Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Crocifissione di San Pietro

In the last years of the sixteenth century, Caravaggio boasted famous patrons: the Doria, the Giustiniani, and among collectors, enthusiastic connoisseurs of the novelties of his painting, was also Giambattista Marino. Having abandoned the small symbolic canvases, he was now engaging in the sacred altarpiece: and from this period are the beautiful works such as Rest on the Flight into Egypt and the sublime The Calling of Saint Matthew. Caravaggio's style applies a successful combination of realism and religious sentiment.

With the commission by Monsignor Cerasi of the two paintings, the Crucifixion of Saint Peter and the Conversion of Saint Paul, Caravaggio was officially recognized in 1600 as "egregius in urbe pictor". The experimental phase of his research continues in the definition of new structural schemes and in the deepening of history painting.

In the Crucifixion of Saint Peter, the sacred event depicted as a humble life event is reduced to the essentials: there are only the martyr and the three executioners (who here, however, appear more like simple workers than sadistic executioners), laborers diligently lifting the cross to which Peter has been nailed; although the strain is not visible on their faces, Caravaggio makes the effort of the three "palpable." In this canvas too, the character of "committed" religiosity goes hand in hand with the evocation of the historical event in a modest and popular atmosphere. This painting reveals a new stylistic mastery, based on a complex structure set on multiple intersecting diagonals (formed by the cross and the back of the executioner): already, the continuation of the compositional axes, the diagonals, assigns a modern boundless reach beyond the canvas's limit and eliminates the perspective illusionism so dear to the Renaissance. Conceiving a similar technique is possible only for the genius of Caravaggio. Moreover, once again, the painter dedicates a meticulous attention to details, essential for rendering the painting realistic: one can note, for example, the black foot of the executioner lifting the cross with his back, or the grains of the wood.

With the first monumental works, the transition from the early luminous and clear Roman style to the new manner of the "tenebroso" (another typical trait of the Bergamasque painter) is perfectly observed. In this canvas, the strongly plastic group still sees a radial light movement that exerts a constructive action on bodies protruding from the dark background. However, the light, in the Crucifixion of Saint Peter, while conferring three-dimensionality to the figures, despite making them concrete, does not deepen the space because here the shadow (and even more in later works) is a negative element opposing the light; the forms then emerge from the darkness, from the impenetrable dark support. The religious allegory of the painting also emerges, namely the message directed at man to abandon the "darkness" of sin and remain in the light-filled zone of virtues leading to divine salvation. However, I venture to propose my theory: that this "good-natured" and "moralistic" message is not an expression of Caravaggio's nature and will, but rather seeks to satisfy his patrons (mostly belonging to the clergy).

Additionally, the one depicted is the second version of the work. The first was rejected for being considered too realistic. Unfortunately, it has never been found, making it difficult to imagine how it could have been even more realistic compared to this splendid and legendary second version.