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An ordinary person knows at least two things about the town of Caravaggio (the one in the province of Bergamo). The first well-known fact is that the parents of the famous painter were born there and lived there for some time. Many people believe they know that he himself was also born there, but that is incorrect: Michelangelo Merisi was born in Milan.

The second commonly known thing about Caravaggio is the presence of the Sanctuary built between the 15th and the 18th centuries. It is located just over one kilometre from the town and can easily be reached on foot. Art and history interest us, so let us start there.

Its church is beautiful only on the inside. Moreover, it is the only beautiful and interesting thing in the entire Sanctuary.

Since I do not intend to repeat the work already done thousands of times by the authors of illustrated guides and postcards (and also by dazed tourists), I will show you one of those things that only I bother to point out. Here you are: a holy water fountain.

It is not a very common installation in the Catholic churches I have seen so far, so I decided to study it carefully. Well, it is not made of marble, it can be locked with a key (why?!) and it is technologically advanced: to get water you have to press a button. Respect…

In the underground area there is also a source of the local «transparent gold»: I saw people coming out with 20-litre canisters. But we are mentally healthy people, so we are only interested in the mosaics covering all the underground surfaces: not to be missed.

Beyond the church, there are very few interesting details in the Sanctuary area. And only one struck me in particular… Everyone remembers the expulsion of the merchants from the Temple, right? Everyone knows that somehow they came back? Now you should know that no one has ever thought of expelling the bankers:

But it is time to go and explore the town: with a name like that, who knows how beautiful it might be… The town responded to my expectations with a clear «fuck off». The very few beautiful buildings are almost all religious.

The positive side of such a situation lies in the greater ease of finding smaller details and local peculiarities, those that often get lost in the overall mass of new things to discover. Well, to be honest, they are not always that small: here is one of the largest concrete signs I have ever seen:

A flowerbed protecting a shop window from the street: I think this is the first time I have ever seen such a thing.

Every town must have its own Great Mystery. The mystery of Caravaggio is the Naval Museum, open only on Saturdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Why is it in Caravaggio? Why is it open only three hours a week? Why is it about 30 square metres in size? How does it survive in a town of around 17,000 inhabitants? I found no answers: the day of my visit was a Friday.

Every respectable town must have at least one beautiful monument. In Caravaggio I found one: it is called «Scuola libera» and depicts a schoolboy from the 1950s (I think).

As for architecture, however, I found absolutely nothing interesting in Caravaggio. Literally nothing. Yes, of course there were old buildings. But apart from their age, they had nothing distinctive. They were so boring that the Town Hall looked like a masterpiece of human thought:

While private citizens live in buildings that can sometimes even be described as vulgar:

So inevitably we have to go back to studying the small details. House numbers are written on ceramic plaques.

As you already know, none of my reports can be considered complete without a photo of benches and bins. In fact, they are extremely important objects that assist the local population in everyday life.

I conclude with a photo of a mobile post office. I have never seen one in Italy…

All in all, this trip was one of my greatest exploratory disappointments. The town of Caravaggio is one of the most boring, grey and useless places in the world. Growing up in a hole like this makes it extremely difficult to develop the mindset and worldview of a painter…
Obviously, this is only my personal impression. Probably a substantial sum of euros coming in might make me change my mind 🙂