San Luigi dei Francesi

The French national church in Rome, consecrated in 1589. In the last chapel on the left, the Contarelli Chapel, hang three canvases by Caravaggio devoted to St Matthew — the Calling, the Inspiration and the Martyrdom — painted between 1599 and 1602. They were his first public works, the ones that made him famous in a single season.

Did you know: Entry is free, and it is an eight-minute walk from the flat: three Caravaggios with no ticket and no queue. There is a coin-operated light in the chapel — worth having a coin in your pocket, because in the dark the paintings cannot be read.

✦ The legend: Of the first Inspiration of St Matthew it is said that it was rejected because the evangelist looked like a peasant with dirty feet and the angel was guiding his hand as though he could not write. Caravaggio painted a more decorous version, and that is the one you see today. The first ended up in Berlin and was destroyed in 1945: only black-and-white photographs of it remain.