San Luigi dei Francesi

There are several places in Rome where world-class paintings hang right where they were hung, and you can view them for free. This is neither a museum service nor a promotion: the church is simply open, and the paintings inside are the same ones as four hundred years ago. San Luigi dei Francesi is the national church of the French in Rome. It was founded in 1518 and only completed by 1589: Giacomo della Porta worked on the facade, and Domenico Fontana finished the construction. Inside lie Frenchmen who died in Rome - among others, Pauline de Beaumont, Chateaubriand's beloved, who died here in 1805. But people do not come here for that. In the fifth chapel on the left, the Contarelli Chapel, hang three works by Caravaggio, all three about the Apostle Matthew: The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, and Saint Matthew and the Angel. These are his first major church commissions, and they launched his fame. You need to view them in the order they tell the story. On the left is The Calling: a dark room, a company at a table counting money, Christ enters through the door, and a beam of light cuts across the entire canvas, singling out the face of the future apostle. On the right is The Martyrdom, the end of that same life. Above the altar is Matthew writing the Gospel, and an angel counting out the words for him on his fingers. And here is the detail for which it is worth standing by the altar for an extra minute. What you see above the altar is the second version. The patrons rejected the first one: it was painted far too realistically. No one had ever depicted a saint as a tired old man with dirty feet before. This is the essence of Caravaggio, and in this church, it is visible better than in any museum. He painted saints using Roman street people, without embellishing either their faces or their feet, and flooded the scene with harsh light that plunges half the canvas into blackness. To his contemporaries, this seemed indecent. Four hundred years later, people travel halfway across the world for this. Practical info. Admission is free, the church has its own hours and they change, so it is best to check the website before heading out. The chapel is illuminated automatically; a coin in the box turns on the light for a few minutes, and without it, you will see very little. Come with small change.