The National Galleries of Ancient Art present the exhibition "The triumph of the senses. New light on Mattia and Gregorio Preti" in the Palazzo Barberini.
The exhibition, which examines the first activity of Mattia Preti and his training in the Roman workshop of his brother Gregorio, revolves around the Allegory of the five senses of the National Galleries, a monumental canvas of Caravaggio's imprint, remained for years in storage at the Officers Club of the Armed Forces.
Made by the two brothers in the 1840s, it is remembered in 1686 in the collection of Maffeo Barberini junior as "a painting for longo with different portraits: who plays, who sings, who plays, who drinks and who has a companion", a description which underlines the complex articulation of the painting where, according to a model very popular in the seventeenth century, different groups of characters engaged in daily activities become an allegorical image of the five senses.