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 Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio
Three men struggle to raise a cross. The elderly man fixed to it is Saint Peter, turned upside down according to the tradition that he did not consider himself worthy to die in the same position as Christ. Caravaggio paints the instant before the cross stands upright: the martyrdom is a matter of weight, leverage and human effort as well as faith.[1][2]
The canvas remains in the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. It faces Caravaggio's final Conversion on the Way to Damascus, with Annibale Carracci's Assumption of the Virgin between them at the altar. Seeing the three works together reveals why the cramped foreground and diagonally rising cross matter.[1][3]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitleThe Crucifixion of Saint Peter
- Dateabout 1601[1][2]
- Mediumoil on canvas[1][2]
- Dimensionsapproximately 240 × 190 cm in Italy's national cultural-property catalogue[11]
- LocationCerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome[1]
- CommissionTiberio Cerasi commissioned two Caravaggio pictures in September 1600[1]
- Companionthe final Conversion of Saint Paul across the chapel[1]
Contents
- What Moment Does the Picture Show?
- Where Does the Inverted Crucifixion Story Come From?
- Peter and the Upside-Down Cross
- The Three Workers
- How the Composition Meets the Viewer
- The Chapel and Its Paired Painting
- First Versions and Uncertain Claims
- A Contemporary Roman Crucifixion by Guido Reni
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Crucifixion of Saint Peter
Caravaggio places Peter and the men raising his cross close to the picture plane. These details show the force and awkward labour of the inversion.
123Details from The Crucifixion of Saint Peter
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
Peter’s turned body
Peter twists across the diagonal cross, his face turning back while his arm reaches into the dark right edge.
The man at the ropes
At the top, a worker braces his weight and pulls against the ropes attached to the cross.
The lower labourer
The crouching man shoulders the timber near the ground; his bent back anchors the otherwise unstable diagonal.
What Moment Does the Picture Show?
Peter is already attached to the wooden cross. The three men around him are in the middle of lifting it, not lowering it after his death. One works beneath the beam, another bears or guides the timber, and a third braces himself to move the heavy structure. The diagonal through the picture catches the process while it is incomplete. The viewer can feel that this arrangement of bodies and wood might shift in the next instant.[2]
Traditional accounts of Peter's death say that he requested inversion because he did not feel worthy of the same form of crucifixion as Jesus. The painting makes that distinction unmistakable. Peter's head is lower than his feet; his body crosses the picture on a rising diagonal. The tradition explains the unusual position, while the painted action gives it physical consequence.[2][4]
The painting is not a diagram of Roman execution. It selects a close moment and a few bodies. There is no crowd, city panorama or visible heavenly witness. Caravaggio asks the viewer to look at the older man's exposed body and the workers' exertion. The bare facts of the scene carry the narrative without a large collection of attributes.
Where Does the Inverted Crucifixion Story Come From?
The New Testament does not describe Peter's execution in this detail. An early account is preserved by the fourth-century historian Eusebius, who says that Peter was crucified head down in Rome at his own request and attributes that report to the earlier writer Origen. A separate, non-canonical account, the Acts of Peter and Paul, gives the familiar explanation that Peter did not consider himself worthy to die upright like Christ. These are sources for the later Christian tradition, not eyewitness records of the event.[7][8]
Caravaggio's subject depends on that tradition: without it, an upside-down cross might look like an arbitrary or merely sensational invention. Yet the painting does not illustrate Peter making his request or supply a written reason for it. It shows what the request means for an aging body being lifted into position. The visual claim is immediate; the textual history requires a separate explanation.[2][7][8]
The practical detail of how Peter was fixed to the cross was also discussed in Caravaggio's own period. Stefano Pierguidi points to Justus Lipsius's De Cruce, first published in the 1590s, which reviewed ancient testimony about crucifixion and concluded that Peter was fastened with nails. Caravaggio shows the saint already attached while the cross is still being raised; Guido Reni would later show him being hauled towards an upright cross, before the nailing. These paintings take different positions on the sequence of a traditional event. Lipsius's treatise establishes a contemporary scholarly debate, not proof that either painter consulted his book or that its reconstruction describes the actual first-century execution.[14]
Peter and the Upside-Down Cross
Peter is neither a weightless emblem nor an idealised athlete. His age appears in his face, torso and limbs; his body twists as the men manoeuvre the cross. The light holds him in view against the dark field, but it also illuminates the practical parts of the execution. The nailing and lifting remain distressingly concrete. Smarthistory's discussion calls attention to gravity and to Peter's bodily proximity to the viewer.[2]
His body is also active. His eyes and head turn rather than disappearing into anonymous suffering. The painting does not depict a triumphant upward gaze or a vision of heaven. It lets a viewer read resolve and vulnerability together in an older man who cannot control the movement of the timber carrying him. That is an interpretation of the painted expression, not a documented psychological statement by Peter.
The cross itself is a diagonal that binds the figures. It determines where the workers stand and how they must move. It also cuts across the tall canvas so that the saint is seen as someone being moved through real space. From the chapel, the lower part of this activity presses near the spectator. The event seems to occupy the narrow space in front of the painted wall.[2][3]
The Three Workers
The workers are essential to the subject. A man bends under the beam, using his back and legs for leverage. Another reaches for the cross, and the third takes his part in the lift. They are not arranged as a ceremonial procession. Their ordinary clothes and soiled feet make their labour visible. Smarthistory notes how close a worker's back and feet come to the viewer's space.[2]
Caravaggio avoids giving them distinct portraits or elaborate expressions. That choice keeps the focus on what they do. Their effort is strenuous even though they are carrying out a cruel task. The painting does not need to turn every worker into a caricature of evil to make the act appalling. The execution has a mundane, practical mechanism. This is part of its force.
The work of raising the cross also creates a visual delay. Peter's fate is known, but the apparatus is not yet vertical. As a viewer follows hands, backs, feet and rope or timber, time seems to stretch. The decisive religious story becomes a sequence of bodily movements rather than a finished symbol of martyrdom.
How the Composition Meets the Viewer
Dark surroundings remove the cues of a broad outdoor setting. Strong light picks out Peter and portions of the labourers. What matters is close and tactile: flesh, cloth, wood and dirt. The saint's feet and the lower end of the cross come toward the picture plane, making the spectator feel unusually close to an event from sacred history.[2]
This is selective illumination, not proof of a particular studio lighting device. The painting technique guide explains what physical examination can and cannot tell us about grounds, incisions and paint layers. In this canvas, the visible contrast concentrates attention and makes the cross's movement easy to read from the chapel.
The composition can be compared with the Crucifixion of Saint Andrew in Cleveland. Andrew is bound to an upright cross and a man attempts to release him. Peter's cross is inverted and the workers raise it. The two subjects share a martyr and a cross but depict opposite kinds of action; exchanging their details would erase what is most specific about each picture.[5]
The Chapel and Its Paired Painting
Tiberio Cerasi commissioned the pair in September 1600 for his family chapel. The final canvases still face one another there, and Carracci's Assumption occupies the altar. On the side walls, one apostle meets death and another receives a call that changes his life. The themes of Peter and Paul were particularly apt in Rome, where both were foundational saints.[1][3]
Italy's national cultural-property catalogue locates this particular Crucifixion on the left wall of the Cerasi Chapel and gives its present canvas an approximate size of 240 × 190 cm. The record dates Cerasi's commission to 24 September 1600, says delivery was envisaged within eight months, and notes settlement on 10 November 1601 after a 100-scudi reduction. The original contract called for panels, while the installed picture is oil on canvas; the catalogue's summary of payment and dimensions should therefore be read alongside the separate question of when the substituted canvas was made and hung.[9][11]
The paired themes had a prominent Roman precedent. Michelangelo painted the Conversion of Saint Paul and Crucifixion of Saint Peter on facing walls of the Vatican's Pauline Chapel. The Vatican's own chapel account confirms that arrangement. It offers a useful comparison of two Roman programmes devoted to the apostles, but it is not evidence that Cerasi prescribed Michelangelo's compositions or that Caravaggio copied a specific pose from them.[12]
The physical pairing changes the reading. In Peter, several men exert themselves around a suffering body. In the final Paul, one fallen man lies beneath a large horse and receives a light that the painting does not embody as Christ. One scene is publicly violent; the other is inward despite the animal and groom. Both make a spiritual turning point visible through a human body close to us.[2][6]
The narrow chapel means the paintings are not seen as neutral, front-facing museum canvases. Each is approached at an angle and in relation to the altar. Details near the viewer's edge and large forms matter to this setting. A reproduction can show the figures, but it cannot fully reproduce the distance between opposite walls or the turn from one apostle to the other.[3]
The chapel was itself unfinished when Cerasi died in May 1601. His final instructions asked the heirs to complete it to Carlo Maderno's design. A November 1601 payment to Caravaggio records two pictures but does not say whether they were the first panels or the canvases now installed. The pictures remained in his studio pending placement; a carpenter was paid to install works in spring 1605, and the chapel was consecrated in November 1606. Thus “about 1601” is the conventional date for the present canvas, not a date proved by its installation record. Rossella Vodret has proposed a later execution during the chapel's completion, while leaving that proposal open.[1][9]
There is a piece of evidence between payment and installation. Pierguidi cites a mocking poem dated before November 1604 that he reads as referring critically to the Cerasi Crucifixion, particularly its enveloping darkness. If the reference is correctly identified, some version of the painting was known and discussed before the carpenter's 1605 entry. The poem does not record an installation date or identify the support, and it does not by itself settle whether the present canvas was already on the wall. It does narrow the question more than the payment and carpentry entries alone.[14]
First Versions and Uncertain Claims
The Cerasi commission has a complicated early history. The Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini report that Caravaggio made two initial panels for the chapel, neither of which was installed, and then made the two canvases still there. The first Conversion of Saint Paul survives in the Odescalchi collection. The reasons the first works were not placed in the chapel remain under study.[6]
That is more precise than saying the present Crucifixion of Saint Peter was simply “rejected” and repainted for a known offence. The record of an initial pair does not settle every question about their reception. The page concerns the installed canvas: it is the picture a visitor sees on the side wall today. Its subject and location should not be confused with the first version's unresolved history.[1][6]
The first Peter panel has not survived in an agreed identification. We can compare two authentic Conversions directly, but cannot make the equivalent side-by-side comparison for Peter. Giovanni Baglione wrote in 1642 that the initial pair failed to please the patron and was taken by Cardinal Sannesio. Vodret points out that other seventeenth-century accounts do not repeat this explanation; even which patron Baglione meant is unclear after Cerasi's death and the hospital's assumption of the commission. His report is part of the evidence, but the specific reason for replacing the Peter panel remains unknown.[6][9]
A large Crucifixion of Saint Peter in the State Hermitage has sometimes been drawn into the search for that missing first design. Its present identity must not be substituted for the lost panel. In a 2022 specialist study, Anne Delvingt attributes the Hermitage painting to Gerard Seghers and dates it to about 1620–21. She argues that it responds to Michelangelo's Pauline Chapel fresco, perhaps through knowledge of Caravaggio's lost Cerasi version. That possible intermediary is a hypothesis about influence; it does not turn the Hermitage canvas into Caravaggio's first Peter, or give a secure image of the lost panel.[16][12]
A Contemporary Roman Crucifixion by Guido Reni
The Vatican Museums identify Guido Reni's Crucifixion of Saint Peter, painted in 1604–05 for San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, as an early Roman response to Caravaggio's treatment of the same subject. Reni's painting is now in the Vatican Pinacoteca. The museum sees Caravaggio's influence in it while noting its less intense drama. The pictures deserve comparison as different solutions to the same narrative, rather than one being treated as a dimmer or brighter version of the other.[10]
Daniel M. Unger's 2025 study makes the distinction concrete. In Caravaggio, Peter is already fastened to the cross and the workers lift cross and saint together. In Reni, the cross stands upright while the men lift Peter towards it; the impending nailing is part of the tension. Caravaggio makes an unwieldy piece of wood move through the composition, whereas Reni keeps the timber as a vertical anchor. Unger also notes that Reni's canvas was a stand-alone altarpiece, while Caravaggio's belongs to a chapel ensemble with the paired Conversion and Carracci's Assumption. These differences help explain the meaning of the workers' gestures in each picture.[13]
The chronology limits any claim of direct copying. Unger reports payments to Reni on 27 November 1604 and 31 August 1605; the Cerasi Chapel carpenter received an advance for installing Caravaggio's two pictures on 1 May 1605. These records make it uncertain whether Reni saw the installed final Peter before he developed his own painting. Unger proposes that the public Caravaggio pictures in the Contarelli Chapel could instead have supplied Reni with gestures and a style of close dramatic action. That is an argued visual connection, not an entry in Reni's diary.[9][13]
A story printed much later, in 1678, has Caravaggio angrily accusing Reni of stealing his manner. Unger examines it as an account of artistic rivalry shaped by the writer Carlo Cesare Malvasia, not as a contemporary record of an encounter. The early reputation of Caravaggio's method and the formal comparison between the two Crucifixions are evidence one can discuss; the reported threat cannot establish that Reni saw this exact Cerasi canvas or that Caravaggio reacted to his finished work.[13]
Pierguidi reaches a somewhat different reading of the early chronology from Unger's. He thinks the 1605 carpenter's payment may record a later adjustment to paintings already in place, and that Reni probably knew Caravaggio's final Cerasi picture. His argument draws on the poem's apparent pre-1604 reference and the conventional early dating of the canvases. Neither interpretation is a dated record of Reni entering the chapel. The documents leave direct viewing open, while the paintings themselves establish a clear difference between lifting a cross with Peter fixed to it and lifting Peter towards a standing cross.[14][13]
The installed picture certainly became available for close study by the next generation. An RKD study identifies a signed and dated 1616 drawing after Caravaggio's Peter by the Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst, now in Oslo's Nasjonalmuseet. It is a drawing after the Cerasi painting, not a preparatory sheet by Caravaggio and not an image of the lost first panel. Its date documents a later artist's attention to the public work without resolving exactly when Reni saw it a decade earlier.[15]
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 Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio 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 Crucifixion of Saint Peter?
It remains in the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, opposite Caravaggio's final Conversion of Saint Paul.[1]
Why is Peter upside down?
Are the three men lowering the cross?
No. The action is the effort to raise the cross while Peter is attached to it. The workers' braced bodies and the diagonal position of the timber make that movement central to the image.[2]
Is this the same painting as Cleveland's Crucifixion of Saint Andrew?
Was the chapel version rejected?
The present canvas is the installed work. An earlier pair of panels was not installed, but the reasons remain under study according to the Barberini Corsini galleries. A simple rejection story goes beyond that evidence.[6]
References
- Roma Capitale, Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo.
- Smarthistory, Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, “Caravaggio, Crucifixion of St. Peter”.
- Smarthistory, “Baroque art, an introduction,” view of the Cerasi Chapel.
- National Gallery, London, Annibale Carracci's Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way and the Peter tradition.
- Cleveland Museum of Art, The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew.
- Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Conversion of Saul and the Cerasi versions.
- Eusebius, Church History, Book III, chapter 1, preserving Origen's account.
- The Acts of Peter and Paul, account of Peter's request.
- Rossella Vodret, “Le due versioni della Conversione di San Paolo a confronto,” documentary chronology of the Cerasi Chapel.
- Vatican Museums, Guido Reni, Crucifixion of Saint Peter.
- Italian national cultural-property catalogue, Caravaggio, Crocifissione di san Pietro, record 1200182974.
- Vatican, Pauline Chapel account, Michelangelo's facing Conversion of Saint Paul and Crucifixion of Saint Peter.
- Daniel M. Unger, “Rivalry on the Roman Scene: Guido Reni's Brushes versus Caravaggio's Fists,” Il capitale culturale 31 (2025), pp. 147–168.
- Stefano Pierguidi, “La Crocifissione di san Pietro di Guido Reni: stile, iconografia e fortuna,” Intrecci d'arte 11 (2022), pp. 53–75.
- RKD Studies, Gerard van Honthorst's signed 1616 drawing after Caravaggio's Crucifixion of Saint Peter.
- Anne Delvingt, “The crucifixion of St Peter: Gerard Seghers, Michelangelo and Caravaggio,” Burlington Magazine 164 (2022), pp. 145–154, indexed abstract.
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:Crucifixion of Saint Peter-Caravaggio (c.1600)FXD.jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
