The Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte and the Pio Monte della Misericordia, with the production and organization of the Electa publishing house, are promoting an exhibition to explore Caravaggio's Neapolitan period and the legacy left in the Neapolitan city.
Caravaggio lived in Naples for a total of 18 months, during his two stays: between October 1606 and June 1607 and, subsequently, in the autumn of 1609 for about a year until his death in Porto Ercole on the return journey to Rome, in July 1610. Intense and fundamental months for his life and his artistic production, which however are less known than the period spent in Rome.
Merisi arrived in Naples on the run from Rome, where he had been involved in the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni: wanted and sentenced to death by the Roman justice, tormented by a sense of guilt. The drama of the Neapolitan production with its particular moral tension seems to closely resemble the contemporary vision of the great artist, an aspect that emerges in the works, coming from national and international museum collections, presented in Capodimonte.