A rarely seen Caravaggio masterpiece, *Boy Bitten by a Lizard* (1593–94), is traveling to the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, for a new exhibition titled “In Caravaggio’s Light: Baroque Masterpieces from the Fondazione Roberto Longhi.” The show features 40 paintings by Caravaggio and his followers, the Caravaggisti, drawn from the collection of the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence. The last time this painting was in the U.S. was in 2012 at the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Longhi collection has never before had a dedicated exhibition in America.
The exhibition matters because it offers American audiences a rare opportunity to see a pivotal Caravaggio work without traveling to Europe, and it highlights the crucial role of art historian Roberto Longhi in reviving Caravaggio’s reputation after centuries of neglect. By bringing together masterpieces from Longhi’s personal collection—which he built alongside his wife Anna Banti—the show underscores how scholarly passion and collecting can reshape art history. It also demonstrates the enduring power of Caravaggio’s dramatic realism and chiaroscuro to captivate contemporary viewers.