GALLERIA BORGHESE, Caravaggio-Madonna Of The Palafrenieri_First Floor Room 8
- Audio File length: 2.47
-
Language: English / USA
Back again to the Madonna and Child with St Anne or Dei Palafrenieri.
The work is named after an Archconfraternity of the Papal Grooms who commissioned the work from Caravaggio in 1605. Their task was to manage the pope's stables, where the horses used during parades, called palafreni, were kept.
Well, when St Peter's Basilica was renovated in the early-17th century, the chapel dedicated to the patron saint of grooms, St Anne, was also enlarged. These squires then decided to have a new painting made for the altar.
When they entrusted the task to Caravaggio, they most likely expected a work that would highlight their patroness and were not particularly satisfied with the end result, so much so that they exhibited it in St Peter's for less than a month before moving it to the small church of St Anne, dedicated to the confraternity, located a few steps away from the basilica....