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 fraternization. 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.