Behind a plain travertine façade hangs one of the great Baroque
paintings of Rome. Caravaggio's Madonna di Loreto at the beginning
of the left aisle, painted in 1605, is a powerful example of
his highly original style of realism. Extraordinary to think
that it was painted when he was on the run from the police after
killing a man in the Campo dei Fiori. On the left side of the
nave Raphael painted his forceful prophet Isaiah above his friend
Andrea Sansovino's sculptural group of the Madonna and Child
with St Anne.
