This book maps the artistic revolution that took place in Rome in the early 17th century in seven essays, written by experts in the field and accompanied by an excellent selection of over eighty masterpieces - of both painting and sculpture.

This book examines in depth the painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) and the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). Other painters and sculptors gathered around these two geniuses in Rome in the first decades of the 17th century. Together they formulated a new artistic language which later came to be known as Roman Baroque. In a very short period of time, Rome became an international cultural hotspot, the breeding ground of new ideas and initiatives.

Artists from all over Europe came to the Eternal City to study the many remnants of Roman Antiquity and to seek the increasing patronage of the popes, cardinals, and the local nobility. More than ever before, painters and sculptors shared ambitions, personal friendships, and worked together, often on large papal projects. Caravaggio, Bernini, and their fellow artists embody this artistic fraternisation. Together, their works tell the story of the birth of this new movement in art, and the radical artistic innovation which would prove to have far-reaching influence in Europe.

Book Features

• Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was one of the most influential Italian artists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His groundbreaking work had widespread influence and appeal, helping to shape the Baroque school of painting. He is best known for his dramatic use of light and shadow, and the realistic depictions of human forms in his works. Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. He was a major figure in the world of architecture, but he was even more prominently, the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. 
• Examines the work of the two major artists, Caravaggio and Bernini, who shaped the development of the Roman Baroque. 
• Accompanies a travelling exhibition that opens at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, October 15, 2019-January 19, 2020, and goes to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, February 14-June 7, 2020. 
• Presents a selection of over eighty masterpieces in 265 colour illustrations.