The Italian State, through the Ministry of Culture, paid €30 million for Caravaggio's "Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini". A few months after its presentation at Palazzo Barberini, in the "Caravaggio 2025" exhibition, the painting will become a permanent fixture in the holdings of the National Galleries of Ancient Art in Rome, managed by Thomas Clement Salomon. The painting depicts the future Pope Urban VIII (1568-1644) in his thirties, serving as a clergyman in the Apostolic Chamber, at a critical point in his ascent to power. Art historian Roberto Longhi validated the painting in 1963, and critics have since largely acknowledged it as Merisi's work. Longhi described it as one of the founding moments of modern portraiture, emphasizing Caravaggio's contribution to a new psychological intensity. Portraits are an exceptionally rare category among the restricted corpus of works absolutely assigned to the Lombard master—approximately sixty-five paintings worldwide—with only three known and certain examples. The "Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini" is thus an extraordinary example of Caravaggio's portraiture and a key piece in comprehending the growth of his pictorial language between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Caravaggio's portrait is one of the most important purchases made by the Italian state in a piece of art, following the recent acquisition of Antonello da Messina's "Ecce Homo" for €12.5 million.