after his arrival in Rome from Lombardy. This is definitely a self-portrait that was painted after a sickness, which is evident in the pallor of the figure's face and lips. The bunches of grapes in the foreground convey his passion for perfectly depicting nature. You can notice the same passion in another work titled Boy with a Basket of Fruit, in which the fruit and the leaves in the basket are almost overflowing with life.

Now move on to the work entitled Madonna and Child with St. Anne, or Madonna dei Palafrenieri in Italian; it earned this name because it was painted in 1605 for the Palafrenieri Chapel in Saint Peter's Basilica. This was one of Caravaggio's so-called "scandalous" works, in the sense that it was rejected by those who had commissioned it; it was only displayed for a month over the altar before being sold to Cardinal Borghese. And why did they reject it? For its lack of decorum: the Virgin is represented as a normal girl, while St. Anne is shown as an old wrinkled lady... even the child's nakedness seemed inappropriate!

Now go to the painting entitled Saint Jerome Writing, where you'll be struck by the contrast between the dark background and the saint's red cloak. Caravaggio portrays the saint as he translates the Bible, surrounded by open books; the skull is a symbol of the precariousness of human life.

Now move on to John the Baptist. Caravaggio had already portrayed St. John the Baptist in a much more vital and joyous way before; here he depicts the saint young but tired, looking at you with sad eyes.

The last canvas I'd like to tell you about is titled David with the Head of Goliath, and was painted a few months before Caravaggio died. His teenage David stands out against the dark background, holding Goliath's bloody head with an air full of melancholy. As you can see, the sword and shirt were painted with a quick and brusque brushstroke, which was typical of Caravaggio's later paintings.

FUN FACT: in David, Caravaggio painted himself in the jumbled head of the giant. His wild eyes and silent shout seem to be an omen of the painter's foreboding death.