Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, was born in Milan on 29 September 1571. In just under fifteen years he becomes the protagonist of a profound renewal of painting, he will die in 1610 after a stormy life that ended tragically. His approach is innovative and disenchanted that marks a watershed with Renaissance art of a classical imprint. His revolution lies in naturalism, expressed in the subjects and in the atmospheres in which the ability to give a body a three-dimensional shape is highlighted by the particular lighting that theatrically emphasizes the volumes of the figures that suddenly emerge from the darkness of the scene. There are few paintings in which the Lombard painter paints the background, always in the background with respect to the characters, the only protagonists of his work. For the realization of his works, Caravaggio in his studio placed lanterns in strategic places to ensure that the models were only partially illuminated. With this artifice, the artist brings out from a dark background only specific portions of the painted scene, which thus acquire an almost sculptural relief and great expressive power. Del Merisi "unregulated genius" the exhibition brings together about twenty masterpieces never gathered together before and offers an interesting dialogue between art and scientific research. All the canvases on display are in fact accompanied by multimedia equipment to allow the public to discover the creative path followed by the artist, from the conception to the realization of the work through repentances, erasures and formal inventions. Investigations that reveal the impetuous and carnal nature of the master and help to reveal secrets hidden in works that have always been shrouded in mystery. Among the most prestigious loans on display are the Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Salomé with the head of the Baptist from the National Gallery in London; the Ecstatic St. Francis from Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum of Art; Martha and Magdalene from the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit; the St. John the Baptist, from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. The presence of paintings from Italian collections and museums including the Uffizi Gallery, the Pitti Palace and the Longhi Foundation in Florence, the Capitoline Museums, the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome, the Doria Pamphilj Gallery are also nourished. From this collection comes the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1597), made by Caravaggio when he was only 26 years old, as soon as he arrived in Rome. In this extraordinary painting of his youthful period all the matrices of his poetics are already found: from a new representation of reality devoid of any idealization to the natural format of the figures, up to that accentuated dialectical chiaroscuro contrast capable of making the whole composition. It is one of the very few works by Merisi made in natural light and set in an open landscape characterized by luxuriant vegetation. To dominate is certainly the angel about to play the violin which, seen from behind, divides the scene even more in two: a great invention of the artist. Another symbolic image of him, The boy bitten by a green lizard (1597) from the Longhi Collection, the art historian who rediscovered Caravaggio in the early XNUMXs, attracts the visitor's attention. Painted in the mirror, since Caravaggio could not paint without having a model in front of him, what is striking in the work is the movement of the subject: the green lizard, suddenly, biting the middle finger of the boy whose open mouth hints at a scream of pain and the sudden reaction of the young man to the bite is then even accompanied by the stirring of the water in the vase. Finally, the contraction of his right hand and his face, decidedly expressive, accentuated by curly hair and a white shirt that cannot fail to recall the models of Roman statuary, is amazing. Among the major works of Merisi's maturity there is undoubtedly Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes (1602). In the dramatic representation of the clash between Judith, a young widow of the city of Betulia, and the Assyrian general Holofernes who was besieging her people and whom she beheaded after seducing them, Caravaggio managed to perfectly capture the climax of the action: the most terrible and tragic of the beheading of a Holofernes suspended between life and death, accentuated even more by the presence of a large red cloth behind them which makes everything even more tragic. Extraordinary in intensity and depth of investigation also the San Giovanni Battista (1604) of the Corsini Gallery and the famous Madonna dei Pellegrini (1604/5), a piece of popular realism pushed to the extreme. An exhibition that reaffirms, if there were still any need, the greatness of Caravaggio, presenting him in a new light thanks to scientific investigations but above all consecrating him as one of the most complex and original personalities in the history of art. With his rough and at times very violent character, he was able to give his works both crudeness and grace, inventing a personal, highly original and highly provocative style.