Italy buys rare Caravaggio portrait for €30m

The Italian state has bought a painting by 16-17th Century baroque master Caravaggio for Euro 30m (£25.9m), one of the largest sums it has ever paid for an artwork, BBC reported yesterday.

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The country's culture minister said the work, a portrait of cleric Monsignor Maffeo Barberini - later Pope Urban VIII - was one of "exceptional importance" and its purchase part of a wider plan to prevent major artworks from being bought by private collectors.

The painting had been kept in a private collection in Florence and was first shown in public in Rome in 2024.

Caravaggio, master of a lighting technique to make his subjects seem to come alive, has about 65 surviving known works worldwide, only three of which are portraits.