Page 86 - Travel + Leisure India & South Asia (January 2020)

R OYA LT Y about her role as a prostitute who is reformed by
Jesus although some historical accounts dispute that

story). The magnificent painting has Caravaggio’s
assurance of power concentrated in a single stroke,
and is remarkable–as the rogue Italian painter is
feted–for its use of light. Joining this landmark work
at the Doria Pamphilj Gallery are hundreds of classic
works such as Titan’s Judith, Velázquez’s Portrait
of Innocent X, and Raphael’s Double Portrait.

I first saw the Caravaggio painting 10 years ago,
when I lived in Rome. The painting moved me;
the power of transformation through reflection,

and prayer, was a private unassailable truth. As
I had turned a corner in this exquisite hallway, I
heard music—a concert in one of the rooms. But
I did not track the source of the music, the exact
chamber from which violin notes echoed. As I
stood beside a white marble bust, I was caught in
the enchantment of the evening: all these great
works in a raiment of music, form, and vibration
holding hands at dusk. By then I had spent a few
months in Rome, and bored of its indolent pace,

Penitent Magdalene,
circa 1595, from the
collection at Palazzo
Doria Pamphilj.

An oil on canvas
portrait of Pope
Innocent X, by the
Spanish painter Diego
Velázquez, at the Doria
Pamphilj Gallery.

Prince Jonathan Doria
Pamphilj with the
writer, Siddharth
Dhanvant Shanghvi.

the tedious parties in Parioli, egoistic FROM TOP: HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; PETER BARRITT/ALAMY; COURTESY OF SIDDHARTH DHANVANT SHANGHVI
outbursts among Monti’s rich, the left-
leaning intellectuals whose mainstay
was arguing at bars in Trastevere.
Proust, at the end of his life, excited
himself in Parisian bordellos, where he
watched bandicoots fight and bleed to

death. I understood his impulse when
I had lived on Via Giulia; unremitting
boredom overcomes you when

everything around you is flawless.

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