by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel
The final Conversion of Saint Paul in Santa Maria del Popolo is famous for its large horse, fallen apostle and spare darkness. Caravaggio first completed a different picture for the same Cerasi commission. In that earlier Conversion of Saul, Christ and an angel appear, several figures crowd the action, and light and colour move across a wooden panel. The surviving first version belongs to Nicoletta Odescalchi, not to the Roman church.[1][2]
The distinction is more than a question of titles. The first picture and the installed canvas propose different ways of showing a sudden spiritual event. One makes the heavenly encounter visible through figures; the other removes Christ's visible body and concentrates on Paul, horse, groom and light. Both are finished paintings. The reasons the first pair of Cerasi works was not installed remain under study.[1]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleThe Conversion of Saint Paul, also Conversion of Saul or the Odescalchi Altarpiece[1]
- Datecommissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01[1][2]
- Medium and supportoil painting on a panel made of seven horizontal cypress planks, with a later perimeter band[1]
- Dimensionsapproximately 237 × 189 cm in the University of Genoa's Balbi collection record[7]
- OwnerNicoletta Odescalchi, private collection[1]
- Original purposeone of the first two pictures made for Tiberio Cerasi's chapel; this panel was not installed there[1]
- Public displays documentedtemporary Cerasi Chapel comparison in 2006, Palazzo Marino exhibition in 2008, and Palazzo Barberini exhibition, 24 July–30 September 2025[1][13][15]
Contents
- Which Conversion Is This?
- Saul's Story and the Crowded Scene
- Christ, Angel, Horse and Paul
- What Examination of the Panel Reveals
- The Commission and the Panel's Later Ownership
- Why the Chapel Has a Different Canvas
- How to Compare the Two Versions
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Conversion of Saint Paul: Odescalchi Panel
This earlier composition crowds Paul, the horse and a descending figure into a dramatic diagonal. Details show how differently it stages the conversion from the Cerasi Chapel canvas.
123Details from The Conversion of Saint Paul: Odescalchi Panel
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
The descending figure
A figure enters from the upper right with extended arms, directing the action toward Paul below.
The rearing horse
The horse presses across the upper half, its head and dark body contributing to the crowded movement.
Paul on the ground
Paul lies under the horse at the bottom, raising his arms over his face amid the scattered drapery.
Which Conversion Is This?
Tiberio Cerasi commissioned Caravaggio in 1600 to paint Saint Paul's conversion and Saint Peter's crucifixion for a chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. The first works were not placed there. Caravaggio made two new versions on canvas, which are still in the chapel and are owned by the Fondo Edifici di Culto. The earlier Conversion survived separately and entered the Odescalchi collection.[1][2]
The route title “Conversion of Saint Paul” is therefore potentially confusing. On this page it means the earlier Odescalchi panel. The church picture has its own page, Conversion on the Way to Damascus. A quick object check is useful: if Christ and an angel are visible amid several figures, the image is the first panel; if a large horse stands over Paul in a much simpler dark space, it is the final chapel canvas.[1]
The Odescalchi work was shown at Palazzo Barberini in a dated exhibition in 2025, alongside a very high-resolution reproduction of the church painting. The museum's announcement explicitly limited the panel's public display to 30 September 2025 and identifies Nicoletta Odescalchi as its current owner. Calling Barberini its permanent home would turn an exhibition record into a false collection claim.[1]
Saul's Story and the Crowded Scene
The subject comes from the Acts of the Apostles. Saul, travelling toward Damascus while persecuting followers of Jesus, is surrounded by light, falls to the ground and hears a voice asking why he persecutes Christ. He is led onward without sight. The later apostle is generally known as Paul. The scriptural passage supplies light, voice, fall and reversal of life; it does not specify a horse. A horse in a conversion painting is part of the artistic tradition, not a detail to quote as if Acts had named it.[3]
Caravaggio's first picture gives the episode many visible actors. Paul is on the ground, a horse and human attendants fill the middle space, and Christ appears with an angel above. The composition feels restless because attention must pass among these figures. The Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini describe its movement, range of characters and bright colours as defining differences from the final canvas.[1]
The book of Acts recounts the conversion more than once. In Acts 9, Ananias later speaks of Jesus having appeared to Saul on the road; in Acts 26, Paul reports Jesus saying that he appeared to him. Neither account gives an artist a fixed visual arrangement for Christ, an angel or a horse. It is therefore too simple to call the first panel “against Scripture” merely because Caravaggio made Christ visible. That does not prove what Cerasi wanted or why a second painting was made; it identifies the limits of an explanation sometimes offered for the substitution.[3][8]
The third telling, Acts 22, makes the companions' position especially interesting: Paul says they saw the light but did not hear the voice addressed to him. Acts 9 describes the men as hearing a sound while seeing no one. The texts differ in what the companions could perceive, but agree that Paul was blinded and needed their help into Damascus. A painting can show attendants reacting without claiming that they shared Paul's entire vision. Neither biblical account specifies the panel's angel, elaborate armour or exact grouping of men. Those choices belong to the artist's telling of the story.[3][10]
In the context of the story, the crowded arrangement makes the conversion a collision between ordinary travel and an apparition. Men and animal respond in the same pictorial field as Paul, even though their understanding of the event is not identical to his. The viewer sees an external disturbance as well as a personal transformation. The final chapel version uses a more limited cast and a different emotional register.[1]
Christ, Angel, Horse and Paul
In this panel Christ is visibly present, reaching into the scene with an angel. His inclusion gives pictorial form to the divine address. In the later chapel work he disappears as a visible figure; a powerful light and Paul's reaction carry the encounter. The comparison should not be reduced to “more realistic” versus “less realistic.” The first work has its own narrative logic, in which the supernatural is embodied and the human scene is busy.[1]
Paul's fallen position anchors the foreground. The surrounding horse and figures establish the journey interrupted. Colour and movement carry the eye through the panel before it settles on the person whose life is changing. Barberini Corsini notes that the artist used materials rarely found in his usual palette here, including azurite, gold and silver, helping produce the unusually bright surface. These are findings from study of this object, not a licence to assign the same pigments to the chapel canvas.[1]
The two pictures also ask different things of a viewer. The first supplies visible heavenly figures and a crowded human response. The second withholds Christ's form and reduces the number of people. A viewer can recognise the same event without mistaking the earlier panel for an unfinished study. It was an altarpiece made for the Cerasi commission, and its independent history after the commission is part of its object identity.[1]
The pairing of Paul's conversion with Peter's crucifixion had a prominent Roman precedent before Cerasi's commission. Michelangelo painted the two subjects on opposite walls of the Vatican's Pauline Chapel between the 1540s and 1550. The Vatican's account establishes that subject pairing, not a documented instruction for Caravaggio to copy either fresco. It helps explain why the two Cerasi stories belong together even though this surviving first panel and its lost Peter companion no longer form a visible pair. It also makes the difference between a shared programme and a shared composition clear: Caravaggio had to solve the picture for Cerasi's own, narrower setting.[11][1]
What Examination of the Panel Reveals
The support is unusually informative. Barberini Corsini describes seven horizontal cypress planks, joined into a panel with a perimeter band added later. Instead of a customary darker preparation, Caravaggio used a light gray ground applied diagonally to suggest the texture of canvas. This is a specific physical account of the Odescalchi picture and a strong reason to distinguish it from the final oil-on-canvas work.[1]
The planks are more than an unusual material label. The 1600 commission specified cypress supports for both side paintings, so the surviving panel's material agrees with the original contract. A study of the panel notes that joints between boards can make paint vulnerable; it describes how important parts of the composition generally avoid those seams. Its explanation of that arrangement is an interpretation of construction and image together, not proof that every seam was deliberately planned for a figure.[5]
The contract is more precise still: Cerasi supplied the cypress panels, according to Scanu's account of the document. That makes the choice of support a condition of the commission rather than evidence that Caravaggio independently preferred wood for this subject. The Odescalchi panel is also an uncommon surviving example of his painting on wood; the Kunsthistorisches Museum records his Vienna David with the Head of Goliath on poplar, a different timber and object. The comparison clarifies why one cannot describe cypress as the artist's standard support.[5][12]
Infrared reflectography carried out in connection with the 2006 restoration revealed a developing composition. Paul's face changed several times. Christ was initially shown without a beard. The investigation also found differences in weapons, vegetation and decorative details. The Italian version of the museum's account additionally records incisions made with a stylus and brushed drawing. These observations contradict any simple story that Caravaggio placed every element perfectly in a single pass.[1][4]
Technical analysis adds specificity to the colour. The published study reports lead white, cinnabar in prominent reds, several green pigments, and azurite in the small landscape passage. It also describes traces of gold over silver on a decorative detail. These findings help explain why the museum calls this panel unusually bright for Caravaggio; they do not mean that the whole surface was gilded, or that the later chapel canvas contains the same materials. Examination of the cypress picture supports claims about the cypress picture.[1][5]
The decorated shield is a particularly revealing small area. Scanu describes gold laid over silver there and records blackening where the silver oxidised; the observed dark marks are part of the material history of the ornament, not necessarily a black motif Caravaggio painted. Her published cross-section from a soldier's arm shows the gray preparation beneath yellow, red and flesh-coloured layers. Together, a local sample and the X-ray fluorescence survey explain how a bright effect was built. They do not give a layer-by-layer map of the entire panel, and the interpretation of every dark passage still requires attention to ageing and restoration.[5]
The revisions are visible to a technical camera rather than to an ordinary visitor. They show choices during making, not a complete record of motive. A change to Paul's face could sharpen expression, alter likeness or answer some other need; the diagnostic finding does not prove which. The painting technique guide explains how to read grounds, incisions and infrared evidence without turning every hidden line into biography.
The Commission and the Panel's Later Ownership
Cerasi acquired the chapel in July 1600. His contract with Caravaggio followed on 24 September: two paintings, one of Paul's conversion and one of Peter's crucifixion, were to be made on cypress and delivered within eight months for an agreed 400 scudi. Cerasi died in May 1601 before the chapel's final arrangement was complete. A November 1601 payment entry records a settlement by his heirs, while a carpentry payment for installing the chapel paintings belongs to May 1605. These dated steps place the first commission and the later installation in different phases; none says why the first pair gave way to canvases.[5]
The surviving panel then had a life outside Santa Maria del Popolo. Lara Scanu's study traces the first cypress works into Cardinal Giacomo Sannesio's collection and later to Spain. It follows the Conversion through Agostino Airolo and the Balbi family before its passage into the Odescalchi collection. The companion first Crucifixion of Saint Peter is known through later collection records but is now lost. The surviving Conversion therefore supplies physical evidence that the missing companion cannot: its planks, preparation, paint and revisions can all be examined directly.[5]
The University of Genoa's Balbi collection catalogue makes that route more concrete. It traces the panel through two Sannesio generations, then to Juan Alfonso Enríquez de Cabrera, the ninth Admiral of Castile, who brought it to Madrid in 1647. It subsequently passed to Agostino Ayrolo, Francesco Maria Balbi's brother-in-law and business partner. A particularly useful anchor is the English traveller Philip Skippon, who recorded seeing a “St. Paul's Conversion” in Balbi's Genoa home in 1664. The catalogue says the painting stayed in the Balbi palace through later inventories until the collection's mid-twentieth-century division returned it to Rome with the Odescalchi family. This is a reconstructed chain with a named visitor's observation, not a claim that every transfer has its own surviving receipt.[7]
Why the Chapel Has a Different Canvas
The first two works were never installed in the Cerasi Chapel. The institution now responsible for the 2025 comparison says the reasons are still being studied. A widely repeated account calls the first pictures “rejected,” but that one word suggests a settled reason and decision that the current museum record does not establish. The defensible sequence is commission, first panels, non-installation, and new canvases that remain in place.[1]
The debate has identifiable sources. Giovanni Baglione's later biography supplies the traditional account that the first pictures failed to please the patron and went to Sannesio. A recent review of the scholarship notes that other early writers do not independently confirm a formal rejection. Later proposals instead connect the change to Caravaggio's own reconsideration, the developing chapel architecture, or the visual encounter with Annibale Carracci's central Assumption. These are explanations historians test against the works and documents, not clauses in the 1600 contract. The securely visible fact is the switch from the commissioned panels to the installed canvases.[5][6]
The Italian Ministry of Culture made the architectural proposal unusually explicit when it organised the 2006 reunion. Its exhibition announcement suggested testing whether the first composition, conceived for viewing at a distance, worked poorly on the side wall of Maderno's small chapel. It proposed that Caravaggio might have replaced it after seeing the completed space, with the installed canvases potentially dating nearer 1603–04. These were questions the display was meant to examine, not results proved by moving the panel temporarily into the chapel. The only firm installation marker in the surviving sequence remains the 1605 carpentry payment.[5][13]
This uncertainty matters because the panel can otherwise be treated merely as a failed attempt. Its crowded composition, visible Christ and elaborate material surface have their own interest. Its later private ownership also changes what can be promised to a visitor: the Rome paintings guide includes the church canvas but does not list this panel as a regular Palazzo Barberini stop.
There has been one exceptional return to the intended site. The Rijksmuseum Research Library catalogues Rossella Vodret's 2006 exhibition as a comparison of both Conversions in the Cerasi Chapel, held in November of that year after conservation of the panel. The 2025 Barberini comparison instead put the Odescalchi original beside a high-resolution reproduction of the church canvas. These two displays answered different practical questions: the earlier one briefly tested the first painting in the chapel setting, while the later one allowed close comparison without removing the installed picture. Neither exhibition changes which painting has normally occupied the chapel wall.[1][9]
The conservation and the exhibitions also show why access to this painting has been episodic. Valeria Merlini and Daniela Storti record that they restored it inside Palazzo Odescalchi in 2006, under Rossella Vodret's direction, before its short public presentation in Santa Maria del Popolo. Claudio Falcucci carried out the diagnostic investigations associated with that campaign. In 2008 the panel travelled to Palazzo Marino in Milan for a separate public exhibition. The Ministry's transport notice specified a double crate and a glazed display case with controlled humidity and temperature. Those were measures for a particular loan of a large wooden panel, not evidence that the work is continuously on view or a general rule against future loans.[13][14][15]
The final composition is more restricted. Paul lies under an enormous horse; a groom stands at the animal; Christ is not visibly figured. Barberini Corsini calls this later approach more essential in composition and more intense in emotional register. That comparison identifies a genuine transformation in the painted solution without requiring a speculative tale of offence or rejection.[1]
How to Compare the Two Versions
Begin with support: the Odescalchi version is on cypress panel; the chapel version is on canvas. Next compare cast: Christ and an angel are visible in the first, absent as figures in the second. Then compare attention: the first moves the eye among several actors, while the second asks us to stay with Paul beneath the horse and within an unusually compressed field.[1]
Finally consider place. The first was intended for the Cerasi Chapel but did not enter it. The second was made for that chapel and still faces the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. A reproduction of either picture can show content, but only the installed canvas participates in the present three-picture arrangement with Carracci's Assumption.[1][2]
Explore the Caravaggio collection
| Name | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio: The Messina Nativity | 1608–09; precise order relative to Resurrection of Lazarus remains unresolved | Artwork |
| Amor Victorious by Caravaggio | 1601–02 in the Berlin owner record | Artwork |
| Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1598, according to the Uffizi | Artwork |
| Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | after 1597, probably around the turn of the seventeenth century, according to the Ambrosiana | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1594–95 in the National Gallery's current catalogue; URL suffix “1596” is inherited | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: The Florence Version Attributed to Caravaggio | disputed; Longhi's catalogue record preserves historical 1592–93 and other proposed ranges, including c.1597 | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit by Caravaggio: The Royal Collection Painting | about 1592–93 in the owner's current exhibition record | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit in Florence: A Derivation from Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio Paintings in Rome: Churches, Museums and a Practical Route | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio Quotes: What the Documents Actually Record | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio's Lute Player: The Del Monte Painting Once Shown at the Met | about 1596–97 in the Met catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio's Painting Technique: Grounds, Incisions, Revisions and Light | — | Guide |
| Christ at the Column by Caravaggio: The Rouen Flagellation | c.1606 in the owner caption; owner prose gives 1606–07 | Artwork |
| Christ on the Mount of Olives by Caravaggio: The Lost Berlin Painting | — | Artwork |
| Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the Roma Capitale church record | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1603 in the 2019 KHM record; “1607” is an inherited URL suffix | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns in Prato: Attributed to Caravaggio | about 1602–03 in the collection presentation | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | 1606–07 or 1609–10 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue; the later Naples period is favoured by many scholars, while the owner keeps the question open | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Prado Painting | about 1600 in Prado material; “1599” survives only in the legacy URL | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1600–01 in the KHM's 2019 exhibition record; “1607” is a legacy route label | Artwork |
| Did Caravaggio Make Drawings? What Survives and What Paintings Reveal | — | Guide |
| Ecce Homo: Caravaggio's Madrid Rediscovery and the Genoa Painting | — | Artwork |
| John the Baptist in Caravaggio's Paintings: A Guide to the Different Versions | — | Artwork |
| Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio | beginning of the seventeenth century in the owning museum's account; about 1599–1600 in the Kimbell's 2025 loan label; around 1602 in one specialist catalogue | Artwork |
| Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: Caravaggio's Ludovisi Ceiling | about 1597; the archive connects the work with Cardinal del Monte's 1597 commission | Artwork |
| Madonna and Child with Saint Anne by Caravaggio: The Palafrenieri Altarpiece | 1605 in the Galleria Borghese object field; completed and delivered by 8 April 1606 | Artwork |
| Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio: The Pilgrims at Sant'Agostino | broadly c.1604–06; institutional records differ slightly in their starting year | Artwork |
| Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio: The Vienna Altarpiece | around 1603 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's object record | Artwork |
| Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio: The Detroit Painting | about 1598 in the Detroit Institute of Arts record | Artwork |
| Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield | 1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598 | Artwork |
| Narcissus, Attributed to Caravaggio | dependent on attribution; the Zeri catalogue gives a broad 1610–50 range under Spadarino | Artwork |
| Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: Caravaggio's Missing Painting | somewhere in 1600–09 in the parliamentary report; a specific 1609 execution and place remain debated | Artwork |
| Penitent Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio | 1597 in the owner's catalogue, during Caravaggio's early Roman activity | Artwork |
| Portrait of a Courtesan: Caravaggio's Lost Berlin Portrait | Berlin's data field says c.1590, while its own text compares a Caravaggio work of c.1598; precise date unresolved | Artwork |
| Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli? Caravaggio's Pitti Knight of Malta | 1608 in the Restituzioni object heading; within Caravaggio's Malta period | Artwork |
| Portrait of Maffeo Barberini: The Seated Corsini Painting | c.1596–97 in the national catalogue | Artwork |
| Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini: Caravaggio's Newly Acquired Painting | around the late 1590s / age thirty; “1598” in the inherited address is approximate, not an exact document date | Artwork |
| Portrait of Pope Paul V: A Caravaggio Attribution and a Borghese Copy | — | Artwork |
| Prints After Caravaggio: Who Made Them and What They Show | — | Guide |
| Reclining Saint John the Baptist: A Disputed Caravaggio Attribution | often proposed for the artist's final years; the later museum list does not give a precise year. | Artwork |
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Caravaggio | about 1597 in the owner's catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio: The Thyssen Painting | about 1598–99 in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio: The Cremona Painting | 1603–06 in the owner account; c.1605–06 in a KHM exhibition caption | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Prayer: Caravaggio's Carpineto Painting | 1606 in a 2016–17 exhibition work list | Artwork |
| Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio | c.1595–96 in the owner wall text | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome in Meditation: Caravaggio's Montserrat Painting | 1605 in the owner record; an owner publication reports scholarship placing it about 1605–06 | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | c.1606 in the owner catalogue; the “1605” URL suffix is inherited | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Malta Painting | around 1607–08; foundation dates Malaspina's commission to 1608 | Artwork |
| Saint John in the Wilderness at Toledo Cathedral | exact 1598 not established by the cited cathedral account. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at Galleria Corsini, Rome | about 1606 in the national record; older proposals ranged from the late 1590s onward. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Capitoline Museums, Rome | 1602. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Galleria Borghese | 1609–10 in the current Borghese record. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Spring: The Bonello Painting in Malta | early seventeenth century in the institutional account; a precise 1608 is not established there. | Artwork |
| Saint Matthew and the Angel: Caravaggio's Lost First Altarpiece | — | Artwork |
| Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1609–10, likely late Naples period in the Gallery's account | Artwork |
| Salome with the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's Madrid Painting | — | Artwork |
| Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio: The Painting Made in Malta | about 1608, Malta period | Artwork |
| Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge: Is It by Caravaggio? | — | Artwork |
| Supper at Emmaus (1606): Caravaggio's Brera Painting | — | Artwork |
| The Annunciation by Caravaggio in Nancy | c.1607–10 in the collection record; 1608–10 in the museum's restoration account | Artwork |
| The Basel Saint John the Baptist: Once Labelled Caravaggio, Now Maíno | about 1608–10 in that schedule, rather than the legacy URL's 1600. | Artwork |
| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | about 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608 | Artwork |
| The Burial of Saint Lucy by Caravaggio in Syracuse | 1608, during Caravaggio's Syracuse stay | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | about 1599–1600 | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio | about 1602–04 in the Trust's object text | Artwork |
| The Cardsharps by Caravaggio | about 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record | Artwork |
| The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel | commissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Caravaggio | 1606–07 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | about 1601 | Artwork |
| The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio | commissioned 1601; completed late 1605 or early 1606, according to the Louvre | Artwork |
| The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | 1610 | Artwork |
| The Doria Pamphilj Saint John the Baptist: A Second Youth with a Ram | linked compositionally to the Capitoline 1602 picture; an exact production year for this canvas is not established by the owner pages used here. | Artwork |
| The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition | about 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material | Artwork |
| The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio: The Capodimonte Altarpiece | around 1607, in the first Naples period | Artwork |
| The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio: The Louvre Version and Its Roman Counterpart | — | Artwork |
| The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | early 1600s in the Met catalogue; no more exact owner date asserted here | Artwork |
| The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the SPSG presentation | Artwork |
| The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | usually 1602; also catalogued 1602–03, for the installed final altarpiece | Artwork |
| The Lute Player by Caravaggio: The Hermitage Painting | about 1596 in the Hermitage collection publication; the Hermitage Friends restoration page gives about 1595–96 | Artwork |
| The Magdalen in Ecstasy: Caravaggio, Copies and a Disputed Original | — | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | 1599–1600; unveiled with The Calling in 1600 | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| The Musicians by Caravaggio | 1597 | Artwork |
| The Resurrection of Lazarus by Caravaggio in Messina | 1609; delivered 10 June 1609 in the owner account | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi: A Former Caravaggio Attribution | about 1615–17 in the Nicholas Hall catalogue; “1598” is an inherited URL label, not the accepted date | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1603 in the Uffizi catalogue | Artwork |
| The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio | 1606–07, according to the Pio Monte | Artwork |
| The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio: The London Painting | 1601 | Artwork |
| The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio | 1602 | Artwork |
| The Toulouse *Judith Beheading Holofernes*: A Caravaggio Attribution Debate | c.1606–07 if identified with the recorded Naples work; that identification is debated | Artwork |
| Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Youth with a Ram: Why Caravaggio's Saint John Looks So Unusual | — | Artwork |
No matching pages found.
Discussion
Share a close observation about The Conversion of Saint Paul or a source that clarifies its history.
Which detail changes your reading?
Is there a collection record or document worth comparing?
What remains uncertain?
Join the Conversation
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Caravaggio's first Conversion of Saint Paul?
It belongs to Nicoletta Odescalchi in a private collection. Palazzo Barberini displayed it temporarily from July to September 2025; that exhibition does not establish current public access.[1]
Is this the painting in Santa Maria del Popolo?
Why are Christ and an angel visible here but not in the final version?
Caravaggio used two different pictorial solutions for the conversion. The Odescalchi panel represents the divine presence with figures; the final canvas concentrates the event through Paul, horse, groom and light. The museum confirms the compositional difference without assigning a single certain motive.[1]
Was the first version rejected?
The first pair of pictures was not installed. Barberini Corsini says why remains under study. “Rejected” should not be used as a settled explanation.[1]
References
- Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Conversion of Saul, 2025 exhibition and technical account.
- Roma Capitale, Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo and the Cerasi commission.
- The Holy See, New American Bible, Acts of the Apostles 9.
- Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Italian technical account of La conversione di Saulo.
- Lara Scanu, “Caravaggio: la tecnica pittorica degli anni romani,” Bollettino Telematico dell'Arte, 2015.
- Giorgia Duò, “Il rosso e il ‘rumore’: alcune questioni sul Caravaggio maturo,” Bollettino Telematico dell'Arte, 2025.
- University of Genoa, Palazzo Balbi Senarega digital collection record for Caravaggio's Conversione di San Paolo.
- The Holy See, New American Bible, Acts of the Apostles 26.
- Rijksmuseum Research Library, record for Rossella Vodret's Il Caravaggio Odescalchi exhibition catalogue, Cerasi Chapel, November 2006.
- The Holy See, New American Bible, Acts of the Apostles 22.
- The Holy See, history and restoration of Michelangelo's Pauline Chapel.
- Kunsthistorisches Museum, Caravaggio and Bernini exhibition account of the Vienna David.
- Italian Ministry of Culture, 2006 announcement of the Cerasi Chapel comparison.
- Merlini Storti Restauri, record of the 2006 Odescalchi panel restoration.
- Italian Ministry of Culture, 2008 Palazzo Marino loan and conservation measures.
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:The Conversion of Saint Paul-Caravaggio (c. 1600-1).jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
