ROME (AP) – Like other places in Europe, museums and art galleries closed in Italy in the spring and fall to contain the spread of COVID-19, leaving virtual tours as the best option for lovers of the art they wanted to see the treasures by institutions such as the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the Vatican Museums in Rome.
But some exquisite pieces of Italian cultural heritage remain on display to be seen in person inside the country’s churches, which remained open during the autumn’s resurgence of the virus. Some churches contain collections of Renaissance art and iconography that would be the envy of any museum.
Residents in Rome, and, in a normal year, tourists, can admire masterpieces by Michelangelo and Caravaggio in the city’s luxurious cathedrals and churches.
“The emotions and sensations experienced on entering are no less than those experienced on entering museums,” said art historian Benedetta Mazzanobile, who tours art works in Roman churches in French, Spanish and Portuguese.
San Luigi dei Francesi, the French communal church in Rome, features three majestic works by the 16th century painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio. Visitors who deposit a coin to illuminate the church’s Contarelli Chapel can enjoy the paintings, centered around the life of St. Matthew.
Two other paintings by Caravaggio, depicting the crucifixion of St. Peter and the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus, can be admired in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo along with “The Assumption of the Virgin”. of Hannibal Carracci.
The works of another Renaissance master, Raphael, can be found in several churches in Rome, including Santa Maria della Pace. It was there that the artist painted “Sybils”, a fresco also known as “Sybils receiving instructions from Angels”, from 1514 onwards.
The pandemic interfered with plans to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death. In Rome, Raphael’s largest exhibition opened in March and closed three days later, when the Italian government ordered a national closure. The exhibition reopened in June, as restrictions were lifted and held until late summer.
St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, with its own work of art, is full of masterpieces, including Michelangelo’s “Piety,” a moving sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ.
The church of Santa Maria della Vittoria has a lesser-known but powerfully evocative marble sculpture by the Baroque architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa.”
That attendees at the Italian church can admire the art without having to compete with the usual crowd of tourists is a mixed blessing, Mazzanobile said.
“Surely the pandemic has allowed us to reflect on the hordes of tourists who would now invade, sometimes unworthily, the streets and galleries of museums,” he said. “But I certainly think that, like me, most tour guides and leaders are waiting for these hordes.”