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Triumph and Drama in Rome and the Vatican

October 18, 20262026 Camino Caravaggio - Malta, Sicily, Napoli, Roma, Ireland, UncategorizedCaravaggio, RomeAnne Li

As we walk out each day during our 8 days in Rome, we encounter rain and sun, chilliness and heat. We walk through the ancient Forum, remnants of empire, and skirt the construction site of expansion of Rome’s modern Metro system, Linea C.

While in Rome we learn, with the world, that Pope Leo will undergo lung surgery and we pray for his recovery.

The Vatican Museums and St Peter’s Basilica are together probably the most visited place in the world. This is our fifth or sixth visit to Rome, and these sites are more crowded than ever by orders of magnitude. Arguably the visitation levels are unsustainable and they are definitely unbearable.

Rafael and tapestries at Vatican Museums

It is at the Vatican Museums that we suffer our first, and most severe, disappointment of the Camino Caravaggio.

The single Caravaggio in the Vatican collection, The Entombmemt of Christ (1594), is not on display! The guard who gave me this news clearly saw the disappointment on my face. The work is undergoing restoration for an unknown period of time. By the way, there is no indication on the musIum website or anywhere on the internet that I can find of this absence.

Visiting the Vatican’s (often closed) Egyptian collection and the Sistine Chapel was some consolation, along with the thought that we’ll have to retum to Rome on another occasion…

Glimpses of the Vatican’s extensive Egyptian collection

There remain only three more Camino Caravaggio stops to be made in Rome: Palazzo Barberini, Santa Maria del Popolo and the ultimate collector’s dream, Galleria Borghese.

Palazzo Barberini was (yet another) Cardinal’s home, later acquired by the Italian state to become the National Gallery of Ancient Art

**Judith Beheading Holofernes** (1598-9). The artist uses one of his favorite models. The older woman-onlooker is a frequent theme underscoring with her business-as-usual implacability the drama and horror of the scene.

**Saint Francis in Prayer** (1606) is a powerful reminder to Ed and Anne of our walking of the Camino San Francesco in 2016 through the Appenines to many of Francis’ favorite places.

**John the Baptist** portrays an older John than the two seen earlier (Capitoline and Dora Pamphilj) and to be compared to the one to be seen at the Borghese. This John is post- pubescent and brooding.

**Monsignor Maffeo Barberini (later, Pope Urban VIII)** (1598)

Just this year, in March 2026, the Italian state acquired the Barberini portrait from a private collection in Florence. The price, almost $35 million, was the most ever paid by Italy for an artwork. The timing was excellent for us to be able to see one of the relatively few portraits, of which only three survive, painted by Caravaggio (perhaps this is another consolation for missing the Entombment)?

**David with the Head of Goliath** (1609-10), believed to have been painted by the artist as a gift to Cardinal Borghese for help securing a papal pardon for a murder charge.

At the church of Santa Maria del Popolo can be found two powerful paintings.

**Conversion of Saint Paul** (1601) at Santa Maria del Popolo

Paul is knocked off his horse and blinded by a brilliant light. Although his eyes are closed, he sees his Savior for the first time.

**Crucifixion of Saint Peter** (1601) is installed opposite the **Paul** in the Cerasi Chapel.

Millions of pilgrims to Rome arrive from the north through the Porta Flaminia into the Piazza del Popolo. They visit Santa Maria del Popolo as their first visit in Rome and are greeted by Paul and Peter.

Our Camino capstone is a visit to the Galleria Borghese, party house and collector’s showcase of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633), set in an extensive park in the north part of the city. This is home to six Carravaggios (but we only see five). This is the largest number in a single collection anywhere in the world.

**Boy with a Basket of Fruit** (1593-4), an early work

**Saint John the Baptist** (1604) John is no longer carefree and laughing

**Madonna and Child with Saint Anne** (1605-6) commissioned for an altar in St Peter’s but deemed inappropriate for showing too much cleavage

Six Caravaggios usually adorn a single room at the Borghese. It’s a poorly lighted room and **Boy with Basket** is disappointingly mounted behind glass.

This visit, Young Sick Bacchus (1593) is on loan to an exhibit in London and Genoa. As with Entombment unviewable at the Vatican Museums, there is no indication that Young Sick Bacchus is not on view.

On this Camino Caravaggio, we set out to visit 30 of the 65 extant Caravaggios in the world. Only 28 were available to see (although we had seen Young Sick Bacchus during our previous visit to the Borghese a few years ago). We were fascinated and amazed by the observations and time we spent with these brilliant works. The focus and perspective of our Caravaggio concentration provided an excitement and motivation that enhanced every aspect of our travels, including numerous bus, train and air trips and many thousands of steps.

Now that we are back in the US we will continue to contemplate Caravaggio and the insights we have gained about his art and his illustrations of a passionate faith.

Thanks to you, our readers, for accompanying us on Camino Caravaggio. Since we have viewed only 29 of the 65 extant Caravaggios, perhaps it is the first in a series of such journeys?

Rome: Caravaggio to the Max

October 17, 2026UncategorizedCaravaggio, RomeAnne Li

It’s a good thing that Ed scheduled 8 days in Rome for us at the end of our Camino Caravaggio. Not only is it among our favorite cities in the world, but in her can be found the largest number of Carravaggios open to public view: 20 paintings in 8 venues. We walk to most of our destinations. Walking in Rome is full of excitement and challenge, rewarding each step with unparalleled sights and the pleasure of surviving to reach the goal!

Galleria Borghese, thanks to its voracious owner/collector, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew to Pope Paul V, has 6 Caravaggios. Other state and private galleries in Rome each have one to three. Three churches still display works that were created for them 400 years ago, in their original locations.

From the Borghese’s front balcony, looking out over its gardens

We save the Borghese for our last Saturday because we visited it two years ago. It was that visit that first ignited our interest in Caravaggio. Our first investigation this time will be Galleria Doria Pamphilj and its masterpieces of stunning beauty.

On left, **Penitent Mary** **Magdalene** (1597); center, **Rest on the Flight to Egypt** (1597); far right, a **John the Baptist** (1602), of possible attribution to Caravaggio

**Rest on the Way to Egypt** is unusually and vertically divided in two by the dark, folded wing of the musical angel. Exhausted from the journey and the worry, Mary rests with the Child on the right side.

On the left side, Joseph holds the musical score for the violin-playing angel

**Penitent Mary Magdalene** uses the same model as Mary in the previous painting

The jewels discarded by the Magdalene are artefacts of her prior, worldly preoccupations. The flask of precious unguent refers to the anointing of Jesus’ feet carried out by an (unnamed) woman, conflated with the Magdalene. Caravaggio’s talent for still life is shown, which matches his remarkable genius for depicting people, emotion and complex content.

This delightful, youthful John the Baptist, a repeated theme of Caravaggio’s, is labeled by the Gallerie Dora Pamphilij as “attributed to Caravaggio” so it’s not universally accepted as his work.

Three masterpieces on one wall behind us

One of Anne’s favorite Roman scuptures, the elephant can be found near the Galleria Dora Pamphilj and the Pantheon

Our next stop is the Capitoline Museum. We climbed the Campodoglio on a rainy afternoon, our first rain of the trip and a presage of autumn

An early painting, **The Gypsy Fortuneteller** (1595) is a tour-de-force of story telling and personality.

The clever and vivacious young woman steals the young fop’s ring while pretending to read his palm.

**John the Baptist** (1602). Compare this to the Dora Pamphilij’s on the previous stop.

After two (2) tries when we found two churches locked tight although expected to be open, we struck gold on our third attempt.

In the church of San Agostino (Saint Augustine), near the Pantheon, the touching picture, **Madonna of the Pilgrims** or **Madonna** **of Loreto** (1604-6). Humble and ordinary, a couple have trudged many miles in pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loreto, believed in the Middle Ages to be Jesus’ childhood home miraculously transported from the Holy Land to Italy. They are rewarded with the presence of Mary and Child, themselves.

As pilgrims who walked the Camino de Santiago de Campostela and several other Caminos, Ed and Anne respond viscerally to the sight of the walking sticks of the pilgrims (sticks are essential) and their dirty and battered feet.

On the third try, too, we were able to enter the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, the French national church in the next piazza to San Agostino. San Luigi is home to three masterpieces.

**Thr Calling of Saint Matthew** (1599-1600) was reputedly Pope Francis’ favorite painting. Jesus, in a simple red robe on the right, accompanied by Saint Peter in a brown robe, raises his arm to point at Matthew. He is summoning Matthew to “Follow me.”

Jesus and Peter (who was the first to be called as an Apostle)

Matthew, a tax collecter, that is, a venal man working for the hated Roman oppressors, points to his own chest, as if to say, “Who, me? You want me?” Under the table we can see that Matthew is already tensing his legs to stand and go with Jesus

Sharing the three walls of the compact Contarelli Chapel with the **Calling** are **Saint Matthew and the Angel** (1602) and **The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew** (1599-1600)

Saint Matthew is receiving divine dictation from an angel in order to write the Gospel named for him. The Angel is counting “One” on his fingers, as if to say, “Chapter One, Verse One…”

The **Martyrdom of Saint Matthew** centers on the Apostle who had been struck down by an assassin wearing only a loincloth. The killing apparently takes place while Matthew is baptizing some of his many converts. Onlookers flee in horror, among them, the artist.

Today we can only view the two side paintings from a cramped angle, as you see behind us.

Self-portrait of the artist witnessing but fleeing the scene of Matthew’s martyrdom (apologies for reflection)

Both churches, San Agostino and San Luigi, were the precise locations for which the four paintings were commissioned, created and installed 400 years ago. We feel that trying three times to get inside has been well rewarded!

In the next post we will continue to reap the rich harvest of Carravaggio in Rome.

Caravaggio on the Mainland of Italy

October 12, 2026UncategorizedCaravaggio, NapoliAnne Li

In the last post we promised to tell you why our crossing of the Straits of Messina from Sicily to the mainland of Italy was so exciting. As a master of fact, everyone who travels this route by train gets a treat: the entire train, carriages and passengers, is shunted into a giant ferry boat and taken on a five mile-long cruise.

Inside the train, the monitor shows a black “X” where the tracks end on the Sicily side of the Straits of Messina

Once our train carriage is driven on board the ferry, passengers are allowed to exit their trail car and climb up on deck to enjoy the sea crossing in the fresh air.

We had a sunny day with calm seas for our crossing. The whole process, although only five miles on the water, took about 80 minutes with loading and unloading the train cars on and off the ferry.

We’ve telemed to our train seats. The monitor now shows the train is now on the mainland of Italy.

For decades through to today there have been promises to build a bridge over the Straits as an impetus to economic development for Sicily and southern Italy. It would be the longest bridge in the world and the latest proposed project, announced by the politicians in 2025, is budgeted for 13 billion euros. We are not holding our breaths for project completion. Meanwhile, Trenitalia operates the last remaining passenger train ferry in Eutope, providing us with slow passage and great fun.

Our first stop on the mainland is Naples, the beautiful, energetic, crowded, noisy city overshadowed by Vesuvius on the far side of its blue bay.

Caravaggio wanted to stay in Rome, the center of power, influence and the wealth to support artists, but was forced to leave to avoid prison for murder. Naples is one of the places he went and today three major works can still be found in the city.

In the Galerie d’Italia Palazzo Zevallos can be found the very last work ever painted by Caravaggio, The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (1610).

Saint Ursula led a large group of virgins on a pilgrimage. Unfortunately they ran into Huns who slaughtered all the women except Ursula

Ursula was offered marriage to the Hunnish leader. When she refused him, he shot her in the stomach with bow and arrow at point blank range. The perpetrator is at the far left.

Ursula looks at the arrow piercing her body. Behind her, standing so close that only his head can be seen, groaning as though HE had been shot, is (yet another) self-portrait of the artist.

In the opposite direction, on the north side of Naples, an hour’s bus ride brought us to the Museo Real di Capodimonte, a former royal palace and garden which form a beautiful and spacious green space. There we found the stunning Flagellation of Christ.

Christ, tortured and exhausted, is surrounded by three henchmen binding him in order to flog him. The pillar to which he is being tied forms a light, vertical beam rising upward.

The torturer on the left grasps Christ ‘s hair to jerk his head back. Drops of blood fall from the thorns thrust onto His scalp. We cannot look into His eyes.

On our second of three days in Naples we gave ourselves a special treat: we took a detour off the Caravaggio path to get together with our friends, Enrico and Carla, who live and work in Naples. Together we investigated the Royal Palace of Caserta, a short train ride outside Naples.

Built in there 18th century by Carlos II and the House of Bourbon it was the palace of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the largest in Europe.

The enormous Palace can be seen in the distance at the foot of a huge water feature fed from distant mountains by special aqueduct. (There might be a bit of algae in the pools…)

Enrico and Carla stroll through the Palace.

On our last day before leaving Naples for Rome, we visited the Pio Monte della Misericordia. This small chapel was the headquarters of a group of young seventeenth century noblemen who committed themselves to social and charitable action, as called by their Christian faith. Wonderfully, they are still active today, helping the poor and needy.

Interior of the Pio Monte della Misericordia in the Centro Storico (historical center) of Naples

***The Seven Works of Mercy*** (1607) by Caravaggio

The Seven Works — Feeding the hungry, Giving drink to the thirsty, Caring for the sick, Clothing the naked, Visiting prisoners, Giving alms to the poor and Burying the dead — are depicted by a swarm of historical people in a crowded Naples alleyway in the dead of night.

From above, tenderly compassionate Madonna and Child, borne by a whirling swirl of two young angels, enable the humans to engage in the works of mercy. Note there young Nan wearing a large hat at bottom left. He is Saint Martin of Tours dressed as a pilgrim of Santiago de Campostela (which we first walked in 2015). The Santiago scallop shell is on his hat.

Ed finds the **Seven Works of Mercy** the most compelling of the 30 paintngs of our Camino.

From Naples we move to Rome, the city which presents the largest number of Carravaggios (20) in the world.

Straits of the Camino Caravaggio

October 9, 20262026 Camino Caravaggio - Malta, Sicily, Napoli, Roma, Ireland, UncategorizedCaravaggio, SicilyAnne Li

It turns out that the Camino Caravaggio, for which we believe we are the pioneers, involves a crossing of straits, that is, a narrow but sometimes hazardous strip of ocean separating two land masses. “Straits” are in the news currently; in our case, we are thinking about the passage known as the Straits of Messina, a legendary waterway between the northeast corner of Sicily and the Italian mainland (near the toe of the “boot.”)

Crossing the Straits of Messina was even more exciting than we expected

Before facing the Straits, we visited the Great Norman cathedral at Cefalù, not far from Palermo. We wanted to see the Byzantine-influenced mosaic of Christ Pantocrator — all-knowing, all-powerful, all-merciful.

Near the Cathedral we found the quirky Museo Mandralisca. Our interest was in the Sicilian artist of the Renaissance, Antonello da Messina.

Antonello da Messina painted this portrait with a famously enigmatic smile. He is also famous for another reason, explained below.

Cefalù is a popular beach resort. We enjoyed the sunset while eating Mediterranean seafood.

Next day we trained westward along Sicily’s north coast to Messina to view two Caravaggios at the Acascina Regional Museum in its excellent new building.

**Adoration of the Shepherds** was painted in Messina by Caravaggio in 1609

Andrew Graham-Dixon, author of Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, points out the extreme sadness and poignancy of the scene. The new mother, exhausted, holding her infant to her face, is separated from the men, Joseph and two shepherds. They are essentially helpless to assist. She is alone, with her Child.

Caravaggio is also alone in the world at this time. His violent nature led him to be was disgraced before the Knights of Malta and he had fled to Sicily to avoid imprisonment, trial and punishment. In a year he would be dead.

Next to **Adoration of the Shepherds** is displayed **The Resurrection of Lazarus**

Painted around the same time as Adoration, Resurrection shows the moment when Jesus, in red robe at the left, raises his arm and commands, ” Lazarus, come forth!”

Lazarus’ corpse is so clearly four days dead that the return to life is unmistakeably miraculous. Notorious and groundbreaking in his realism, Caravaggio enlisted gravediggers and their subjects as models for this painting.

Above Jesus’ raised arm can be seen one of Carravaggio’s many self portraits. Why is he looking away from the miraculous resurrection about to take place?

These blank, black panels sadly show the area from which four paintings by Antonello da Messina were brazenly stolen from the Accascina Regional Museum just one month before our visit. We saw da Messina’s portrait of a smiling man earlier in Cefalù.

These are reproductions of the six di Messina paintings owned by the Accascina museum. Four of them were taken by the thieves. For some reason, the thieves dropped two paintings as they scaled the museum’s fence. The museum still has those two panels but did not have them on display. One suspects that they want to first enhance their security.

Art theft of famous works, whose market values continue to rise, is a fascinating topic. Indeed, Palermo, Sicily didn’t make our Camino itinerary because Caravaggio’s Nativity with Saint Lawrence and Saint Francis was stolen in 1969 from its spot in the Oratory and never recovered. Caravaggio’s Saint Jerome Writing had been stolen from Malta’s Co-Cathedral in 1984. A ransom was paid and the painting recovered in 1986. After damages were repaired, it was put back on display at the Co-Cathedral where we admired it less than three weeks ago (see earlier post.)

In August, just as we were preparing to embark on our Camino Caravaggio, paintings by Cezanne, Renoir and Matisse, stolen in March from a museum in the south of France were recovered. It is not known whether a ransom was paid.

Messina marks our last stop in Sicily. In the next post, we’d will describe our crossing of the notorious Straits of Messina.

**Resurection of Lazarus** was intended as an enormous altarpiece

**Adoration** is to the right of **Resurrection** in a special gallery

Saint Lucy in Syracuse

October 1, 20262026 Camino Caravaggio - Malta, Sicily, Napoli, Roma, Ireland, UncategorizedCaravaggio, SicilyAnne Li

A young woman named Lucia (Lucy, or “light”) resisted the attentions of a Roman soldier and for her refusal was brutally tortured and stabbed to death. As Santa Lucia she became beloved as the patron saint of Syracuse (Siracusa, an ancient port city on Sicily’s southwestern coast).

Walking up up to Santa Lucia alla Sepulcro in Syracuse, Sicily

She was buried in the catacombs below the traditional spot where she was killed, but later her remains were taken away as war spoils by Venetians. In 1509, a year before his death, Caravaggio was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the church which had been built to commemorate her life and death as a Christian martyr.

After a two-bus, multi-hour ride from Agrigento and its Valley of the Temples to Syracuse, we discovered that, rather than waiting to the following day, we could swiftly hike to to see the painting in the golden heat of a late Sicilian afternoon. (In fact, we were able to visit it twice.)

Caravaggio’s altarpiece often appears as a dark rectangle above the altar.

The Burial of Saint Lucy (second in size among Caravaggio’s works only to the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist that we visited in Malta) appears as a large blackish canvas behind the altar. Even though it was restored in 2020, it is impossible to make it out until one of us puts a one Euro coin into the light meter.

It takes a one euro coin to obtain illumination

Then figures and impressions begin to emerge from the gloom. The slight and pitiable girl’s body lies on a cold stone floor. Two hulking, oversized gravediggers thrust their spades repeatedly. A motley group of onlookers, includes a bishop, a young cleric, a grieving old woman and possible artist’s self portrait.

The vertical space, full of shadows, minimally suggests a stony arch in the catacombs below the place we, as viewers, stand. While the moment of death and martyrdom are more customarily depicted, this painting shows the moment of burial. Lucy is already dead. Her death is a fact.

Her death refers to all our deaths, and to our belief in God’s gift of everlasting life. Indeed, the left-hand gravedigger suddenly looks up from his desolate task and seems to see the gleam of light which pierces the gloom; the beginning of faith… as the saint hoped that her sacrifice would inspire in some people….?

Syracuse has an extensive system of underground tunnels enhanced and used by successive inhabitants over centuries. Our guide, Valentina, who met us in Agrigento and in Syracuse, chats with Ed.

Red lines denote the Cathedral, walls and other structures while blue lines indicate underground tunnels.

Children and some women sheltered from bombardment during WW II in the ancient tunnel system.

Weather has been sunny and warm every day so far. We’ve enjoyed wonderful cuisine, including bountiful seafood and local produce, prepared simply but with imagination. Tomorrow we will travel by two trains to our next stop on the far, north side of the island, Cefalù.

Rise and Fall of Greeks in Sicily

September 27, 2026UncategorizedAnne Li

On our previous visit to Sicily two years ago, we ran out of time and opportunity to visit two places we really wanted to see: Cefalù and Agrigento. Although somewhat off the path of our Camino Caravaggio, we are looking forward to visiting them on this trip.

Olives, almonds, grapes frame Temple of Juno (in Greek, Hera) with the Mediterranean sparkling beyond.

Agrigento is a small city founded by persons of Greek origin about 500 BC near Sicily’s southwestern, Aftica-facing coast. The site had remarkable defensive features, including two high ridges surrounded at the time by two rivers.

Carthaginians crossed the Mediterranean from Africa to plunder Sicily and Agrigento in about 200 BC but were defeated. The victorious Agrigenti manifested their power and prosperity by building a series of magnificent temples to the gods. In the 1800s archaeologists began to uncover and study the remains, now a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Valley of the Temples.

At the Temple of Hercules (in Greek, Heracles) with our terrific guide, Valentina.

After some time, the Carthaginians returned to attack and, this time, defeat the Agrigenti. In their vengeful pride, Carthage smashed the largest temple into smithereens. Today only pieces of a few of the 30-plus telemons (huge human figures) which once held up the roof of the Temple of Jupiter (in Greek, Zeus) can be found.

Ed is dwarfed by a telemon reassembled from the ruins of the Temple of Zeus, smashed by the Carthaginians.

According to the scale model, the enormous Temple of Zeus uses a total of 34 monstrous telemons to hold up its roof.

We are lucky indeed to have our guide, Valentina, a PhD candidate in art history, to explain and engage. Mother to a three-year old girl, she lives with her husband, a graphic artist, from time to time in Palermo, Madrid and Mexico City. She will also be our guide in a few days in Siracusa, where we will see Caravaggio’s The Burial of St Lucy.

Please pray for healing for Ed’s brother, John, rehospitalized for pneumonia.

A Scarce Swallowtail Butterfly perched on aromatic Sicilian herbs.

Probably the foundation of a Temple to Ceres (in Greek, Demeter).

The full moon gleaming through clouds after our al fresco dinner in 75 degree light breezy weather.

Dublin: Our first Caravaggio

September 22, 20262026 Camino Caravaggio - Malta, Sicily, Napoli, Roma, Ireland, UncategorizedCaravaggioAnne Li

On a mostly sunny but cool Sunday morning we set out from our Dublin hotel across St Stephen’s Green to the National Gallery of Ireland, which holds Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ (1610).

Walking through St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin on the way to our first Caravaggio of this Camino.

Never before have we “opened” a museum by being the first through the doors as they were unlocked in the morning at 11 am. We had a limited time window before catching a flight to Malta so we were ready to step through the doors when they opened. We were fixed on our mission. It was exciting and focused at the same time.

And there it was: near the corner of a large gallery of 17th century paintings from various parts of Europe.

For money, Judas has betrayed Jesus to the authorities by revealing His presence in the garden and identifying him with a kiss. Jesus’ face shows immense sadness and his hands, clasped sideways, portray submission and more. Judas grabs at Jesus with dirty fingers while his face shows greed, insincerity and insecurity. Judas’ robe is an indeterminate color, like his motivations.

Two soldiers crowd in with brutal efficiency. The beetle-black armored arm of the first soldier aims like a pincer at Jesus’ undefended throat.

On the left the apostle John bolts away with a shriek of horror. On the right, a self portrait of Carravaggio holds a lantern that paradoxically sheds almost no light. The light instead seems to come from the viewers’ side of the painting, from somewhere at the bottom left. It lies across the armored arm of the soldier in a beam that seems modern in its mechanical coldness.

This painting has a very interesting story of how it came to the National Gallery of Ireland. It was commissioned in 1602 for a powerful wealthy Roman named Ciriaco Mattei, brother of a cardinal, but in passing through the generations since that time it was at some point misattributed to a Dutch artist and eventually landed with a Scottish art dealer. In about 1924 an Irish Catholic woman named Marie Lea-Perkins bought the painting and in the 1930’s she gave it to the Jesuit Fathers in Dublin in thanks for their help and counseling during the grief she suffered after her husband, an English Protestant officer in the British Army, was murdered by the Irish Republican Army.

Marie used the settlement she received for her husband’s death to pay for medical school, becoming one of only three women in her class. As a pediatrician, she became a prominent practitioner but her career was marked by serious controversy over alleged malpractice.

Meanwhile, the painting, darkening with age, hung for sixty years on the dining room wall of the Jesuit Fathers in Dublin until one day the Fathers requested an assessment of their art. A senior conservator from the National Gallery spied it as a long-lost Caravaggio and it was unveiled as such to the public in 1993. It now on permanent loan by the Fathers to the Gallery so it may be enjoyed by the Irish public and people of the world.

How fortunate we feel to have spent time studying and meditating before this stunning depiction of a world- and life-changing moment. The genius of the artist is a gift from God. It can illumine His goodness and nature for us.

Next, we are headed to Malta to see two Caravaggios in St John’s Co-Cathedral.

Outside the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Home Sweet Home

October 25, 20252025 Camino Budapest Ravenna Dubrovnik Rome Ireland, UncategorizedAnne Li

With our dear cousins Mary and Tony Furey on the coast walk in Muff, Donegal, Republic of Ireland (Eire). It seems as though *every* view on island is stunningly beautiful.

What a change! From warm and sunny Rome to cool and damp (one might say, CHILLY) Northern Ireland. But we have been enveloped in the warmth and hospitality of Mary, Ed’s second cousin on his mother’s side, and Mary’s husband Tony.

Ed and I first met Mary and Tony in 1989 when Ed’s brother, Bill, the Muldoon genealogist, guided a family group to the Furey’s lovely home in Derry, Northern Ireland. The group included Ed’s parents and constitutes one of a myriad of fond memories of Bill.

Some of the many flowers blooming in Ireland at the end of October.

The title of this post, “Home Sweet Home, ” refers not only to our return from Europe to US, but also to our time in Ed’s ancestral home, Ireland, and the home, wherever it is geographically, where we are loved by family or friends and appreciated and we are grateful. We found HOME in many places and faces on this lengthy and complicated trip.

May God continue to grant us the Providence of mercy to find and build that home for our sisters and brothers near and far.

POSTSCRIPT As of October 23 we are in DC but 6 weeks of traveling caught up with us so we both have heavy colds that make it difficult to talk without succumbing to coughing fits. We apologize for any delay in communicating with you. We are headed to Minnesota to visit Ed’s brother Bill’s resting place next to Lake Sagawatan at St John’s Abbey and then to Naples, Florida for the winter by October 30.

We close the posts for our 2025 Camino by sharing some final images.

Early on the Camino, Ed misplaced his hat and needed to improvise with a bandana until a replacement hat was acquired in Logrono. The look is good!

After driving past us on the Camino, this gentleman was parked in the next tiny hamlet where he and his family have lived for generations. We found him polishing the hood and when we admired his car, he told us that his grandparents bought the car, a SEAT, new in 1967 and passed it on to him.

Every town seemed to be celebrating a September festa the night we stopped to sleep. (The brass band would usually stop around 11 pm.) In Logroño, I was unwittingly “whipped” by this mischievous character as I walked by.

Ed was much taken by the new hay baling equpment we saw pile the bales into multistory, flat-sided constructions. These have replaced the conical bales we saw on our 2015 Camino.

Thanks for accompanying us on the Camino.

Eternal City and Other Cities

October 19, 20252025 Camino Budapest Ravenna Dubrovnik Rome Ireland, UncategorizedAnne Li

Our beloved Pope Francis declared 2025 a Jubilee Year of forgiveness, love and joy.

In St Peter’s Square with full moon above.

So we knew that Rome would be especially crowded with pilgrims… but we were not prepared for the sizes of the crowds we encountered.

Going through the Holy Door of St Peter’s, which is only opened in Jubilee Years, usually every 50 years.

We attended 6 pm Mass and lingered in the evening’s less crowded space until the guards closed it all.

The full moon seen from inside the St Peter’s.

We visited Rome twice on this trip — once to catch the Ryanair flight to Dubrovnik, and the second time before flying on Ryanair to Dublin. Rome is our favorite city in the world.

Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the major pilgrim sites in Rome. Above is a section of mosaic floor.

San Giovanni Laterano (St John Lateran) is another of Rome’s 4 major papal basilicas, along with St Paul Outside the Walls, St Mary Major and St Peter’s.

St john Lateran, the oldest basilica in Rome, has a quiet and ancient cloister.

We were surprised to discover in the cloister a fragment of “The Altar of St Mary Magdalene” which once was believed to contain her remains and was originally placed in the basilica’s center aisle.

A major Roman highlight was our long-sought visit to the Galleria Borghese, an amazing museum set in a large park within the city. Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1579-1633), nephew of Pope Paul V, was a voracious collecter of ancient Roman art and commissioner of contemporary art from such as Bernini and Carravaggio. It seems that whenever he wanted a piece, he would ask his uncle the Pope to apply pressure so here could get what he wanted.

Outside the former “party house” of the immensely wealthy and powerful Borghese family, now the museum. At least this guy had some level of taste.

Saint Jerome: Carravaggio used real -life models of ordinary men and women off the streets to create his incomparable paintings.

Bernini turned cold marble into pulsating flesh and blood.

Carravaggio also used himself as a model, as in this portrait of a young John the Baptist. The Borghese owns eight (8) Caravaggios, all of which were miraculously in house when we visited!

This blog post will close with a short mention of another Italian city we visited briefly: Bologna. We basically had to go to Bologna in order to catch a train into Ravenna (see other blog post) so we spent one night there. On the plus side: Basilica San Petronio and Museo Archaeologie’s interesting and important Egyptian collection (mostly purchased from dealers). On the other side: a B&B host who was NOT courteous or helpful, a broken lock threatening our access to our room, and a monopoly called Bologna Taxi that promised but failed to send a taxi (no Uber.)

On the plus side: tortellaci stuffed with pumpkin (the green one) and tortellaci stuffed with mushrooms in neighborhood family joint in Bologna. Tortellaci are a local specialty, giant tortellini, made from 4 inch squares of pasta.

On the not-plus side: lots of streets and sidewalks torn up for construction and a non- functioning Taxi Bologna system combined with a broken lock on our B&B’s front gate.

As of October 13 we’ve been in Ireland, the subject of the next post and our last stop in Europe before return to the US. (We’ll be in DC from late on October 22 until October 28 and in Naples, Florida from late on October 30. (In between we’ll have 2 days in Minnesota.)

Crossing to Croatia and the Eastern Adriatic

October 12, 20252025 Camino Budapest Ravenna Dubrovnik Rome Ireland, UncategorizedAnne Li

Sunset over the Adriatic upon arrival at Ćilipi Airport on the way down and into Dubrovnik

Next morning: after misdirection on the internet we were happy to find the laundry, 15 minutes from the hotel, which dealt with a large pile of pent-up demand. Like many other buildings in the “new” part of town, it was a prefab structure. We were off to a good start in Dubrovnik.

To explain why we went to Dubrovnik, go back in your mind to the pre-Covid era. At that time, Ed and I had begun to plan a rail trip to parts of Central Europe (formerly known as Eastern Europe) that we had never visited. Since those plans were quashed by the pandemic, more recently we have inserted some of these places into other trips; for example two years ago we visited Krakow, Poland (and our dear Camino friend, Lukacs) and also Prague.

View from Dubrovnik defenses. Believe it or not, this photo is not doctored. The water is startlingly clear.

Last week we went to Budapest as part of this Central Eutopean exploration, and on Wednesday we went to Dubrovnik, Croatia, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Since our start point was Ravenna, a difficult-to-reach place in northeast Italy, we first traveled by train to Bologna and then to Rome, then flew from Rome Fiumicino Airport to Dubrovnik. Ryanair (and other low-cost airlines) make this affordable, if not streamlined. Rather than fly, i would have liked to take an ordinary ferry with the locals but apparently they stop sailing in September.

Our flight almost didn’t make it to landing at our chosen destination due to high winds. The pilot circled 6 times before landing over the mountain into the valley of the airport with a rush of acceleration. We were glad to land safely and feel the sun again.

Our wonderful guide, Nina Obad, whose family has always lived in Dubrovnik and the surrounding area of Konavle.

Our guide, Nina, recommended to us by a Broadmoor friend, greatly enhanced our enjoyment and learning. She explained a lot about the Republic of Ragusa, based for hundreds of years in Dubrovnik, and its maritime dominance. Most importantly, Nina shared her personal stories from the War of 1991-1996 when the Yugoslav National Army attacked mostly civilian Dubrovnik. She was 13 when the attack and bombardment began and she lives today with the memories and aftermath of war.

Nina lives on this street with her husband and two children. The older child is now 20 and she is studying in Zagreb to be a doctor, the younger is 14.

We were glad for our physical training from the Camino as Nina took us on the demanding circuit of the Old City walls, which are still complete and include a lot of steep steps. At one point Nina greeted a couple sitting in their small terrace abutting the wall. It was her former violin teacher and her former math teacher, enjoying their generations- old family home. (Like Ed, Nina is a product of a Jesuit education! Ed went to BC High and Boston College.)

Looking down from the wall into Old City and the well that brings water in a significant feat of engineering.

In the middle of framed art at the Franciscan Monastery the round “frame” marks the place that a rocket launched by the Yugoslav National Army hit… but did not not explode.

We learned a lot from Nina about ordinary people dealing with invasion, war, unexpected violence, heroism, loss.

We left Dubrovnik on our third day to stay in a small town called Ćilipi in the Konavle region, near the airport. There is a single road, one lane each way, that hairpin up from the city above the sea, almost unbelievably picturesque but easily blocked by an accident or weather, so we made the drive the day before our morning flight. This turned into a delightful highlight of our visit.

The County Museum of Konavala showcases traditional costumes fairing fine embroidery work by women and girls as young as 5.

Our cousin-in-law, Charles Franich, had told us that a branch of his family had provided land for the construction of Dubrovnik airport. We were able to visit the museum, pictured above, which preserves and perpetuates local costumes and traditions, little changed for hundreds of years.

With her grace and enthusiasm — and impeccable English — all Croatian children study English starting in first grade — the museum’s director Dragonika imparted an appreciation for the beauty of the embroidery and its significance for the lives of girls and women of the countryside. Incidentally, our guide, Nina, also had a grandmother from Konavle (or Konavala).

Our flight from Dubrovnik back to Rome, only one hour, fortunately contained none of the excitement and drama of our arrival in high winds.