The Calling of Saint Matthew

Matthew and his fellow tax collectors are dressed in fashionable 1600 Roman clothing: doublets, slashed sleeves, feathered hats. The coins they are counting, however, are Roman silver denarii from the 1st century. Caravaggio mixed the time periods deliberately. The scene happens in the present, but the money is the ancient currency the gospel actually names. This collision was the genuine scandal at the time. Now at San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome