Thursday 1 October at 17.00 at Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia the exhibition entitled: " THE LIGHT OF THE BAROQUE - Paintings from Roman collections " will be inaugurated - with the contribution of ACEA Spa, a company also committed to the promotion of our artistic heritage, through a professionally exceptional work of lighting the largest and most important monuments in the area, a point of attraction for millions of tourists present in Rome to admire our art and our history, founded on culture and its enhancement.

Baroque art , which finds its origin and its highest manifestations in Rome, lends itself magnificently to this, as the Light, in this artistic expression typical of Catholicism, is charged with symbolic and mystical meanings, linked to the theme of grace and the redemption of man, of which it is visualization. We think of light in Caravaggio's paintings and in Bernini's works .

Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, designed by Bernini for the family of Pope Alexander VII, is the most suitable place to host this exhibition, being the seat of the Roman Baroque Museum and one of the most important Baroque residences in Italy.

Ariccia itself, transformed by Bernini into an ideal Baroque city , preserves many works related to this style. The Collegiate Church of the Assumption, Bernini's masterpiece of maturity, where physical Light and divine Light form a symbolic unity, is a concrete expression of the salvific value of Grace.

An exhibition linked to the theme of Light in this particular moment that we are experiencing, wants to express hope and rebirth, after months of seclusion and forced segregation.

Light has always had a symbolic value connected to birth , to awakening after the night, to the resurrection of nature after winter and for Catholicism to a message of hope of eternal life aroused by the following of Christ's message. The Baroque, therefore, which is the highest artistic expression of Catholicism, is the most suitable style to convey an optimistic message of human and social redemption after the Pandemic.