ROME (AP) – As across Europe, museums and art galleries closed in Italy in the spring and again in the fall to stem the spread of COVID-19, making virtual tours the best option for art lovers who want to see the treasures held by institutions like the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the Vatican Museums in Rome.
But some exquisite pieces of Italy’s cultural heritage remain on display for personal viewing within the country’s churches, which remained open during the virus’s resurgence in the fall. Some churches have collections of Renaissance art and iconography that would make any museum envious.
Rome residents – and, in a normal year, tourists – can admire Michelangelo and Caravaggio’s masterpieces in the city’s luxurious cathedrals and churches.
“The emotions and sensations experienced when entering are no less than those experienced when entering museums,” said art historian Benedetta Mazzanobile, who tours art works 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 appreciate the paintings, centered on the life of St. Matthew.
Two other paintings by Caravaggio, depicting the crucifixion of Saint Peter and the conversion of Saint Paul on the way to Damascus, can be admired in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo along 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. It is where the artist painted “Sybils”, a fresco also known as “Sybils receiving instructions from angels”, starting around 1514.
The pandemic interfered with plans to mark the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death. In Rome, Rafael’s biggest exhibition opened in March and closed three days later, when the Italian government ordered a national blockade. The exhibition reopened in June when restrictions were lifted and operated until the end of the summer.
A work of art in its own right, the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica is filled with masterpieces, including Michelango’s “Pieta”, a touching sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the 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 Santa Teresa”.
The fact that Italian churchgoers can admire art without having to compete with the usual tourist crowd is a mixed blessing, said Mazzanobile.
“Certainly the pandemic has allowed us to reflect on the hordes of tourists who are now invading, sometimes in an unworthy way, the streets and galleries of museums,” she said. “But I certainly believe that, like me, most tour guides and leaders are waiting for these hordes.”