One of the few surviving portraits of the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio is being shown to the public for the first time. The work, believed to have been created in the early 17th century, is the focus of a new exhibition at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome.

The painting depicts Monsignor Maffeo Barberini, a Florentine aristocrat who became known as Pope Urban VIII when he was crowned in 1623. By papal standards his reign was glorious, and he was a great patron of the arts, according to ARTnews.

The portrait depicts the future Pope, wearing a black biretta, cap and green cassock, seated holding a folded letter in his left hand and pointing with the other as he looks to his right.

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“The heart of the painting is in the hands, the left hand holds a letter and the right hand ‘comes out’ of the painting”art historian and exhibition co-curator Paola Nicita said in a statement. “It’s a painting that expresses itself through the movement of the hands,” he adds.

The work will be on display until February 23, 2025 at the Palazzo Barberini, which houses the National Gallery of Ancient Art. The site was built during his papacy in collaboration with the architect Carlo Maderno and had remained in the Barberini family until the 20th century. For 300 years, the portrait was in the hands of the family until they decided to sell the estate in the 1930s and it was lost.

In 1963 the famous Italian art critic Roberto Longhi presented it in one of his articles.

“It’s the Caravaggio painting everyone’s been wanting to see for years”Thomas Clement Salomon, director of the National Gallery of Ancient Art, told the ANSA news agency. “This work is unique because you can count the number of Caravaggio portraits on the fingers of one hand”he added.