Cortona competes with two more famous contemporaries. Open any guide-book and, to reduce fame to a crude word-count, the Bs have it: Bernini and Borromini. Or vice-versa. Part alphabetical/alliterative coincidence perhaps, part their biographically fascinating rivalry, Bernini and Borromini have tended to push Pietro da Cortona, Rome’s third Baroque genius, to the background.

The same could be said of Pietro da Cortona. Spectacular ceilings, tapestries, fresco-cycles, church and palace façades and an entire church, SS. Luca e Martina, in the Roman Forum. His work adorns Rome, and also beyond.