Porto Ercole is a charming seaside town in Tuscany, Italy, that provides soothing beach views and summertime getaways for city travelers.

It was also where Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) took his last breath.

On July 18, 1610, the legendary painter died in a sanitarium alone, exhausted, feverish, and suffering injuries from several brawls.

Until his death, Caravaggio didn't obtain a long-awaited papal pardon to return to Rome where he had garnered fame for his unrivaled painting techniques as he was unfavorably known for committing various crimes. His stormy, enigmatic personality finally went too far — an escalating argument ended when he committed murder. He fled Rome to avoid a life sentence.

Caravaggio's revolutionary style helped anticipate the Baroque period. However the sudden end of his dramatic and turbulent life — at the age of 38 — also ended his short-lived career.

He was buried in haste and was forgotten until the early 20th century, when his art was rediscovered by historians.

Caravaggio and his works have since returned to the limelight. A show featuring his paintings drew enthusiastic audiences and one of his most famous works resurged to public attention.

This was the situation when, in 2014, a painting depicting the biblical figure Mary Magdalene was identified as work of Caravaggio's. It then embarked on a global tour adorning the walls of museums worldwide.

Now, Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy has come to illuminate the exhibition halls of Beijing.

The National Museum of China and the Italian embassy in China jointly present a show specially for and displaying only Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy.

The exhibition Caravaggio's World of Art also centers around the restoration work done to return this Caravaggio work back to its glory.

Until the end of March, people can "face" Caravaggio, celebrated as the founding father of Baroque art.

In this painting, they will see his smart utilization of reduced colors — primarily black, white and red — as well as his revolutionary usage of strong contrasts between light and dark, also referred to as chiaroscuro in Italian, for which he is best known.

Caravaggio has made recurring appearances in Chinese art scene these two years.

His Boy Bitten by a Lizard was on show at Botticelli to Van Gogh, an exhibition of masterpieces from the National Gallery London held from Jan 17 to May 7 last year at the Shanghai Museum.

From Dec 12 to April 12 this year, Caravaggio: Wonders of the Italian Baroque, an exhibition at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, gathered six works by Caravaggio, including Boy with Basket of Fruit, an iconic piece in the collection of the Borghese Gallery, Rome.

Caravaggio: Eternal Ecstasy, which opened in July through to the end of October at M Woods in Chengdu, Sichuan province, marked the debut of Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy in China before it traveled to Beijing.

For the exhibition at the National Museum of China, a 12-minute virtual reality tour is offered to embark upon the life journey of Caravaggio — tremendous, yet tragic.

Cinzia Pasquali, who headed the restoration team that worked on the painting for over six months in 2018, says the piece was believed to have been made following his escape from Rome after killing Ranuccio Tomassoni during a row in 1606.

A manuscript note was found at the back of the canvas, reading, "Magdalena, reversed by Caravaggio in Chiaia, there to be kept for the benefit of Cardinal Borghese of Rome". The note is also displayed.

A video rotates at the exhibition showing the restoration steps carried out by Pasquali, who also co-curated the current exhibition at the National Museum of China, and her team years ago.

Their work engages the audience with the quietness in which Caravaggio focused wholeheartedly on shading, forgetting about his troubled life — the creases of Mary Magdalene's robe, the luster of her soft hair and the tears dripping from the corner of her eye.

Dutch painter Karel van Mander (1548-1606), a contemporary of Caravaggio, authored Het Schilder-Boeck (The Book of Painters).

In the book, he mentions Caravaggio's work and life: "Indeed, he does not devote himself continually to study, but when he has worked for a couple of weeks, he goes wandering for a month or two, with a sword at his side and a servant behind him, and turns from one ballgame to another, always ready to start a brawl and to scuffle, so much so that it is rare to see him regularly. …Nonetheless, his painting is beyond question."

Pasquali says: "The exhibition allows close examinations of the painting to understand the distinguished way that Caravaggio depicted his subjects.

"The theatrical representation and the dramatic effects of light and darkness, characteristic of his work, can be seen in the work."

She says the exhibition explains vividly why Caravaggio is recognized as "a revolutionary of light "and a great artist in history.

Zhuge Yingliang, co-curator of the exhibition at the National Museum of China, says the show provides people with the perspective of the restorers to understand Caravaggio and his art.

"To compare the similarities and differences in the work of Chinese and Italian restorers, we've set up a section at the end of the exhibition to show the process of preserving classic Chinese ink painting and calligraphy.

"It is not only to show the knowledge, patience and time invested in the work. The significance of art restoration is ultimately to enrich the essential values of these extraordinary artworks, to revive the thoughts of the artists, and to share them with the public," she says.

The exhibition marks the latest progress in the cultural exchanges between China and Italy through staging well-curated exhibitions at the National Museum of China. Previous collaborations include Renaissance in Florence: Masterpieces and Protagonists in 2012, Four Centuries of Painting in Venice in 2016 and Tota Italia: Origins of a Nation in 2022.

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