ROCKY'S ITALY: Rome - Doria Pamphilj Gallery

One of Rome's most important art collections is located in that palace that you see behind me, the Doria Pamphili Palace, inside of which is the Doria Pamphili Gallery. And in fact, this building is still owned by the family, the Doria Pamphili family, whose most important member was Pope Innocent X. In fact, part of the collection is the And just as importantly, a bust of the great pope by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But for me, the two most important works in the collection are the early works by Caravaggio, the penitent Mary Magdalene, and the rest on the flight into Egypt. Caravaggio's interpretation of the penitent Magdalene broke with the traditional iconography. No longer is she an emaciated and atrophied ascetic, but instead she's presented to this beautiful young woman having this internal conversion, sitting on this low chair, having cast aside the jewelry that she wore to seduce her clients, that carafe, which could either contain wine that she used to inebriate them, or the anointing oil that we normally associate with Mary Magdalene. But clearly we have an internal spiritual moment that's going on. Now consider that the model that Caravaggio used for this painting was a well-known prostitute here in Rome by the name of Anna Bianchini. And one Caravaggio expert actually proposed that perhaps the image was of Bianchini, who had been recently publicly flogged, and those swollen hands a consequence of this particular action, and Caravaggio kind of capturing the pathos of that moment. Next to it, the rest on the flight into Egypt, is one of my favorite paintings by Caravaggio, a rather rare subject of the Holy Family fleeing Bethlehem and fleeing the wrath of King Herod. And what we see is this poetically beautiful angel dividing the painting in half, seen from behind, to the right of which one of the most tender images of the Madonna and Child that you will ever see. And that face of the Virgin Mary might be familiar, because in fact the model was one and the same, that is the same courtesan, Anna Bianchini, posing with her head bowed down, with this adorable little Christ Child there in her lap. And to the other side of the angel we have this rather enchanting figure of Joseph, whose feet, one on top of the other as if he were cold, holding up the musical score so that the angel could actually play the violin to soothe the weary child who's asleep in his mother's arms.