With more than 450,000 visitors in 137 days of opening, the Caravaggio 2025 exhibition has emerged as the most successful exhibition event in the history of Palazzo Barberini and the National Galleries of Ancient Art. The exhibition, dedicated to the pictorial work of Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio, was one of the main cultural events of Jubilee 2025, attracting an average of more than 3,000 daily admissions.
The exhibition was curated by Francesca Cappelletti, Maria Cristina Terzaghi and Thomas Clement Salomon and presented 24 works by Caravaggio or attributed to him, all from prestigious public and private collections, both Italian and international. Notable loans included “The Bari,” from the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; “Saint Catherine” from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid; “The Concert” from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and the recently rediscovered “Ecce Homo.” Special emphasis was given to the “Conversion of Saul,” also known as the “Odescalchi Altarpiece,” which is rarely exhibited to the public and will exceptionally remain at Palazzo Barberini until Sept. 30, 2025.
Opened on March 6, the exhibition was originally scheduled to run until July 6, but was extended until July 20 in response to the exceptional turnout. Already in the first few months of its opening, tickets available online had sold out, forcing the museum to reorganize its offerings, extending evening hours and introducing new admission bands. The exceptional public response required extraordinary efforts by the organization, which adjusted its logistical management to ensure a satisfactory visitor experience despite the high numbers.
The success of the exhibition also had positive repercussions on the overall audience of the National Galleries of Ancient Art, which recorded 200,000 admissions during the exhibition period, a 15 percent increase over the same period in 2024 and a 90 percent increase over 2023. Added to these are the more than 8,000 visitors to the Casino Ludovisi, which was exceptionally open on weekends to offer additional thematic insight related to the Caravaggesque universe.
The interest aroused by the initiative also extended to the collateral activities, which had a significant response. More than 7,000 guided tours allowed thousands of people to explore the exhibition with the support of experts in the field, while an international study day gathered researchers and scholars from all over the world, resulting in a scientific discussion on new interpretations of Merisi’s work. The exhibition catalog, published by Marsilio Arte, reached 20,000 copies sold at the Palazzo Barberini bookshop alone, ranking among the most requested art volumes of 2025 in Italy.
The digital impact of the event was also significant. Over the 137 days of the opening, the social channels of the National Galleries of Ancient Art saw a 30 percent growth in the number of followers, rising from about 240,000 to more than 312,000, with 16,000 new followers acquired during the reporting period. Online content related to the exhibition totaled more than 14 million views, 350,000 interactions and an audience of 4 million unique users. This is the best digital performance ever recorded by an Italian state museum in the same time frame.
The scale of the project is also reflected in its media resonance. More than 3,000 journalists and critics, representing more than 150 international publications, were accredited to visit the exhibition. More than 1,350 articles, reports and reviews have been published on every continent, from Scandinavia to Australia, from South Africa to the American continent. The total estimated audience exceeds 1 billion people.
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| Caravaggio in Rome, record-breaking exhibition: visited by over 450 thousand people |
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