ROME (AP) – As elsewhere in Europe, museums and art galleries have closed in spring and autumn again in Italy to include the distribution of COVID-19, making virtual tours the best option for art lovers who want to see the treasures, left behind. held by institutions such as the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the Vatican Museums in Rome.
But some beautiful pieces of the Italian cultural heritage are on display for viewing in the churches of the country, which were open again during the autumn of the virus. Some churches hold collections of art and iconography from the Renaissance that would be the envy of any museum.
Residents of Rome – and in a normal year tourists – can admire masterpieces of Michelangelo and Caravaggio in the lush cathedrals and churches of the city.
“Emotions and sensations experienced when they enter are no less than those they experience when you enter museums,” said art historian Benedetta Mazzanobile, who tours the works of art within Roman churches in French, Spanish and Portuguese.
San Luigi dei Francesi, the French community church in Rome, has 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 Caravaggio paintings, 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 with ‘The Assumption of the Virgin’, by Annibale Carracci.
Works by another Renaissance master, Raphael, can be found in several churches in Rome, including Santa Maria della Pace. This is where the artist painted ‘Sybils’, a fresco also known as ‘Sybils Receiving Instructions from Angels’, which began around 1514.
The pandemic interfered with plans to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death. In Rome, the largest Raphael exhibition opened in March and closed three days later when the Italian government ordered a nationwide exclusion. The exhibition reopened in June as restrictions were lifted and presented until the end of the summer.
The artwork in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica is replete with masterpieces, including Michelango’s “Pieta”, a moving image of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ.
The Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria has a lesser-known but powerful suggestive marble statue of the baroque architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.”
That Italian churchgoers can now admire art without having to compete with the usual crowd of tourists is a mixed blessing, Mazzanobile said.
“The pandemic has nevertheless enabled us to reflect on the hordes of tourists who would now, sometimes in an unworthy manner, invade the streets and galleries of museums,” she said. “But I definitely believe that, just like me, most guides and tour guides are waiting for the hordes.”