Tonight in prime time on Rai1 at 21.25, Alberto Angela will tell the life and works of one of the greatest, loved and controversial painters in the history of art: Michelangelo Merisi. “Tonight with Caravaggio” will be an extraordinary journey to discover his art. Spectacular shots from drones, helicopters, visual effects, minifictions, all at the service of a great cultural operation. Telling Caravaggio
The story starts from Palo Laziale, Caravaggio’s last known landing place before his death. Alberto Angela will accompany viewers on a journey back in the life of the artist, recounting the fundamental stages and the most significant moments. In fact, we know some moments of Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, well documented in papers preserved in the State Archives in Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza: complaints, kidnappings, contracts. But everything else is in shadow. A few glimpses of light on a dark background. Exactly like in his paintings. Caravaggio’s violent and divine realism
Few artists have aroused so much interest and revolutionized art history as profoundly as the Lombard painter who lived in the second half of the sixteenth century The paintings of Michelangelo Merisi
What did Caravaggio do once he left Milan, before reaching Rome
Why did he have such stormy relations with the powerful of the time that they also admired
him
. the circumstances and causes of his death. To understand this, Alberto Angela in the Roman night will go from Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza to the splendid Galleria Borghese where one of the largest collections in the world of Caravaggesque paintings is kept, and will explain how the painter made his paintings with the help of a mirror. Then the doors of the Casino dell’Aurora will open to see an authentic rarity: Caravaggio’s only mural painting, a ceiling with three self-portraits. A surprising and little known work.Guests and testimonies
In San Luigi dei Francesi an exceptional guest, the author of photography Vittorio Storaro, three times Oscar winner, will talk about the influence that the Vocation of St. Matthew has had on the way of conceiving light in cinema. The church of Santa Maria del Popolo, and then Naples, Malta, Sicily. He stages that a Caravaggio always on the run will cross before landing in Palo Laziale and disappearing into thin air in Maremma.
The story will be punctuated by the “period testimonies”. Massimo Bonetti will play Giovanni Baglione, biographer and rival of Caravaggio and Anna Safronick will be Lena, the one who was the painter’s model and lover. The art historian Rossella Vodret, the fencing master Renzo Musumeci Greco and the state historian and archivist Michele Di Sivo will speak as experts.The preview on Artemisia Gentileschi
During Alberto Angela’s program ‘Tonight with Caravaggio’ a few minutes of the docufilm “ Artemisia Gentileschi, Warrior Painter ”, directed by the director and producer Jordan River, will be broadcast. The work was released on the platforms last November 25 in over 15 territories with Amazon Prime Video, including the USA and Japan, in Italy previewed on CHILI and Uamtv. The docufilm is also in competition for the David di Donatello 2021 and tells in a simple way the complexity of an extraordinary woman, the great painter of the ‘600. A talented woman, one of the first female painters in history, who managed to defend her rights and, thanks to her courage, to make her way for international recognition.
