From 8 March to 12 June 2022, the Prado Museum is hosting an exhibition in which all of the fragments that are preserved of the impressive mural painting that Juan Henríquez de Herrera commissioned to Annibale Carracci for the al fresco decoration of his family’s chapel in the  church of Santiago of the Spanish in Rome (Italy) have been brought together.

With the collaboration of the Catalonia National Museum of Art, the exhibition is rounded off with the altar painting of the church of Santa Maria de Monserrato in Rome, also painted by Carracci with the intervention of his collaborators, and a selection of drawings, prints and books related to the Herrera Chapel project.

Annibale Carracci (Bologna, 1560 – Rome, 1609) was a Baroque painter and printer who belonged to the Roman-Bolognese classicism movement. He is considered to be the great rival of Caravaggio, as he had the opposite paintings to those painted by the artist from Milan. In 1604, he began painting the frescos that the Spanish nobleman, Henríquez de Herrera, commissioned to him.

However, he got ill while he was working on it, suffering paralysis of an arm. The work had to be completed by his collaborators, who included Giovanni Lanfranco, Sisto Badalocchio and Francesco Albani. Carracci died shortly afterwards in Rome in 1609.

In the mid-19^th century, the church was sold, so the frescos were uprooted and transferred to canvas. Now, they are divided between the Catalonia National Museum of Art in Barcelona and the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Image Credit:

San Diego de Alcalá receiving a handout, al fresco painting on mural cladding transferred onto canvas, 126 x 223.5 cm, 1604 - 1607 [P002798]