Clark Howard Saskia

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Clark Howard Saskia

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ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN NAPLES, 1266–1713
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ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN NAPLES, 1266–1713
NEW APPROACHES
EDITED BY
CORDELIA WARR
AND
JANIS ELLIOTT
This edition first published 2010
r 2010 Association of Art Historians
Originally published as Volume 31, Issue 4 of Art History
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Art and architecture in Naples, 1266-1713 / edited by Cordelia Warr and Janis Elliott.
p. cm. Originally published as Volume 31, Issue 4 of Art History, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9861-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Art, Italian–Italy–Naples. 2. Naples (Italy)–Civilization. I. Warr, Cordelia. II. Elliott, Janis,
1949-N6921.N2A68 2009
709.45’731–dc22
2009038764
Set in 10/12pt SwiftEF-Regular by Macmillan India Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Malaysia
01 2010
CONTENTS
Notes on contributors
1 Introduction: Reassessing Naples 1266–1713
Cordelia Warr and Janis Elliott
vi
1
2 The north looks south: Giorgio Vasari and early modern visual
culture in the Kingdom of Naples
Aislinn Loconte
16
3 The rise of the court artist: Cavallini and Giotto in
fourteenth-century Naples
Cathleen A. Fleck
38
4 The local eye: Formal and social distinctions in late quattrocento 62
Neapolitan tombs
Tanja Michalsky
5 Building in local all’antica style: The palace of Diomede Carafa
in Naples
Bianca de Divitiis
83
6 From social virtue to revetted interior: Giovanni Antonio Dosio 101
and marble inlay in Rome, Florence, and Naples
John Nicholas Napoli
7 ‘The face is a mirror of the soul’: Frontispieces and the
production of sanctity in post-Tridentine Naples
Helen Hills
125
8 Patronage, standards and transfert culturel: Naples between
art history and social science theory
Nicolas Bock
152
Index
176
v
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Nicolas Bock is Lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Art History at Lausanne
University, Switzerland. He studied art history at the universities of Heidelberg
(Germany) and Florence (Italy). Between 1993 and 1997 he was a member of the
Bibliotheca Hertziana (MPI) in Rome. He completed his PhD, on late medieval and
early renaissance art in Naples, in 1997 and has since published on Neapolitan
art, on medieval art and liturgy, and on text and image relations in German and
French book production between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.
Bianca de Divitiis received her PhD at the Institute for Advanced Studies in
Venice. She currently works on architecture and patronage in fifteenth-century
Naples and has recently published a book on the patronage of the Carafa family:
Architettura e Committenza nella Napoli del Quattrocento (Venice, 2007). Her other
research interests include eighteenth-century British architecture and she has
published on the work of Sir John Soane in the Burlington Magazine, in Architectural
History and in the Georgian Group Journal. She was a fellow at Villa I Tatti (Harvard
University) for the academic year 2008–09.
Janis Elliott has published on the patronage and iconography of chapel decora
tion and Last Judgement scenes in fourteenth-century Florence, Naples and Padua
in Zeitschrift fu. r Kunstgeschichte and in various edited volumes. Her research inter
ests focus on the patronage of the Angevin dynasty in Naples and she is the co
editor, with Cordelia Warr, of The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, icono
graphy and patronage in fourteenth-century Naples (Aldershot, 2004). She is Assistant
Professor of medieval art history at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
Cathleen A. Fleck is a Lecturer and Assistant Dean at Washington University in St
Louis. Her research and publications focus on the art of Italy, France and the Holy
Land during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Her current book project,
Papal Power and Royal Prestige in the Fourteenth Century, examines the papal court in
Avignon and the Angevin court in Naples through the detailed study of the Bible
of Pope Clement VII (c. 1330, London: British Library, Add. MS 47672).
Helen Hills is Professor of History of Art at the University of York. Her publica
tions include: Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-century Neapo
litan Convents (Oxford University Press, 2005); Marmi Mischi Siciliani: Invenzione e
identità (Società Messinese di Storia Patria, 1999); Architecture and the Politics of
Gender in Early Modern Europe (Ashgate, 2003); and, edited with Penelope Gouk,
vi
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Representing Emotions: New connections in the histories of art, music and medicine
(Ashgate, 2005). She is preparing a study of the Treasury Chapel and forms of
holiness in baroque Naples.
Aislinn Loconte is an independent scholar based in New York. She received her
doctorate from the University of Oxford and has held fellowships in the UK and in
Italy. She has published on female patronage in Naples and is currently preparing
a book provisionally entitled The Art of Queenship: Royal women and artistic patronage
in the late medieval and early modern Kingdom of Naples.
.
Tanja Michalsky is Professor of Art History at the Universit.at der Kunste
in Berlin.
She has recently finished a study entitled ‘Projection and imagination. Concep
tions of Netherlandish landscape in the dialogue between geography and
painting’. Although she has also published articles on film and contemporary
art, her main research interests are the relationship between political and artistic
representation and the social network of memory, and the process of collective
imagination in different visual media. She is the author of Memoria und Repr.asen
tation. Die Grabm.aler des Ko¨nigshauses Anjou in Italien (2000) and the editor of Medien
der Macht. Kunst zur Zeit der Anjous in Italien (2001).
John Nicholas Napoli received his PhD from Princeton University. He currently
teaches at the City University of New York and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His
research has appeared in the Neapolitan journal Napoli Nobilissima, and he is
currently writing a book on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century decorative
campaigns at the Carthusian monastery in Naples, the Certosa di San Martino.
Cordelia Warr is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Studies at the Univer
sity of Manchester. She has published a number of articles on female patronage
and on the representation of religious dress. Her book Dressing for Heaven: Religious
clothing in Italy, 1215–1545 will be published by Manchester University Press in 2010.
Her current research project, which has been supported by the AHRC research
leave scheme, is on the representation and performance of stigmata in late
medieval and renaissance Italy.
vii
INTRODUCTION: REASSESSING NAPLES 1266–1713
1 Map of Italy in the fifteenth century. Map: Janis Elliott and Laura Stennett, Texas Tech University.
1
INTRODUCTION: REASSESSING NAPLES
1266–1713
C O R D E L I A WA R R a n d J A N I S E L L I O T T
The city of Naples has been a major centre for more than two millennia. Its
natural harbour and position on the southwest coast of Italy made it important in
trade relations between Italy, Greece, Byzantium, North Africa, Spain, Holland,
Flanders and Germany. Its strategic importance and resulting prosperity resulted
in fierce competition for control of Naples and the surrounding area. During the
period discussed by the various contributors to this collection of essays, 1266–
1713, Naples and its surrounding territory was ruled successively by the French
Angevins (1266–1442), the Aragonese (1442–1501), the French (1501–04), and the
Spanish Hapsburgs (1504–1713).1 Throughout, Naples was an important artistic
centre yet it has suffered in art-historical literature. One of the issues that has
affected perception of the city is that Naples defies art-historical definitions of a
cultural centre. Traditionally, artists and styles have been linked to their
geographic locations of origin.2 The conventional view of Naples is that it did not
produce many famous artists or innovative artistic styles which influenced the art
of other major centres; rather, it imported more art and artists than it exported.
Another factor is that many art historians have followed the historiographical
model of Giorgio Vasari, whose Lives of the Artists concentrates on the work of
Florentine artists.3 The result is that Naples has been overshadowed by other
Italian centres, most especially in this period by Florence and Rome. Physical
destruction has also taken its toll. Damage to Neapolitan archives during the
1939–45 war resulted in a substantial loss of historical documents and significant
damage to the artistic patrimony of the area.4 The imposing, partially polychromed, mid-fourteenth-century tomb of Robert of Anjou (d. 1343), for example,
was badly damaged in a fire following an air raid on 4 August 1943. However,
even before this, the work of modern historiographers reflected the attitude
of northern Italy towards the south, applying to the past the twentieth-century
view of Naples as underdeveloped and culturally deficient, something explored
by Bianca de Divitiis in her chapter on Diomede Carafa’s fifteenth-century palace
in Naples.
All of the chapters in this volume seek, in different ways, to redress the
neglect of Naples – particularly noticeable in English-language scholarship. The
contributors focus on works of art and architecture which demonstrate the ways
in which Naples can be defined as a cultural and artistic centre. Some explore the
careers of specific artists and groups of artists, examining the circumstances of
1
their commissions and the reasons behind them. Others deal with the ways in
which the convergence on Naples of foreign artists and artistic styles affected the
evolution of art within the city. Questions of taste, the way in which taste was
formed and acquired, and the ability of Neapolitans to make refined distinctions
between local and foreign styles are also examined, as are the means by which
artists disseminated styles through the cities in which they worked.
One of the underlying debates throughout this volume relates to definitions
of centre and periphery.5 Nicolas Bock, for example, questions the ways in which
cultural centres have traditionally been defined. He argues that most theories
which deal with definitions of centres, such as those espoused by such scholars as
Castelnuovo, Ginsburg and DaCosta Kaufmann, exclude Naples as a cultural
centre because their criteria are dominated by economics and physical geography,
which quantify how much ‘culture’ a city exports. However, according to Bock,
these theories overlook a number of things which cannot easily be quantified,
such as prestige, social status and association with the elite – all of which Naples
exported in large quantities. The importation into Naples of foreign artists and
works of art should be viewed as a sign of ‘cultural enrichment’, therefore, rather
than of cultural inferiority. The history of the city between the thirteenth and the
seventeenth centuries clearly demonstrates Naples’s status as a ‘world city’
functioning within an international cultural network.
THE ANGEVIN PERIOD
At the beginning of the fourteenth century Naples was one of the most important
cities in Europe. It had an estimated population of 30,000 inhabitants, smaller
than that of Venice, Milan and Florence (each with more than 80,000), but still
among the largest urban centres of Europe.6 Since 1284 it had been the capital of
the so-called Kingdom of Naples: following the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers
Charles I of Anjou (r. 1266–85) had been deprived of the island of Sicily and the
previous capital, Palermo.7 Despite this loss the Kingdom of Naples, stretching
from the Abruzzi in the north to the southern coasts of the Italian peninsula, was
by far the largest area of Italy to be ruled by a single government (plate 1). The
Angevin kings of Naples came from the French royal family.8 The international
connections of the Angevin dynasty meant that the kings of Naples married into
some of the most powerful European royal families (plate 2). Charles I of Anjou
married Beatrice of Provence; their son Charles of Salerno (future Charles II of
Anjou) married Mary of Hungary (d. 1323), who was the granddaughter of the
Hungarian Arpad king Bela IV (r. 1235–70). Their grandson, the third Angevin king
of Naples Robert of Anjou (r. 1309–43) married Violante of Aragon (d. 1302) and,
later, Sancia of Majorca (1285–1345), daughter of James II of Majorca.9 At various
times during the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Angevins ruled
their native territories in Anjou, their dominions in Provence, the Kingdom of
Naples, the Kingdom of Jerusalem10 and the Kingdoms of Hungary, Poland and
Croatia.11 They introduced French court culture to Naples and thereafter
Neapolitan court culture formed part of a Europe-wide network of courts.
In addition to the political relations and alliances with major European
kingdoms which characterized Naples as an international capital, there were also
trade connections that spread across the Mediterranean. All of this had an effect
2
2 Diagram of the rulers of Naples (1266–1442). Diagram: Janis Elliott and Gilbert Jones, Texas Tech University.
on the art produced in and for the city. The Angevins introduced the French
gothic style into the kingdom, bringing their own architects and also importing
master masons, as Caroline Bruzelius has recently argued in The Stones of Naples.12
Churches such as San Lorenzo Maggiore and Santa Maria Donna Regina reflect
this northern European interest and demonstrate that their royal commissioners
were aware of the latest architectural innovations.13 Sculptors and artists also
came to Naples, or received commissions for works to be sent to Naples. Some of
the most important Italian painters and sculptors worked for members of the
royal family during this period.14 The Roman painter Pietro Cavallini (c. 1250–
1330) is documented in Naples in June and December of 1308;15 although no
specific works can be securely attributed to him, his style is evident in the frescoes
of the Brancaccio chapel in San Domenico Maggiore, the Sant’Aspreno Chapel in
the Duomo and in the paintings of pairs of standing prophets in Santa Maria
Donna Regina.16 Moreover, his style had an enormous impact on the local art of
Naples until the arrival of Giotto in 1328.17 The Sienese painter Simone Martini (c.
1284–1344) seems never to have visited Naples.18 However, he painted the Saint
Louis of Toulouse panel, which was most likely a royal commission to celebrate the
canonization in 1317 of Saint Louis of Toulouse, second son of Charles II of Anjou
3
and Mary of Hungary, who had renounced his claim to the throne of Naples in
order to join the Franciscan order.19 The Sienese Tino di Camaino (c. 1280–1337),
sculptor of the tomb of Emperor Henry VII (1315),20 moved to Naples in 1323 and
stayed until his death in 1337. In Naples he worked as an architect and completed
the tombs of Catherine of Austria, Charles of Calabria, Maria of Valois and
Mary of Hungary (with the help of Neapolitan sculptor Gagliardo Primario).21
Humanist writers also visited Naples, including Petrarch and Boccaccio. Petrarch
went to Naples in 1341 and again in 1343.22 Boccaccio (1313–75) lived there
between 1326 and 1341, during which time he studied canon law and wrote
Filostrato, Teseida, Filocolo and La caccia di Diana.23
Naples can, therefore, be characterized as a major centre of Italian artistic
production and innovation. But the perceived lack of highly skilled local artists
who could compete with the cachet of artists from outside the regno is an issue
that still needs to be addressed.24 As noted above, one possible response may be
grounded in the enormous influence of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists.25 Do we
know of the Neapolitan Gagliardo Primario, for example, only because he colla
borated with the Sienese Tino di Camaino on the tomb of Mary of Hungary
(1323–25)? Ferdinando Bologna’s magisterial work I Pittori alla Corte Angioina di
Napoli, 1266–141426 brings to light the names and/or works of several Neapolitan
artists who received important commissions in their native city: the Maestro di
San Salvatore Piccolo a Capua, active in the 1290s and already familiar with the
innovations of San Francesco in Assisi; the Maestro di Giovanni Barrile, possibly a
disciple of Giotto, active in the 1330s, who decorated the chapter house in Santa
Chiara; and Roberto Oderisi (active c. 1330–82). Oderisi painted the frescoes and
altarpiece of Santa Maria Incoronata,27 built under the patronage of Joanna I of
Naples (r. 1343–82),28 as well as a Man of Sorrows (c. 1354) now in the Fogg Art
Museum (plate 3).29 In spite of their achievements, there is no indication that
these Neapolitan artists were sent or invited to other artistic centres. It is possible
that their names were already lost by the sixteenth century and therefore that
their works could not be included in biography-based histories.
Stephen J. Campbell has commented that the art-historical paradigm of art
patronage in late medieval and renaissance Italy is based on the model of capi
talistic city republics like Florence and Venice, and that in order to understand art
production and the role of artists within the courts it is necessary to adjust the
paradigm to include values beyond the monetary.30
The term familiaris was one of the benefits that courtiers, including artists,
might earn while associated with a court. With that title came prestige and a
higher social status, which in turn made the courtier more desirable to other
employers. Giotto, for example, familiaris at the Angevin court in Naples from
1328 until 1333, was appointed capomaestro of all civic projects when he returned
to Florence.31 In her chapter on the Neapolitan works of the Roman painter
Cavallini and the Florentine painter Giotto, Cathleen Fleck addresses the ways in
which famous and highly sought-after painters were expected to function in
Naples as court artists. Both Cavallini and Giotto had forged careers in which they
worked in a number of important artistic centres – Cavallini in Assisi, Rome and
Naples, and Giotto in Padua, Assisi, Florence, Rome and Naples. While attempting
to draw Cavallini out from the shadow of Vasari’s negative judgement, Fleck
demonstrates that both Cavallini and Giotto performed similar functions as court
4
3 Roberto Oderisi, The Man of Sorrows, c. 1354. Tempera and gold leaf on panel, 62.2 x 38 cm.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Gift of Grenville L.
Winthrop, Class of 1886, 1937.49. Photo: Imaging Department r President and Fellows of
Harvard College.
5
artists. Not only did they decorate the new Angevin palaces and chapels, they were
also employed to create a distinctive Angevin style, a ‘nationalist court language’
which visually established Naples as a strong ally, firstly with Assisi and Rome
under the papacy (via Cavallini), and later (via Giotto) with Florence, where the
Angevins had strong financial ties, especially after the papacy had moved to
Avignon. Fleck undertakes in-depth investigations into the ways in which Caval
lini and Giotto, both at home and at the Angevin court, were used by their
patrons as visual ambassadors, as public relations image-makers, and as cultural
capital.
THE ARAGONESE PERIOD
The role of artists as members of the court, employed to promote the identity of
the court internationally, continued under Aragonese rule. Works by artists of the
Florentine Renaissance, such as Donatello and Michelozzo, had already started to
arrive in Naples during the reign of Joanna II of Anjou (r. 1414–35), as has been
noted by both Tanja Michalsky and Nicolas Bock. The last Angevin king, René of
Anjou, was defeated by Alfonso V of Aragon, who ruled Naples as Alfonso I from
1442 until 1458.32 Naples during the Aragonese period, which lasted until 1501
4 Diagram of the rulers of Naples (1442–1501). Diagram: Janis Elliott and Gilbert Jones, Texas Tech University.
6
(plate 4), has been described as ‘one of
the most outstanding and influential
cultural centres of renaissance
Italy’.33 Court patronage prioritized
humanistic concerns. Alfonso I iden
tified himself with the ‘good’ Roman
emperors, especially Trajan and
Hadrian, who were of Spanish origin,
and he paid enormous prices to
obtain classical texts with which he
formed a great library.34 Alfonso I,
also known as ‘the Magnanimous’,
gained his epithet through his
generous support of artists and
literary figures.35 An epitaph claimed
that Alfonso ‘called in the most noble
sculptors, painters, architects, and
craftsmen from all over Italy, nay 5 Pisanello, Alfonso V of Aragon, 1394–1458, King of
from the whole world, with great Naples and Sicily 1442, obverse, c. 1449. Bronze (late
employment and fees’.36 Antonio cast), diameter 11 cm. Washington, DC: National
Galateo, the author of the epitaph, Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection,
clearly wished to present Alfonso as a 1957.14.613.a. Photo: r Board of Trustees,
great patron. Yet his encomium was National Gallery of Art, Washington.
not without foundation. Pisanello, an
artist who worked extensively for the
major Italian renaissance courts, including Ferrara, Mantua and Milan, came to
Naples in 1448/49 and may have stayed until his death in 1455.37 Those artists on
whom the title familiaris was bestowed, such as Pisanello, were regarded as
members of the ruler’s inner circle. Their salaries were set at the discretion of the
prince, as rewards for their virtù, or special talent, and some artists were knighted
so that they might represent the court as diplomats when sent abroad.38 At the
Neapolitan court of Alfonso I Pisanello received a salary of 400 ducats per year,
compared to Cosimo Tura’s salary of 60 ducats at the court of Ferrara.39 Although
he was known elsewhere as a painter, in Naples Pisanello appears to have
designed artillery, embroideries, an elaborate silver service and portrait medals;
there is no evidence that he received painting commissions.40
Patronage within Naples covered a wide spectrum of taste and type. The
humanist revival of interest in ancient Greek and Roman models of ethics, for
example, contributed towards the emulation of imperial Rome in some
commissions. Alfonso I collected ancient coins.41 This was perhaps related to his
interest in the power of heraldic devices to denote identity, as well as to the
tradition of gift exchange among the ancient emperors. In Pisanello’s series of
three medals of Alfonso, the king is portrayed on the obverse of each, in the
manner of imperial coins: Alfonso, identified by his aquiline nose, appears in
profile, surrounded by Latin inscriptions proclaiming either his virtues or his
dominions.42 The second of the three medals of Alfonso (plate 5), dated c. 1449–
50, describes Alfonso as divus (ascribing to him the status of a deity in the tradi
tion of Roman emperors) and declares him to be king of Aragon, Sicily and
7
Valencia. The reverse alludes to his triumphal entry into Naples in 1443 when, in
addition to the king’s imperial carriage, there had been a long train of floats
bearing personifications of the Virtues and allegorical figures – in conscious
imitation of imperial processions.43
Pisanello was almost certainly called to Naples because of his ability to
emulate the art of the Caesars and create an ancient imperial aura around the
figure of Alfonso I. However, another factor may have contributed to his court
appointment. Artists often found work by referral. Drawings attest to Pisanello’s
presence in Ferrara during the Council of Ferrara in 1439.44 Pisanello worked for
both the Gonzaga in Mantua and the Este in Ferrara – allies through the marriage
of Leonello d’Este (1407–50) to Margherita Gonzaga in 1435. After Margherita’s
death, Leonello married Alfonso I’s illegitimate daughter, Maria of Aragon, in
1444. Pisanello made a portrait medal of Leonello to celebrate the occasion. On
the obverse Leonello is identified as the son-in-law of Alfonso by the letters above
his head: GE R AR, standing for ‘Gener Regis Aragonum’.45 Not long afterwards
Pisanello found his way to Naples. Just as they had under Angevin rule, the social
networks between ruling and elite families appear to have created the patterns of
patronage which explain how and why some artists moved from one place to
the next.
In this volume Aislinn Loconte considers the movement of artists who made
use of these social networks: Vasari, for example, received his first commission in
Naples through his contacts with the Olivetan order in Pistoia and Milan. Bianca
de Divitiis investigates the communication between patrons by questioning the
influence Diomede Carafa’s association with the Medici, de facto rulers of Flor
ence, may have had on the construction of the Palazzo Carafa in the mid-fifteenth
century. She argues for a greater emphasis on local influences. The expectations
and taste of patrons in fifteenth-century Naples is further explored by Tanja
Michalsky, who concentrates on ‘formal and social distinctions in late quat
trocento Neapolitan tombs’. Those who commissioned tombs in Naples were able
to draw on a wide variety of precedents by sculptors trained locally and outside
the kingdom. Michalsky makes a case for a complex evaluation of the tastes of
patrons in Naples during this period, based on a nuanced understanding of their
ability to see and understand differences in style.
The artistic influx into Naples did not exclusively comprise influences from
the Italian peninsula. During the reigns of both René of Anjou (r. 1435–42) and
Alfonso I of Aragon artists came to Naples from Dalmatia, Provence and Spain46
and a number of architectural projects completed during the Aragonese period
display Catalan influences. Trading relationships between southern France, Spain
and the Kingdom of Naples facilitated the movement of artists and artistic
influences. Artists who worked at the Neapolitan court also moved on to other
locations. Antonello da Messina (c. 1430–79), a painter from Sicily, worked for
some years in Naples and went on to a successful career in Venice.47 Francesco
Laurana (c. 1430–c. 1502), from Dalmatia, began his career in Naples as an assis
tant to Pietro da Milano (c. 1410–73), with relief carvings on the lower portion of
the entrance arch of Castel Nuovo, renamed Castel Aragonese.48 The arch, which
commemorates Alfonso I’s triumphal entry into Naples, was a major architectural
and sculptural achievement involving artists from Catalonia, Milan, Pisa and
Rome. Laurana was present in Naples for relatively long periods in the 1460s,
8
1470s, 1480s and 1490s.49 After Alfonso’s death, he was called to France to the
court of Duke René of Anjou and Provence, former king of Naples. During a long
career he undertook commissions in Florence, Provence and Sicily, undoubtedly
as a result of recommendations within the courtly network. In turn, works by
French painters were also commissioned for the Neapolitan royal family: Jean
Bourdichon, for example, painted a Madonna and Saints for Ferrante I of Aragon,
Alfonso I’s son and successor, who ruled from 1458 to 1494.50
Frederick IV (r. 1496–1501) was the last Aragonese ruler of Naples (see plate 4).
With the death of René’s nephew, Charles of Maine, in 1486 the longstanding Angevin claim to Naples passed to the French crown. Louis XII of
France (r. 1498–1515) then pursued the claim and ruled Naples during a brief
interlude from 1501 to 1504. However, the treaties of Blois (1504–05) gave
Naples and Sicily to the Spanish Hapsburgs, who ruled the two kingdoms through
viceroys – one at Palermo, one at Naples – for the one and a half centuries
that followed.51
T H E S PA N I S H H A P S B U R G P E R I O D
As part of the Spanish kingdom until 1713, Naples grew to become the second
most populated city in Europe. In the first half of the sixteenth century, it was
the largest city under Spanish control.52 By 1600 it had an estimated population
of more than 300,000, and this rose to more than 400,000 before the plague of
1656.53 Important artists continued to come to Naples in search of commissions
just as they had done during the Angevin and Aragonese periods. From within
Italy came Marco Pino and Giovanni Tommaso Malvito. Luis Vargas journeyed
from Spain, and Flemish artists, including Dirck Hendricksz Centen and Cornelis
de Smet, also received commissions in Naples. Increasingly many foreign artists
settled and established careers there. The Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera
(1591–1652) lived in the city from 1616 until his death.54 Artemisia Gentileschi
(1593–1652/3) spent most of the last twenty years of her life in Naples (1630–c. 1638
and 1642–1652/3).55 Moreover, during the Spanish Hapsburg period local artists
also began to gain international reputations. Neapolitan artists such as Andrea
Vaccaro (1605–70), Salvator Rosa (1615–73) and Luca Giordano (1634–1705) found
commissions in Naples and also worked abroad. Luca Giordano, for example,
studied first in Naples and then worked in Rome, Florence and Venice. He spent
ten years in Madrid (1692–1702) most of that time in the employ of the Spanish
king Charles II (r. 1665–1700).56 The concentration of artists from very diverse
backgrounds is discussed by Aislinn Loconte in the context of Vasari’s evaluation
of art in Naples in the mid-sixteenth century. Whilst in Naples Vasari worked
hard to gain commissions from the Spanish viceroy Pedro Àlvarez de
Toledo (r. 1532–53) and was partially successful. Nonetheless, he came away from
Naples with a negative view of much of the art he had seen there. Loconte
explores the reasons for Vasari’s perceptions and contends that they are rooted
within his training in the less cosmopolitan centre of Florence.
The Angevins and Aragonese monarchs had all made the Kingdom of Naples
their home. They had maintained their capital in Naples, had invested in its
beautification, and had created dynastic identities within the city. Under Spanish
domination, the centre of political and military power shifted away from Naples
9
to Madrid.57 However, Naples continued to be a centre for artists and architects.
The viceroys, who were often appointed to Naples after they had completed a
diplomatic tour in Rome, commissioned or purchased paintings and sculptures to
send back to Spain, either to their own palaces or to the religious foundations
they supported at home, or, particularly during the reign of Philip IV (r. 1621–
1665), to the king, in order to gain his favour.58 In some cases they obtained art by
unscrupulous means and left their short-lived mark on Naples by stripping the
city of its treasures.59 Often they divided their patronage between Naples and
Spain. Two years after an outbreak of plague decimated the population of Naples,
Gaspar de Bracamonte, the Count of Peñaranda, viceroy from 1658 until 1664,
contributed paintings by Andrea Vaccaro and Luca Giordano to the new cemetery
church of Santa Maria del Pianto in Naples, but not without also donating works
to the Carmelite monastery he had founded in Salamanca, Spain.60 However, the
viceroys did not only look towards Spain. Eleonora of Toledo, the daughter of
` lvarez de Toledo, married Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539. As Loconte notes,
Pedro A
Pedro de Toledo was an active commissioner during his time as viceroy of Naples.
Via Toledo, one of the main thoroughfares of Naples, was set out in 1536 on
his orders.61 He also founded the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli in
which he and his first wife, Maria Ossovio Pimental, are buried (plate 6).62 His
tomb was sculpted by the Neapolitan Giovanni da Nola (1488–1558), who had re
putedly studied in Rome under Michelangelo.63 Among many other commissions
da Nola also created the magnificent tomb of Viceroy Ramón de Cardona, who
died in Naples in 1522 but was buried in the cathedral of his native city of Bell
puig in Catalonia. The tomb was sculpted in Naples and then transported and
reassembled in Bellpuig.64
As it had been in the fifteenth century, the display of ‘magnificence’ and
‘splendour’ was an essential component of artistic patronage in sixteenth-century
Naples. Grand buildings with rich, decorative details, exotic marble revetments,
intricate wood intarsia, expensive tapestries, sumptuous fabrics and lavish
entertainments all served the purpose of declaring the patron’s power and
international status. At the same time, such displays served to promote dynastic
continuity and, at a popular level, to instil civic pride. Magnificence was also
directed towards patronage of religious institutions in order to demonstrate
piety.65 From the sixteenth century, religious guides to Naples, such as those by
Pietro de Stefano (1560) and Cesare d’Engenio Caracciolo (1624), celebrated the
rich heritage of Naples through descriptions of its churches and relics.66 Some
commentators disapproved of the proliferation of religious institutions. Pietro
Giannone (1676–1748) remarked that ‘it is difficult to find in Naples a street
without a monastery on it.’67 Yet, the very number of religious institutions bore
witness to the importance of the church in Neapolitan life. In the 1580s, for
example, there were more than ninety-two religious houses in the city, the
wealthiest of which were lavishly decorated.68 John Nicolas Napoli investigates
the use of marble revetments in late sixteenth-century Naples through the work
of Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533–1609). He argues that whilst Dosio also worked
in Rome and Florence, his commissions in Naples responded to the city’s parti
cular situation as part of the expanding Spanish Hapsburg Empire. The use of
magnificent marbles proclaimed the power of the church within Naples and
made a strong statement on orthodoxy in the period immediately following the
10
Council of Trent (1545–63). Until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 the Ottoman Empire
was a serious threat to the Kingdom of Naples and the Church.69 Even after this
celebrated victory southern Italy was subject to attack by Muslims from North Africa.
Orthodoxy was perceived to be under threat internally as well. In 1541 the Jewish
population was expelled from the Kingdom of Naples,70 whilst in 1561 the
Waldensians in Calabria were savagely suppressed.71 Religious orthodoxy was
promoted not only through the magnificence of church buildings but also through
the publication of literature on the lives of holy men and women. Helen Hills
considers the high number of saints’ lives produced in Naples from the late sixteenth
to the early eighteenth century. She questions the disjunctions between the texts of
these vite and their frontispieces, arguing that it is through their apparent discon
nectedness from the text that the frontispieces demonstrate religious orthodoxy.
The city of Naples is figured in a number of the images discussed by Hills.
More than just a city, it had become a focus of religious fervour and a locus for
Catholic reform. Indeed, from the beginning of the Angevin period Naples was
one of the largest cosmopolitan cities in Italy and the art and architecture
commissioned for Naples was correspondingly impressive and eclectic. Its French
Angevin, Aragonese and Spanish Hapsburg rulers brought with them their own
artists and their own tastes. They assimilated the tastes and styles already
present in Naples and commissioned artists from outside the regno. This differs
from the model provided by Florence, where the most successful artists came
from Florence and the surrounding areas. Style in Naples had to be eclectic. The
` lvarez de Toledo and his first wife Maria Ossovio Pimental, c.
6 Giovanni da Nola, tomb of Pedro A
1553. Naples: San Giacomo degli Spagnoli. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
11
city became a centre in which influences coalesced from across Europe and
beyond, and in which complex experiences formed complex appreciations of
styles. It is because Naples can be defined as a ‘world city’ that to delineate its
artistic boundaries has often proved so problematic. By bringing together these
essays, all of which take Naples as their point of departure, the editors hope to
engage with discussions about artistic diversity, centres and styles, all of which
reach beyond the city of Naples.
Notes
We would like to thank the contributors to this collection of essays on the art of
late medieval and early modern Naples. It has been a pleasure to work with them
all and, most especially, a pleasure to discuss all matters Neapolitan. All but one of
the chapters in this volume was originally presented as part of three sessions on
‘Import/Export: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1266–1568’ at
the Renaissance Society of America Conference, held in San Francisco in March
2006. The exception is the chapter by Helen Hills, who was unable to attend the
conference. We wish to thank the respondents in those sessions – David Wilkins
(University of Pittsburg), Anne Dunlop (Yale University) and Leslie Korrick (York
University, Canada) – for their insightful comments. We would also like to thank all
those who have commented on the chapters at various stages on their journey into
print, including David Peters Corbett and the anonymous readers. In particular, we
would like to thank Sam Bibby, who has kept us sane through the entire process.
We would also like to thank Gilbert Jones and Laura Stennett of Texas Tech
University, who provided technical assistance with the genealogical tables and the
map of Italy, respectively, in the ‘Introduction’. Luciano Pedicini (http://www.pedi
cinimages.com/) provided many of the photographs for this volume, including the
cover images. Our thanks to him and to Massimo Velo for their professionalism and
unfailing helpfulness and courtesy. We offer thanks to Jacqueline Scott at WileyBlackwell for making the book version of this collection of essays possible.
1 These reigns are subject to brief interruptions.
Spain was formed as a result of the union of
Aragon and Castile in 1479. From 1504 Naples
was incorporated into the vast Spanish kingdom
and was ruled by a long series of Spanish viceroys. For the history of Naples, see Vittorio
Gleijeses, La Storia di Napoli dalle origini ai nostri
giorni, 3rd edn, Catania, 2008; Giuseppe Galasso,
Il Regno di Napoli, 4 vols, Turin, 1992–2005;
Benedetto Croce, History of the Kingdom of Naples,
Chicago, [1925] 1970; G.A. Summonte, Historia
della città e regno di Napoli, 6 vols, 3rd edn, Naples,
[1600–43] 1748–50.
2 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography
of Art, Chicago and London, 2004, chap. 1.
3 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni de 1550 e 1568, eds
Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 vols,
Florence, 1966–67.
4 Reconstruction of the archive continues.
Riccardo Filangieri, L’Archivio di Stato di Napoli
12
5
6
7
8
durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, Stefano
Palmieri, ed., Naples, 1996.
For a discussion of centre and periphery within
the Kingdom of Naples during the Angevin
period see Valentino Pace, ‘Arte di età angioina
nel regno: vicinanza e distanza dalla corte’, in
Tanja Michalsky, ed., Medien der Macht: Kunst zur
Zeit der Anjous in Italien, Berlin, 2001, 241–60.
Stephan R. Epstein, Freedom and Growth: The Rise of
States and Markets 1300–1750, London and New
York, 2000, 90–1.
For the term ‘so-called Kingdom of Naples’, see
Croce, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 43. For the
early history of the kingdom and the loss of
Sicily, see Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers:
A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later
Thirteenth Century, Cambridge, 1958.
Charles, Count of Anjou, became the first of the
Angevin kings of Naples. On the Angevin
´mile Léonard, Les Angevins de
monarchy see E
Naples, Paris, 1954; Carlo da Frede, ‘Da Carlo
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
d’Angiò a Giovanna I (1263–1382),’ in Storia di
Napoli, vol. 3, Cava dei Tirreni, 1969, 1–333. On
Charles I, see Jean Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou:
Power, Kingship and State-Making in ThirteenthCentury Europe, London and New York, 1998.
For a detailed discussion of Robert of Anjou, see
Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Robert the Wise and his
Heirs, London, 1897; Roberto Caggese, Roberto
d’Angiò e i suoi tempi, 2 vols, Florence, 1922 and
1930 [reprinted, Bologna, 2001].
For the acquisition of Jerusalem, see Dunbabin,
89–98.
See the section ‘Les Royaumes d’Europe Centrale’
with articles on Angevin rule of Hungary,
Croatia and Poland, in L’Europe des Anjou: Aventure
des Prince Angevins du XIIIe au XVe Siècle, Paris,
2001, 152–245. For genealogical charts further
detailing the large number of monarchs and
dynastic marriages within the Angevin dynasty,
see L’Europe des Anjou, 16–17; Aislinn Loconte,
‘Royal Women’s Patronage of Art and Archi
tecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1300–1450:
From Maria of Hungary to Maria d’Enghien’,
DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2003, Part 3,
Figs 1 and 2.
Caroline Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, New
Haven and London, 2004, 11–45; Caroline
Bruzelius, ‘Charles I, Charles II, and the Devel
opment of an Angevin Style in the Kingdom of
Sicily’, in L’Etat angevin: pouvoir, culture et société
entre XIIIe et XIVe siècle, Rome, 1998, 99–114.
On Santa Maria Donna Regina, see Janis Elliott
and Cordelia Warr, eds, The Church of Santa Maria
Donna Regina: Art, Iconography, and Patronage in
Fourteenth-Century Naples, Aldershot, 2004. On San
Lorenzo Maggiore, see Serena Romano and
Nicolas Bock, eds, Le chiese di San Lorenzo Maggiore
et San Domenico Maggiore: gli ordini mendicanti a
Napoli, Naples, 2004.
On the documents regarding Simone Martini,
Giotto, and Pietro Cavallini in Naples see Fran
cesco Aceto, ‘Pittori e documenti della Napoli
angioina: aggiunte ed espunzioni’, Prospettiva, 67,
1992, 53–65.
For the documentation relating to Cavallini, see
Paul Hetherington, Pietro Cavallini: A Study in the
Art of Late Medieval Rome, London, 1979, 152–6.
On Cavallini in Naples see Alessandro Tomei,
Pietro Cavallini, Milan, 2000, 120–33; Pierluigi
Leone de Castris, Arte di Corte nella Napoli
Angioina, Florence, 1986; Pierluigi Leone de
Castris, ‘Italia Meridionale’ in Pittura murale in
Italia dal tardo Duecento ai primi del Quattrocento,
Mina Gregori, ed., Turin, 1995, 180–202.
Leone de Castris, ‘Italia Meridionale’, 190,
describes Cavallini’s impact on Naples as a
phenomenon of style and of uniformity of taste
which imposed itself on the court and the city.
Andrew Martindale, Simone Martini: Complete
Edition, Oxford, 1988, 216; Aceto, ‘Pittori e docu
menti della Napoli angioina’, 53–5.
Martindale, Simone Martini, 194.
20 Gert Kreytenberg, ‘Das Grabmal von Kaiser
Heinrich VII in Pisa’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistor
ischen Instituts in Florenz, 28, 1984, 33–64.
21 Ottavio Morisani, Tino da Camaino a Napoli,
Naples, 1945; Giulietta Chelazzi Dini, Pacio e
Giovanni Bertini da Firenze e la Bottega Napoletana di
Tino di Camaino, Prato, 1996; Julian Gardner, ‘A
Princess among Prelates: A Fourteenth-Century
Neapolitan Tomb and some Northern Relations’,
Römisches Jahrbuch fu. r Kunstgeschichte, 23, 1998, 29–
60 with further bibliography.
22 Jerry H. Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renaissance
Naples, Princeton, 1987, 40. On Petrarch’s influ
ence on Neapolitan court culture, see Samantha
Kelly, The New Solomon. Robert of Naples (1309–1343)
and Fourteenth-Century Kingship, Leiden, 2003, 1–
21, 41–8.
23 Vittore Branca, Boccaccio. The Man and his Works,
trans. Richard Monges and Dennis J. McAuliffe,
New York, 1976.
24 As noted by Anne Dunlop during the sessions on
‘Import/Export’ at the Renaissance Society of
America Conference 2006.
25 An example of Vasari’s influence is the longstanding attribution of the Rucellai Madonna to
Cimabue, even after the commissioning docu
ment had been discovered. See Hayden B.J.
Maginnis, ‘Duccio’s Rucellai Madonna and the
Origins of Florentine Painting’, Gazette des BeauxArts, 123, 1994, 147–64.
26 Ferdinando Bologna, I Pittori alla Corte Angioina di
Napoli, 1266–1414, e un riesame dell’arte nell’età
fridericiana, Rome, 1969. See also the review
by David Wilkins in The Art Bulletin 56, 1974, 127–
30.
27 On the frescoes in the Incoronata, see Paola
Vitolo, La chiesa della regina. L’Incoronata di Napoli,
Giovanna I d’Angiò e Roberto d’Oderisio, Rome, 2008;
.
der
Lorenz Enderlein, ‘Die Grundungsgeschichte
‘‘Incoronata’’ in Neapel’, Römisches Jahrbuch der
Bibliotheca Hertziana, 31, 1996, 15–46.
´mile Léonard, Histoire de Jeanne
28 On Joanna, see E
Ier de Naples, 3 vols., Monaco and Paris, 1927–37. A
fourth volume was planned but never published.
See also Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Queen Joanna I
of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, London, 1893;
Vittorio e Lidia Gleijeses, La Regina Giovanna
d’Angiò, Naples, 1990; Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno
di Napoli, vol. 1: Il Mezzogiorno Angioino e Aragonese
(1266–1494), Turin, 1992, 165–227; Loconte, ‘Royal
Women’s Patronage of Art and Architecture’,
Part 1, 100–73.
29 On Roberto Oderisi, or Roberto d’Oderisio, see
Vitolo, La chiesa della regina, 81–95; Bologna,
I Pittori alla Corte Angioina, 297–8; Leone de
Castris, Arte di Corte, 374–407. On the Man of
Sorrows panel, see Leone de Castris, Arte di Corte,
374–81; Bernard Berenson, ‘A Panel by Roberto
Oderisi’, Art in America, 11, 1923, 69–76, reprinted
in Studies in Medieval Art, New Haven, 1930, 75–81.
30 Stephen J. Campbell, ‘Introduction’, in Artists at
Court: Image-Making and Identity, 1300–1550,
13
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
14
Stephen J. Campbell, ed., Boston, 2004, 9–18, 10–
11.
Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, ‘Giotto Past and
Present: An Introduction’, in Anne Derbes and
Mark Sandona, eds, The Cambridge Companion to
Giotto, Cambridge, 2004, 1–9, 4–6.
Alison Cole, Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the
Italian Renaissance Courts, New York, 1995, 46–7.
Cole’s chapter, ‘Art and Princely ‘‘Magnificence’’’,
16–43, provides an excellent background to rela
tionships between artists, patrons, the quality of
materials, concepts of social status and civic pride,
and the imperative of ‘virtue and magnificence’ in
court society. Chapter two, 44–65, is dedicated to
Naples under Alfonso of Aragon.
Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renaissance Naples, 39.
Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon, Pisanello: Painter
to the Renaissance Court, exhbition catalogue,
London, 2001, 124. For Neapolitan humanism
and how it differed from that in other Italian
centres, see Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renais
sance Naples, 198–202.
On Alfonso, see Alan Ryder, The Kingdom
of Naples under Alfonso the Magnanimous, Oxford,
1976.
Quoted from an epitaph written by Antonio
Galateo, cited by George L. Hersey, Alfonso II and
the Artistic Renewal of Naples 1485–1495, New Haven
and London, 1969, 23–4.
Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of Naples,
85. According to Syson and Gordon, Pisanello, 39,
it is unknown how long Pisanello stayed in
Naples and he probably died in Rome.
Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 37–9.
Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 36–7. On Tura, see
most recently Mauro Natale, ed., Cosmè Tura e
Francesco del Cossa: l’arte a Ferrara nell’età di Borso
d’Este, exhibition catalogue, Ferrara, 2007. For
Tura as a court artist, see Stephen J. Campbell,
‘Cosmè Tura and Court Culture’, in Stephen J.
Campbell, ed., Cosmè Tura: Painting and Design in
Renaissance Ferrara, Milan, 2002, 1–30.
For Pisanello in Naples, see Syson and Gordon,
Pisanello, 38–41.
G.F. Hill, ‘Classical Influence on the Renaissance
Medal’, The Burlington Magazine, 18, 1910–11, 259–68,
260, cites the humanist scholar, lawyer and poet
from Palermo, Antonio Beccadelli, known as Il
Panormita, from Panormita’s De Dictis et Factis,
II, 12.
Syson and Gordon, Pisanello, 124, mention that
the portraits on the medals were guided by
‘physiognomical stipulations’ established by the
court humanist Bartolomeo Facio (Fazio).
For an image of the reverse of the medal see
Syson and Gordon, Pisanello, 128, figs. 3.46a and b.
Syson and Gordon, Pisanello, 29–34.
Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 58. For Leonello’s
portrait medal, see Syson and Gordon, Pisanello,
123, Figs. 3.43a and b.
46 Gioacchino Barbera, ‘The Life and Work of
Antonello da Messina’, in Gioacchino Barbera et
al., Antonello da Messina. Sicily’s Renaissance Master,
New Haven and London, 2005, 19.
47 Barbera, ‘The Life and Work of Antonello da
Messina’, 19.
48 Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 62.
49 Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of Naples,
31; Hanno-Walter Kruft, Francesco Laurana. Ein
Bildhauer der Fr.uhrenaissance, Munich, 1994.
50 Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of Naples,
17. On Bourdichon’s career, see Raymond
Limousin, Jean Bourdichon, peintre et enlumineur:
son atelier et son école, Lyon, 1954.
51 On the viceroys in Naples, see Giuseppe Coniglio,
I vicerè spagnoli di Napoli, Naples, 1967.
52 Tommaso Astarita, Between Salt Water and Holy
Water. A History of Southern Italy, New York and
London, 2005, 88.
53 Astarita, Between Salt Water and Holy Water, 159, 320.
54 Carl Goldstein, ‘Painting in Seventeenth-Century
Naples: A Review of Clovis Whitfield and Jane
Martineau, eds, Painting in Naples 1606–1705 from
Caravaggio to Giordano’, Art Journal, 43, 3, 1983,
267–70, 268.
55 On Artemisia Gentileschi in Naples, see Mary D.
Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi. The Image of the
Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, Princeton, 1989,
88–109, 121–40.
56 See the catalogue entry by Oreste Ferrari, ‘Luca
Giordano’, in Painting in Naples 1606–1705 from
Caravaggio to Giordano, Clovis Whitfield and Jane
Martineau, eds, exhibition catalogue, New York,
1982, 168–9. Also Giuseppe Scavizzi, ‘Gli anni
della Spagna’, in Oreste Ferrari and Giuseppe
Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, l’opera completa, Naples,
2000, 123–58.
57 Croce, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 95–116.
58 Francis Haskell, ‘The Patronage of Painting in
Seicento Naples’, in Whitfield and Martineau,
Painting in Naples 1606–1705, 60–4, 60. On the
commissioning of art during the viceregal
period, see Eduardo Nappi, ‘I vicerè e l’arte a
Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, ser. 3, 22, 1983, 41–57.
59 See the case of Pedro Antonio de Aragon (r. 1666–
1671) in Harold E. Wethey, ‘The Spanish Viceroy,
Luca Giordano, and Andrea Vaccaro’, The Burlington
Magazine, 109, 1967, 678–87, 681.
60 Haskell, ‘The Patronage of Painting in Seicento
Naples’, 60.
61 On urban planning in Naples during Pedro de
Toledo’s tenure as viceroy, see Damien Bayon,
‘Un précurseur de l’urbanisme moderna à
Naples: D. Pedro de Toledo (1532–1553)’, in Pierre
Francastel, ed., L’urbanisme de Paris et l’Europe:
1600–1680, Paris, 1969, 235–50.
62 See Roberto Middione, ‘San Giacomo degli
Spagnoli a Napoli: il sepolcro di Pedro de Toledo’,
FMR (Edizione italiana), n.s. 3, 2004, 99–124;
Michael Kuhlemann, ‘Tugendhafte Herrschaft
zwischen Renaissance-Ideal und Ritterstolz:
Giovanni da Nolas Grabmal des spanischen
Vizekönigs Don Pedro de Toledo’, in Joachim
Poeschke, ed., Praemium virtutis: Grabmonumente
und Begr.abniszeremoniell im Zeichen des Huma
.
nismus, Munster,
2002, 83–101.
63 The only monograph on Giovanna da Nola was
published in 1921: Angelo Borzelli, Giovanni
Miriliano o Giovanni da Nola: scultore, Milan, 1921.
64 See Joan Yeguas Gassó, ‘Giovanni da Nola e la
tomba del viceré Ramon de Cardona: il trasfer
imento da Napoli a Bellpuig e i legami con la
scultura in Catalogna’, Napoli nobilissima, ser. 6, 5,
2005, 3–20; Georgiana Goddard King, ‘The
Cardona Tomb at Bellpuig’, American Journal of
Archaeology, 25, 1921, 279–88.
65 Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 20–3.
66 Pietro de Stefano, Descrittione dei luoghi sacri della
città di Napoli, Naples, 1560; Cesare d’Engenio
Caracciolo, Napoli sacra, Naples, 1624.
67 Quoted in Helen Hills, Invisible City. The Archi
tecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan
Convents, Oxford, 2004, 19.
68 Franco Strazzullo, Edilizia e urbanistica a Napoli dal
‘500 al ‘700, Naples, 1995, 102.
69 On the battle of Lepanto, see Andrew C. Hess, ‘The
Battle of Lepanto and Its Place in Mediterranean
History’, Past and Present, 57, 1972, 53–73.
70 Cecil Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy, Phila
delphia, 1946, 286.
71 Gabriel Audisio, The Waldensian Dissent. Persecution
and Survival, c. 1170–c. 1570, Cambridge, 1999,
194–8.
15
2
THE NORTH LOOKS SOUTH: GIORGIO VASARI
AND EARLY MODERN VISUAL CULTURE IN THE
KINGDOM OF NAPLES
AISLINN LOCONTE
In the early modern period the city of Naples, capital of the vast Kingdom of
Naples which encompassed the southern area of the Italian peninsula, was one of
the most influential cultural and artistic centres in the Mediterranean. By the
sixteenth century, Naples had the largest population of any city on the Italian
peninsula and was a major power not only in Italy but also on the pan-European
stage.1 The panoramic view of Naples in the late fifteenth-century cityscape
known as the Tavola Strozzi highlights the city’s splendid location in the Bay of
Naples and draws attention to the many impressive castles, palaces and religious
foundations that embellished its urban spaces (plate 1).2 Naples was an important
artistic hub drawing together native as well as foreign artists and architects
whose works enhanced the international and cosmopolitan character of the city.3
Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Naples was host to artists
from a vast geographical area spanning not only the Italian peninsula but the
wider Mediterranean. Artists native to the regno worked and collaborated with
those from outside the Kingdom of Naples. Locally trained artists included
Giovanni da Nola (c. 1488–1558), who worked on the tombs of the Spanish viceroy
` lvarez de Toledo and his consort Maria Ossovio Pimental in S. Giacomo
Pedro A
degli Spagnoli,4 and Girolamo Santacroce (c. 1502–c. 1537) who is credited with
the tomb of Carlo Gesualdo in S. Martino and the main altar of Sant’Aniello a
Caponapoli.5 The painters Andrea Sabatini (1480–1530/1), Marco Cardisco (c.
1486–c. 1542),6 Giovan Bernardo Lama (1508–79),7 and Francesco Curia (d. 1610)8
were amongst the leading artists from the regno whose work decorated numerous
religious foundations in Naples and the surrounding area. Patrons in the city also
employed Tuscan artists. Giuliano da Maiano (1432–90) was court architect for the
King of Naples, Alfonso II of Aragon, and he worked on a number of major projects
for the monarch including the provision of designs for the royal palace at Poggio
Reale (1487–90, now destroyed) and the Porta Capuana (1490).9 The painter
Leonardo da Pistoia (1502–c. 1548) received commissions from major secular and
eccelestical patrons in Naples, including the Florentine Merchant Tommaso
Cambi and the Neapolitan courtier Diomede Carafa.10 Many central Italian
artists, such as the Sienese Marco Pino (c. 1525–c. 1587), came to Naples via
Rome.11 In addition, northern Italian artists, including Giovan Tommaso Malvito
16
T H E N O R T H L O O K S S O U T H : G I O R G I O VA S A R I A N D E A R L Y M O D E R N V I S U A L C U L T U R E
1 Unknown artist, View of Naples (Tavola Strozzi), late fifteenth century. Oil on panel, 82 � 245 cm. Naples:
Museo di San Martino. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
(d. 1524), who came from Como,12 and Cesare da Sesto (1477–1523), who trained in
Milan,13 found favour in the city. Moreover, painters, sculptors and architects
from beyond the Italian peninsula, such as the sculptor Bartolomé Ordóñez
(1485–c. 1520) and the painter Luis Vargas (c. 1505–67), both from Spain, were
given ample patronage in Naples, as was the large community of Flemish artists
including Dirck Hendricksz Centen (c. 1542/43–1618) and Cornelis de Smet
(d. 1590).14
Supported by the kings of Aragon in the late fifteenth century and by the
powerful Spanish viceroys and members of their court in the sixteenth century, as
well as local ecclesiastical and secular patrons, such as Oliviero Carafa (1430–
1511), Roberto Sanseverino (1431–74) and Bernardino Rota (1509–75), artists in
Naples created a rich legacy of visual culture not just in the city and surrounding
area but throughout the southern areas of the Italian peninsula.15 During the
course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the building and decoration of
vast religious foundations, such as Sant’Anna dei Lombardi (from 1411),16
magnificent civic monuments like the Triumphal Arch of Alfonso I of Aragon
(1453–58; 1465–71),17 as well as opulent public buildings and private residences,
of which the Palazzo Carafa (c. 1466)18 and Palazzo Gravina (1513–49),19 are prime
examples, enriched the urban landscape of the city. The Triumphal Arch of
Alfonso I of Aragon demonstrates the international and multicultural environ
ment of the city of Naples in the fifteenth century as Alfonso I brought together
artists from a vast geographical area to work on the project. Francesco Laurana
(Dalmatian), Pere Joan (Catalan) and Pietro da Milano (Lombard) contributed to
the project, as did natives of the regno such as Onofrio di Giordano and Coluza di
Stasio.20
Traditionally, however, the cultural and artistic wealth of early modern
Naples has not been given the scholarly interest it is due, and it has long been
overshadowed by more northern ‘centres’, such as Rome, Florence and Venice.21
In attempting to explain the reason for this neglect of Naples, scholars have often
singled out the influential role of Giorgio Vasari (1511–74)22 and his canonical
text, Le vite de più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori (plate 2).23 The influence of
Vasari’s writing on the reception of early modern artistic culture in the city of
17
Naples was first seriously considered
by the art historian Giovanni Previ
tali, who argued for the importance of
revisionist approaches to the study of
Neapolitan art. In his article ‘Il Vasari
e l’Italia meridionale’ (1976), Previtali
dealt specifically with what he called
‘the judgement of Vasari on southern
art’.24 He suggested that Vasari’s
particular characterization of Neapo
litan art and architecture had been
the historic origin of the neglect of
southern Italian art within the canon
and was responsible for its being
considered outmoded and lacking in
artistic identity.25 In a similar vein,
authors such as Ferdinando Bologna
have characterized Vasari’s harmful
impact on later perceptions of
Neapolitan art and culture as parti
cularly enduring and influential. In
1969, in his seminal text on painting
in Naples at the Angevin royal court, I
pittori alla corte angioina di Napoli 1266–
2 Giorgio Vasari, frontispiece to Le vite de più
eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori (1568 edition). 1414, Bologna described what he
Woodcut. Photo: reproduced with permission of perceived as Vasari’s neglect of Naples
and its artistic culture as an ‘unex
the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
plainable silence’ with destructive
consequences.26 While scholars have
drawn attention to Vasari’s particular views about the city and his characteriza
tion of Neapolitan art in The Lives, they have not explored the nature of Vasari’s
relationship with the city in depth.
After a review of the historiographical literature on Naples, this chapter
explores one of the sources of Naples’s negative characterization by considering
the way in which Vasari constructed Naples in The Lives through his account of his
own time in the city and the commissions he received, as well as through the ways
in which Naples is presented in other sections of The Lives. It raises important
questions about the construction of Vasari’s Lives as a work of ‘fiction’, to use Paul
Barolsky’s term. 27 Following Barolsky’s lead, scholars have increasingly made
Vasari’s Vite a subject of scholarly investigation, both in relation to the accuracy of
the information contained in the text,28 and also in terms of its status as a
literary work.29 It is only through a conscious recognition of Vasari’s critical
perspective that his characterization of art and architecture in Naples can
usefully be considered, and historians can begin to unravel his text, mindful of
the many tropes and rhetorical devices embedded within it. Vasari’s Tuscan
preferences are well known.30 This chapter consequently goes beyond a view of
Vasari’s Naples as an example of a city that does not conform to his Tuscan-centric
expectations in order to explore the tensions between Vasari’s characterization of
18
the city as backward and the reality of Naples as a thriving cosmopolitan centre,
ruled, through viceroys, by the Spanish Habsburgs, whose empire stretched across
Europe and as far afield as Mexico.
Generally, since Vasari, and in great part as a result of his text, art historians
of the Renaissance have paid little attention to Naples as an artistic centre. If they
have discussed it, their judgements have been largely negative. Renaissance
survey texts provide ample evidence of these approaches. Books such as Sydney
Freedberg’s Painting in Italy 1500–1600 (1971) characterized the city as a minor
artistic centre. After describing Naples as a ‘provincial’ school, Freedberg
commented that ‘getting Naples into step with the sixteenth-century develop
ments took a full half-century, and even then it was without conspicuous result in
terms of the quality of local art.’31 Frederick Hartt admitted in his foreword to the
first edition of his History of Italian Renaissance Art (1969) that he held a particular
torch for Tuscan art.32 In later editions of his text he added increased coverage of
‘Northern Italian painters’ but never ventured to include Naples.33 A muchneeded recent corrective to these longstanding negative attitudes towards
Neapolitan art and architecture is found in John Paoletti and Gary Radke’s Art in
Renaissance Italy (2005).34 In discussing renaissance art in Naples and southern
Italy, Paoletti and Radke recognize the important influence that Naples held as a
centre for artistic exchange, commenting: ‘the transfer of style from one urban
center to another provided opportunities for change and cross-fertilization,
suggesting that the center did not always hold a dominating force when
confronted by the periphery, if for no other reason than that one person’s
periphery was another’s center.’35 Since the mid-1990s a growing body of
specialist studies has drawn long-overdue attention to the significant role Naples
played as a cultural capital.36
The recent interest shown by Anglo-American and European art historians in
Neapolitan art has benefited greatly from a rich tradition of local scholarship
which flourished even in the face of general widespread neglect of the artistic
culture of the city. The post-unification erudite tradition of Neapolitan local
history was founded by Bartolommeo Capasso (1815–1900) and prospered in the
scholarship of the Società Napoletana di Storia Patria of which he was a longstanding president. Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), Giuseppe Ceci (1863–1938) and
Michelangelo Schipa (1854–1939), amongst others, inherited this historio
graphical tradition and gave it a popular forum in the journal Napoli Nobilissima
(which first appeared in 1892). However, later in his career as an established and
influential philosopher, Benedetto Croce increasingly disparaged local history.
His equation of storia locale with political ideologies of regionalism ignored the
broader national and pan-European scope of the scholarly tradition of Capasso
and had far-reaching effects on the writing of Neapolitan history in the twentieth
century. Regardless of the consequences of this polemic, the works of Capasso,
Croce and their circles, published in such journals as Napoli Nobilissima and
Archivio per le province napoletane, have been foundational in the development of a
modern tradition of Neapolitan historiography, and their studies continue to be a
rich source for documentary evidence and archival material.37
The reasons for the neglect of Naples are, therefore, diverse and complex, but
Vasari’s book remains an important influence on the art-historical assessment of
Naples. A brief comparison of Vasari’s view of some Italian cities will clarify
19
further Vasari’s characterization of Naples in The Lives. During the course of his
artistic career and during the research he carried out for the first and second
editions of The Lives, Vasari had cause to visit a number of major Italian cities.
Significantly, he first went to Rome in 1532 and returned to the city on multiple
occasions throughout his lifetime.38 His characterization of Rome in The Lives
demonstrates the importance it held for Vasari. Maureen Pelta has described
Vasari’s Rome as not so much ‘a geographical destination but . . . an aesthetic
designation, a plane of artistic accomplishment’.39 However, it was also a real
destination, important because it enabled aspiring painters, sculptors and
architects to study the art of classical Rome, something Vasari considered vital for
their artistic education. Throughout The Lives Vasari emphasizes that the essential
task of an artist is to study art from antiquity, as well as contemporary work by
great masters, in order to obtain a visual inventory upon which to draw in the
process of invention (invenzione). Vasari stresses the ‘transformative’ nature of the
study of classical remains in Rome in the lives of some of those artists for whom
he reserved most praise. In his Life of Filippo Brunelleschi, for example, he
describes how, on arriving in Rome:
Brunelleschi seeing the grandeur of the buildings and the perfection of the forms of the
temples . . . And so, having made arrangements to measure the cornices and take the plans of
those buildings, he and Donatello kept labouring continuously, sparing neither time nor
expense. And Filippo was free of domestic cares and he gave himself over to the study of them,
so that he cared neither to eat or to sleep . . . having two great ideas in his mind: the one to
restore the knowledge of good architecture . . . the other to find a way, if it were possible, of
raising the cupola of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence.40
Vasari considered a sojourn in Rome as a sine qua non for a truly successful artist.
In addition to the classical remains available in Rome, the city was the centre
of the Catholic Church. It therefore offered numerous opportunities for obtaining
patronage from the princes of the Church. Vasari himself received commissions
for the Palazzo della Cancelleria and the church of San Pietro in Montorio,
amongst others. In the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Vasari painted scenes from the
life of Paul III (1545–46) for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; while in San Pietro in
Montorio he undertook the decoration of the del Monte Chapel (1550–53), in
collaboration with Bartolommeo Ammanati, for Pope Julius III.41
Vasari also visited Venice and here, too, he was successful in obtaining the
commission for a painted ceiling for Giovanni Cornaro’s palace.42 Yet, despite his
personal knowledge of the city, Vasari devoted little space to it or to Venetian
artists in Le Vite. While the 1550 edition contains discussion of artists such as
Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione, Vasari failed to discuss many other key artists
who worked in Venice. Titian appears simply as an aside in the Lives of the Bellini
and Giorgione. When he came to write the 1568 edition Vasari had greater
knowledge of the city and this edition offers, in part, a corrective to some of his
original oversights. For example, he edited his Life of Giorgione, corrected
previously misattributed work in the Life of Sebastiano del Piombo, and added
the Lives of Titian and Jacopo Sansovino. However, Vasari still paid relatively
little attention to Venice. Not only did he consider Venetian painters to be
mistaken in their emphasis on colour rather than disegno, he also viewed Venice
20
as a city rooted in its medieval past. Local artists in Venice had no classical
heritage of which to take advantage and they suffered because of this.43 It was
only in the second edition of his text that Vasari recognized the many foreign
artists who came to Venice, and it was through their knowledge of Roman art
that the city was transformed.44 Yet artists in Naples had direct access to the
Greek and Roman past of the city: numerous works of the fifteenth century attest
to the ways in which they took advantage of their heritage.45 Vasari’s blindness to
this puts his neglect of Naples in a different category to his treatment of Venice,
a city without a visible classical heritage and one which was already in political
decline.
Throughout The Lives, Vasari makes many references to Neapolitan art and
architecture. He tells us, for instance, of artists such as Giotto and Polidoro da
Caravaggio, who travelled to Naples. He also mentions artists whose works, he
claims, had an impact in Naples, such as the sculptors Donatello and Antonio
Rossellino, who both prepared works in Tuscany which were later sent to
Naples.46 In these cases, Naples is revealed through the experience of foreigners
from outside the regno. In contrast, Vasari’s discussion of artists from within the
regno is limited but particularly telling. Amongst artists from the regno, he gives
some of his greatest praise to the Calabrian Marco Calavarese (Cardisco), to whom
he dedicates a brief Life in Part 3. Vasari praises Cardisco for his altarpiece in
Sant’Agostino and notes that he had many patrons amongst the Neapolitan
nobles. Yet Vasari also emphasizes that Marco suffered because of the lack of
competition in the artistic milieu of Naples. For Vasari, Naples had seduced the
artist, who had been destined for a better place – Rome:
He had been minded, on setting out, to make his way to Rome, and there to achieve the end that
rewards the student of painting; but the song of the Siren was so sweet to him . . . that he
remained a prisoner in body of that land until he rendered up his spirit to Heaven and his
mortal flesh to earth.47
While his discussion of other artists provides evidence of his attitudes towards
the city, it is in Vasari’s own Life that some of the most detailed passages about art
in the Kingdom of Naples are found. In the autobiographical story of his own
artistic development, which he included as the last biography in the 1568 edition
of The Lives, Vasari discusses the period of approximately one year which he spent
living and working in Naples.48 In the autumn of 1544 Vasari arrived in the city in
order to begin his commission to paint the refectory of the monastery of Santa
Maria di Monteoliveto, now known as Sant’Anna dei Lombardi. In 1411 the
Neapolitan nobleman Gurello Origlia had founded the monastery. During the
reign of the Aragonese dynasty the rulers of the regno had lavished privileges and
donations upon it thus making it particularly wealthy.49 The monastery held an
influential reputation as one of the most important renaissance foundations in
the city.50 Santa Maria di Monteoliveto is mentioned in The Lives long before it
appears in the autobiography of Vasari. Earlier in his text, Vasari cites the works
that Benedetto da Maiano, Antonio Rossellino and Pinturicchio completed in the
church, and in the Life of Giuliano da Maiano he describes the foundation as ‘a
very highly honoured monastery’.51 Throughout The Lives Vasari develops the
theme of artistic genealogies by building a sense of continuity between genera
21
3 Giorgio Vasari, fresco decoration in the monks’ refectory, c. 1544–45. Naples: Sant’Anna dei
Lombardi. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
tions of artists linked through their work at a single institution.52 Through his
discussion of the work of earlier artists at the church and monastery Vasari sets
the stage for his own contributions.
Prior to his arrival in Naples Vasari had developed close ties to the Olivetans
through the work he had completed for them in a number of their other houses
on the Italian peninsula. His initial connection with the Neapolitan monastery of
Santa Maria di Monteoliveto was made through his early patron and friend, Don
Miniato Pitti, the abbot of the Olivetan house in Pistoia, together with Don
Ippolito of Milan, both of whom helped to facilitate the commission. Further
more, Don Miniato had previously arranged for Vasari to receive major commis
sions from the order, such as his work at San Michele in Bosco in Bologna (1539),
and it was through his influence that Vasari was offered the commission in
Naples by Don Gianmatteo d’Aversa, the abbot of the Neapolitan monastery.53
Vasari was asked to paint the refectory of the monastery and to decorate the walls
and the ceiling of the room with scenes appropriate for the space as the monks’
primary dining hall. At this relatively early moment in the career of Vasari the
commission would have been a valuable one for the artist. In his Ricordanze Vasari
notes that he was paid 749 scudi for his work at the monastery; the largest
22
payment he had received in his career to date.54 Yet, Vasari states that initially he
was not keen to take on the project. The reason he gives for this is that the
refectory and the whole monastery were built in an ancient manner of archi
tecture, with the vaults in pointed arches ‘and I doubted the work could bring me
little honour.’55 Persuaded by Don Miniato who, after lengthy correspondence,
convinced Vasari that he must take on the commission regardless of his initial
reservations, the artist finally did commence the project and by January of 1545
he was well into the work.56
In his Life, Vasari deliberately presents himself as an artist who takes on
commissions for ‘honour’ rather than money. He crafts his narrative to demon
strate his ideas about the status of the artist as someone who works for glory and
is above mundane financial considerations. Thus, Vasari’s pejorative description
of the refectory as being in ‘an old architectural style’ should not be taken at face
value. By describing the ‘pointed arches’ of the refectory, Vasari relegates the
architecture to an outmoded ‘gothic’ style and heightens his achievement in
bringing the ‘modern manner’ to the city (plate 3).57 The role he casts for himself
as one responsible for bringing innovative and superior methods of art to Naples,
a centre that, in his view, had still not been influenced by the work of talented
and knowledgeable artists, is further reinforced in his explanation of the impact
his art had upon the city. Following his account of his work in the refectory and
his description of his painting of The Presentation in the Temple (plate 4), which he
completed for the high altar of the Olivetan church in Naples, he concludes that:
‘It is an extraordinary thing that in this noble and great city no masters had done
any painting of importance from the time of Giotto until then.’58 Vasari
emphasizes his own crucial position in the development of Neapolitan artistic
culture and creates a role for himself as the artist hero responsible for reviving an
artistic tradition begun by Giotto in Naples, a city which he presents as lacking in
adequate models and examples of technical and stylistic excellence. By comparing
himself to Giotto – about whom he wrote at the beginning of The Lives, ‘after the
methods of good paintings and their outlines had lain buried for many years
under the ruins of the wars, he alone, although born among inept craftsmen, by
the gift of God, revived that art’59 – Vasari succeeds in two major aims. He
presents himself as Giotto’s successor, an extremely important role given the
structure of The Lives, which proceeds from the ‘youth’ of the first age (Giotto and
Cimabue) to the maturity of Vasari’s period.60 Vasari praises Giotto above every
other painter of the ‘first age’, celebrating him as a follower of nature. For Vasari,
truth to nature was the most important means for judging an artist.61 Secondly,
Vasari demonstrates the primacy of Tuscan art. For him, it is the only art of any
worth in Naples over the course of two centuries. Within the space of a few
sentences, Vasari has swept away the rich legacy of Neapolitan art between the
fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.
Ironically, Vasari was able to do this precisely because there was an impressive
and eclectic artistic tradition in Naples, one which included the works of Roman
and Tuscan artists such as Pietro Cavallini, Tino di Camaino and Donatello.62 The
complicated political history of Naples ensured that local artists had access to
styles from a wider geographical area than Vasari could have known. From the
twelfth century Naples had been ruled, in succession, by Swabian, Angevin,
Aragonese and French kings.63 By the time Vasari arrived in the city the kingdom
23
was in the hands of viceroys answerable to the Spanish Hapsburg dynasty,64 and,
as has already been noted, the art and architecture of Naples reflected its
cosmopolitan history. Yet Vasari judged the work of artists in Naples according to
standards developed through his own artistic experience in Florence and Rome,
assuming the position of an educated and worldly master with whose superior
knowledge local artists could not compete. In The Lives, Vasari had set up an Italian
and specifically Tuscan paradigm, one that could not cope with the status of
Naples as a world city. He exposed his investment in this perspective, and his
willingness to overlook good work in the service of self-promotion, when he
credited key monuments and artistic influences in the city to artists who, like
himself, had trained and worked primarily in the artistic centres of Florence and
Rome. Following his condemnation of local artistic culture from the time of
Giotto until his arrival in the city, Vasari disclosed that during this period the
imported works of both Raphael and Perugino could be found in Naples. He drew
attention to the Assumption of the Virgin with St Januarius and Cardinal Oliviero Carafa
(plate 5), which Perugino painted in 1508 for the high altar of the Naples
Cathedral (now held in the Carafa Chapel) and the Madonna del Pesce by Raphael
(plate 6), which was recorded in 1524 in San Domenico Maggiore (now in the
Prado, Madrid).65
By limiting his discussion of ‘painting of importance’ in Naples to works by
foreign artists from more northern cities, Vasari consciously portrays Naples as a
peripheral centre which had experienced little sustained influence from signifi
cant artists (until Vasari’s own arrival in the city) and had itself asserted no
artistic influence of its own.66 Essentially, Vasari was unable to appreciate the
variety of styles and international influences which co-exist in a world city. In the
Life of the Florentine artist Giotto (1267–1337) he points to some of the reasons for
the perceived historic dearth of a worthy local Neapolitan artistic tradition.67 In
his story of Giotto’s depiction of King Robert of Anjou’s kingdom as an ass bearing
a packsaddle loaded with the crown and sceptre and a similar saddle holding the
same symbols of sovereignty placed at the animal’s feet, Vasari demonstrates the
problems inherent in providing the stability which he believed was necessary to
encourage the training and development of artists in Naples. Through the
dialogue which he created between Robert of Anjou and Giotto, Vasari demon
strated the astute perception of the artist, who was able to reduce the regno’s
political history to a swiftly conceived caricature.68 The story enhances Giotto’s
status (an equal of the king); and constructs Giotto as a man of great intellect and
quick wit (a model for Vasari), an artist who worked with incredible facility (a
model for Vasari’s peers).69 Although Robert of Anjou was, in fact, a significant
patron of arts and letters who brought a number of intellectuals to his court,
including Petrarch, in Vasari’s text he is represented as a patron who is outclassed
by the foreign artists who work for him and who is unable to provide the
conditions and knowledge necessary to support local artists.70
The theme of political stability and the interest of knowledgeable patrons in
promoting the arts to support and glorify their reigns is a recurring theme within
The Lives, and Vasari argues that these conditions are essential for the develop
ment of a successful artistic culture. In his biography of Michelangelo, Vasari
builds important links between the artist’s spectacular rise to an unrivalled
pinnacle of artistic accomplishment and the crucial support he received from the
24
4 Giorgio Vasari, The Presentation in the Temple, 1544–45. Oil on panel, 394 � 276 cm. Naples: Museo
Nazionale di Capodimonte. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
25
5 Perugino, Assumption of the Virgin with St Januarius and Cardinal Oliviero
Carafa, 1508. Oil on panel, 500 � 330 cm. Naples: Carafa Chapel, Naples
Cathedral. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
Medici in Florence.71 The members of the Medici dynasty are given a vital role in
nurturing and supporting the artist and, in turn, they claim the honour and fame
that Michelangelo and the Florentine artistic tradition brought upon the city.
Vasari’s fashioning of an image of the Medici as consistent patrons engaged and
interested in the arts was intended to praise his current patron, Duke Cosimo I de’
Medici, to whom he dedicated both the 1550 and 1568 versions of his text, yet it
26
6 Raphael, Madonna del Pesce, c. 1513–14. Oil on wood, transferred to canvas,
215 � 158 cm. Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado. Photo: Reproduced with
permission of the Museo Nacional del Prado.
also enhanced the historical myth-making about the city of Florence which is at
the heart of The Lives. In the Life of Michelangelo Vasari connects different
generations of the Medici in order to create an impression of political stability
and continuity in Florence. By linking artistic and political history in the Life of
Michelangelo Vasari invents a smooth and natural transition for the city of
Florence from a republic in the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici to the ducal court of
Cosimo de’ Medici.
Within the literary framework of The Lives, the exemplary patronage and
support for the arts in Medicean Florence is strengthened by the counter-example
of Naples. The Kingdom of Naples had traditionally been ruled by a succession
of foreign monarchs. In Vasari’s eyes, this political instability had created
conditions which made it difficult to support the growth of a rich and flourishing
27
artistic culture. In 1544, when Vasari arrived in the city, Naples had been under
the rule of the Spanish viceroys for the previous forty years.72 Between 1532
and 1553, as viceroy for the Hapsburg monarchy, Pedro Àlvarez de Toledo
dramatically expanded, altered and modernized the urban landscape of the
city which served as the political and administrative centre of the larger
Kingdom of Naples over which he ruled.73 As a learned and renowned patron
of the arts, he not only commissioned grand architectural projects embellishing
Castel Nuovo, the Certosa di San Martino and his royal villa at Pozzuoli, he
was also an avid collector of antiquities.74 At his death in 1553 his substantial
library of more than one hundred and twenty volumes, many of which he
acquired in Naples, included architectural treatises and manuscripts on
Greek and Roman antiquities.75 Despite this, Vasari did not trust the viceroys,
as foreigners governing the regno on behalf of their imperial overlords, to hold
a genuine interest in the cultural wellbeing and artistic development of the
city. Vasari’s perception of the disastrous effects of Spanish rule in the regno and
the viceroys’ alleged lack of interest in the cultural development of the city is
hinted at in many of his biographies of artists who worked in the Kingdom of
Naples.
This theme features prominently in his Life of Polidoro da Caravaggio. As his
name indicates, Polidoro was originally from Caravaggio near Milan, and he
began working as an artist in Rome in the workshop of Raphael. It is now well
known that between 1523 and 1524 Polidoro went to Naples, where he received
many commissions from noble patrons to paint the façades and courtyards of
their palaces all’antica.76 He returned to the city in 1527 and worked there for a
year, completing decorative projects for noblemen, including the antiquarian and
literary figure Bernardo Rota, as well as a number of altarpieces for religious
institutions and confraternities. Interestingly, in his account Vasari does not
mention Polidoro’s first sojourn in Naples, but instead begins his version of the
artist’s activities in the city by explaining that Polidoro arrived in Naples after the
Sack of Rome in 1527.77 It is extremely unlikely that this oversight was due to a
lack of information. From the period he spent in Naples, Vasari would have been
familiar with the great fame of Polidoro in the city. Moreover, by the time he
wrote The Lives he was associated with artists such as Giulio Romano and Perino
del Vaga, who had been Polidoro’s friends and colleagues in Rome and who must
have been a useful source for Vasari.78 By recounting only the sojourn in 1527,
Vasari does not have to explain why Polidoro would wish to return to an artistic
backwater. More than this, Polidoro’s journey to Naples is presented as forced on
him by necessity. It was better than staying in Rome where, according to Vasari,
his collaborator Maturino had died as a result of the hardships he suffered.79
Vasari invents his own beginning for Polidoro’s work in Naples recounting that
although Polidoro came to the city in hope of finding patrons, instead he found
Neapolitans indifferent to his talents. His explanation is that ‘the people of that
place had little interest in excellent works of painting’, so much so that ‘Polidoro
was on the point of dying of hunger there.’80 Vasari goes on to point out that
although Polidoro eventually did paint a number of works in Naples, in the end,
‘finding his virtues to be poorly appreciated in Naples, Polidoro was determined to
depart and leave people who made more account of a horse that could jump than
of a master who could give life to the paintings depicted by his hands.’81
28
As he did in the Life of Giotto, Vasari uses an animal as a device with which to
indicate the circumstances of the city of Naples and its inhabitants. In the Life of
Giotto, the ass alluded to the ignorance of the people of the regno who constantly
looked for new powers to govern them. In the Life of Polidoro, the horse signifies
the lack of cultivation of Neapolitans whose interest in worldly pleasures was to
the detriment of their appreciation of, and support for, the arts. By the midsixteenth century Tuscan chronicles and accounts reveal that this perception of
Neapolitans as lacking in civility and cultural sophistication was a popular
contemporary stereotype. In a letter of 1539 addressed to Alessandro Corvino, the
Tuscan scholar Bernardino Daniello described Naples as one of the most
marvellous and beautiful cities he had ever seen, yet at the same time he claimed
that the Neapolitans squandered its riches and wasted its potential. He famously
described the citizens as devils living within an earthly paradise.82 Similarly, in
the fifteenth century the popular Florentine satirical text Facezie Motti e Burle del
Piovano Arlotto played on the image of Naples as a city of great natural wealth
which suffered, however, as its citizens had ‘little ingenuity’ and were ‘malignant,
bad and full of treason’.83 Vasari must have been familiar with contemporary
stereotypes that portrayed Naples as suffering under the burden of unsophisti
cated and crude citizens, and these perceptions shape and inform his account of
Polidoro’s disappointing encounters with the people of Naples.
In order to stress the depths to which Naples had sunk – ravaged by the plague
and the French invasion84 – Vasari failed to highlight the significance of the
commissions that Polidoro did receive. The large-scale works that Polidoro
painted for Santa Maria delle Grazie alla Pescheria (plate 7) and Santa Maria delle
Grazie a Caponapoli (called Sant’Angelo by Vasari) are given brief mention, and
Vasari offers little praise for these devotional paintings in contrast to his
admiration for Polidoro’s earlier work in Rome. For Vasari, when Polidoro arrived
in Naples in 1527, his strength lay in his mastery of design (disegno), evident in his
scenes from Roman myth and history that decorated the façades of noble palaces
throughout Rome. Polidoro found limited interest in Naples for the chiaroscuro
and sgraffito designs which had previously brought him fame.85 The lengthy
account of Polidoro’s artistic triumphs in Rome which forms the first part of his
Life is strengthened through the contrast created by Vasari’s subsequent grim
portrayal of the situation in Naples.
These strategies – the downplaying of Polidoro da Caravaggio’s career in
Naples and the relatively brief mention of works by Raphael and Perugino – gave
Vasari the opportunity to set himself up as the heir of Giotto in southern
Italy. At the same time, within the constructed framework of The Lives, which
often has as much to tell about Vasari himself as the artists he describes,
Polidoro’s dismal encounters with the attitudes of the Neapolitans towards
art and culture prefigure Vasari’s own account of the city. Potential patrons’
lack of interest in honourable works of art and Polidoro’s resulting rapid escape
from the city foreshadows Vasari’s own experiences in Naples two decades
later. Vasari’s ability to attract the interest of influential religious and secular
patrons in Naples thus appears far greater because he was able to succeed
where he portrays artists such as Polidoro as having failed. Vasari was also
able to use his account of Polidoro’s experiences as an excuse for his own
failures.
29
7 Polidoro da Caravaggio, The Carrying of Christ, c. 1527. Oil on panel, 81 � 106 cm. Naples: Museo
Nazionale di Capodimonte. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
They were not personal failures, in Vasari’s narrative, but the failures of
others. Such a construction allows Vasari to excuse his own lack of success with
` lvarez de Toledo. The viceroy was a powerful patron of
the Spanish viceroy, Pedro A
the arts and someone from whom Vasari might have expected patronage because
of his political connections to the de facto rulers of Florence, forged through the
marriage of the viceroy’s daughter Eleonora de Toledo to the son of the Grand
Duke Cosimo de’Medici in 1539. It is not surprising that Vasari seems to have
pursued the patronage of the viceroy in the hopes of winning his influential
support.86 Initially, Vasari seems to have been quite successful; he painted fres
coes in a chapel in the garden of the royal palace in Pozzuoli and was subse
quently offered a larger project by the viceroy for the construction of two
loggie.87 Vasari gives no further details of this grand commission awarded to him
by the viceroy, but focuses on explaining why the project never got off the ground.
Its collapse seems to have ended his hopes for building a successful career in the
city. According to Vasari, before the work could begin some of the young men who
were assisting him became involved in a dispute between the Olivetans and the
viceroy. After a violent encounter with the Spanish authorities, Vasari’s assistants
were forced to flee the city in fear of their lives, leaving Vasari with a number of
major commissions but lacking the necessary help to execute the projects.
Evidence of the importance of this conflict to the shaping of relations between
30
these two groups is found in a letter of Don Ippolito of Milan to Vasari, written in
July 1545.88 Distressed over receiving what he calls ‘scandalous and most
disgraceful news’, he asks Vasari to provide him with more information about this
dispute.89 In the hope that Vasari will be able to use his influence with the
viceroy, Don Ippolito begs Vasari to help him to repair the damage caused by this
conflict. With his long-standing loyalty to his good friends and Olivetan patrons
Don Ippolito of Milan and Don Miniato Pitti and also a desire to maintain the
patronage of the viceroy, Vasari may have felt that he was being placed in a
politically difficult situation. Indeed, from his account of these events in The Lives
it seems that they greatly diminished his optimism regarding the potential for a
further career for himself in Naples. Although he had fared well during the year
he had spent in Naples and had been given a number of high-profile commissions
by the Olivetans, the Augustinians, the local nobility and the Spanish court,
following the collapse of this project Vasari decided to move to Rome to complete
his remaining Neapolitan commissions for paintings at a distance.90
In 1544 Vasari may have genuinely hoped that he had found a magnificent
patron in the viceroy. In his autobiography, published over two decades later, his
version of the events instead emphasizes the barriers beyond his control which
kept their relationship from developing further. His experience in Naples accents
the recurring theme throughout the text of The Lives of the importance of rulers in
establishing political stability and in providing a context in which cultural and
artistic innovation are able to flourish. By the 1560s Vasari’s own long-desired
association with the Medici had been fulfilled and he held a central place at the
Medici court.91 In this role he assumed an instrumental position in building the
myth of Florentine and Tuscan cultural supremacy that the Medici aimed to
propagate through visual and textual means. From this perspective, it was
important to Vasari that the virtues of his current patron, Cosimo I de’ Medici
were made to contrast with perceived and fictionalized failings of his earlier
patrons, such as the viceroy.
Throughout The Lives, Vasari characterizes Cosimo as the destined and legit
imate ruler of Florence, one able to bring peace and prosperity to the city and its
citizens through his generous support of the arts.92 Vasari’s dedication to Cosimo
I in the 1550 edition of The Lives describes the lineage of illustrious Medici patrons
from whom Cosimo is descended and notes their pivotal role in the rise of artistic
culture in Florence: ‘it can be said that the arts were reborn in your state, indeed
in your own most happily favoured house. Thus it is to the members of your house
that the world owes the benefit of these arts, restored, embellished, and ennobled
as they are in the present day.’93 Furthermore Vasari emphasizes Cosimo’s place
within this distinguished lineage, describing him as ‘the heir to their virtue and
their patronage’.94 Vasari creates an image of Cosimo as an ideal cinquecento
` lvarez de Toledo, who failed to
prince and magnanimous patron. Unlike Pedro A
retain Vasari’s services, Cosimo’s cultural authority is manifest in his position
within a long line of artistic patrons, and his ability to draw the most talented
artists to his city and support them in developing great works. The irony is that
Vasari had gone to Naples originally because he could not obtain patronage in
Florence.
In Vasari’s description of the year he spent in Naples and of the experiences of
other artists who worked in the city he presents a view of Naples which fits within
31
the larger aims and intentions of The Lives. For Vasari, Naples is peripheral and
backward, unable to rise above the foreign rulers who have claimed dominance
over her, and with citizens who display a general indifference to artistic and
cultural pursuits. Lacking a tradition of artistic innovation, as well as the support of
knowledgeable and cultivated patrons, Naples is presented as a rhetorical foil for
more northern centres, such as Rome and Florence. The contrast between Vasari’s
artistic and civic ideals and the example of the city of Naples is encapsulated in his
own autobiography, where Vasari assumes the role of the noble courtier heroically
engaging with Neapolitans in order to enlighten and teach them, but in the end
portrays them as being unable to rise above their own political, social, intellectual
and artistic constraints. The realities of the cosmopolitan artistic cultures of
sixteenth-century Naples were too complex for Vasari to assimilate within the
structure of The Lives. Vasari was able to characterize Venetian art through the use of
colour, and was able to recognize great Venetian artists, such as Titian, through this
lens. Venice also obeyed another of Vasari’s criteria for a major artistic centre: it had
enjoyed a stable government since the formation of the republic in 1297.95 Vasari’s
treatment of Naples, therefore, reveals much more than his long-recognized incli
nation to privilege the Tuscan; it shows the deficiencies, not only of his frame of
reference for The Lives, but also of his framework in The Lives. Vasari portrayed Naples
as peripheral and provincial because he allowed himself no means of recognizing
or demonstrating that it was multicultural and cosmopolitan.
Notes
Preliminary versions of this chapter were delivered at the symposium ‘Visualising
Paradise: The Mediterranean’, University of Leeds, 2004, and in the sessions devoted
to Import/Export: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1266–1568,
at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, San Francisco, 2006. I
would like to extend my thanks to all those who offered insightful suggestions and
comments on both occasions. I am especially grateful to Cordelia Warr, Janis Elliott
and Bianca de Divitiis, who commented on an earlier draft of this chapter. The
British Academy generously provided funding for this project. Thanks are extended
to Luciano Pedicini (http://www.pedicinimages.com) for the provision of images.
1 During the course of the sixteenth century the
population of the city of Naples rose dramatically, from 100,000 at the start to 300,000 by the
end. Giuseppe Galasso, ‘Naples and the Baroque
Period’, in Thomas J. Loughman, ed., Fierce Reality:
Italian Masters from Seventeenth Century Naples,
Milan, 2006, 18.
2 The Tavola Strozzi is the earliest existing visual
record of Naples. Recent discussion of this
painting is found in Cesare De Seta, Napoli fra
rinascimento e illuminismo, Naples, 1991, 11–15, 32–
3, 48; Leonardo Di Mauro, La Tavola Strozzi,
Naples, 1992; M. Del Treppo, ‘Le avventure stor
iografiche della Tavola Strozzi’, in Fra storia e
32
storiografia. Scritti in onore di Pasquale Villani,
Bologna, 1994, 483–515; Stefano Palmieri, ‘La
‘‘Tavola di Casa Strozzi’’: variazioni sul tema’,
Napoli nobilissima, 3/4, 2007, 171–82.
3 Pierluigi Leone de Castris and Paola Giusti,
Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli, 1510–1540, forastieri
e regnicoli, Naples, 1985; Pierluigi Leone de
Castris, Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli, 1573–1606,
l’ultima maniera, Naples, 1991; and Pierluigi
Leone de Castris, Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli,
1540–1573, Fasto e devozione, Naples, 1996.
4 See, most recently, Francesco Abbate, La scultura
napoletana del Cinquecento, Rome, 1992, 181–258;
Riccardo Naldi, Giovanni da Nola, Annibale Cacca
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
vello, Giovan Domenico D’Auria: sculture ‘ritrovate’ tra
Napoli e Terra di Lavoro, 1545–1565, Naples, 2007.
Abbate, La scultura napoletana, 149–80; Riccardo
Naldi, Girolamo Santacroce: orafo e sculptore napole
tano del Cinquecento, Naples, 1997.
See, for example, Giovanni Previtali, ed., Andrea
da Salerno nel Rinascimento meridionale, Florence,
1986; and Pierluigi Leone de Castris and Paola
Giusti, Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli, 1510–1540,
forastieri e regnicoli, 2nd edn, Naples, 1988, 86–
186, 226–45.
Andrea Zezza, ‘Giovan Bernardo Lama: ipotesi
per un percorso’, Bollettino d’arte, 76, 1991, 1–30.
See Ippolita Di Majo, Francesco Curia: l’opera
completa, Naples, 2002.
See George L. Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic
Renewal of Naples 1485–1495, London, 1969, 44–81;
and Andreas Beyer, Partenope: Neapel und der S.uden
der Renaissance, Munich, 2000, 30–58.
See Leone de Castris, Pittura del Cinquecento a
Napoli, 1540–1573, 85–134.
See Andrea Zezza, Marco Pino: l’opera completa,
Naples, 2004; and Andrea Zezza, ed., Marco Pino:
un protagonista della ‘maniera moderna’ a Napoli
restauri nel centro storico, Naples, 2003.
Giovan Tommaso di Malvito formed part of a
flourishing community of Lombard artists in
Naples. Abbate, La Scultura napoletana, 3–66; Yoni
Ascher, ‘Tommaso Malvito and Neapolitan Tomb
Design of the Early Cinquecento’, Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 63, 2000, 111–30.
Marco Carminati, Cesare da Sesto 1477–1523, Rome,
1994.
On the work of Spanish artists in Naples, see
Abbate, La scultura napoletana, 67–180; Leone de
135–84. On Flemish artists, see Leone de Castris,
Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli, 1573–1606, 31–106;
Carmela Vargas, Teodoro d’Errico, la maniera fiam
minga nel Viceregno, Naples, 1988.
For Oliviero Carafa, see, most recently, Angela
Dreszen, ‘Oliviero Carafa committente ‘‘all’an
tica’’ nel Succorpo del Duomo di Napoli’,
Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 46, 2004, 165–
200. For Roberto Sanseverino, see Carlo De Frede,
Il principe di Salerno Roberto Sanseverino e il suo
palazzo in Napoli a punte di diamante, Naples, 2000.
For Bernardino Rota, see Italo M. Iasiello, Il
collezionismo di antichità nella Napoli dei Viceré,
Naples, 2003, 139–41.
Cesare Cundari, ed., Il complesso di Monteoliveto a
Napoli: analisi, rilievi, documenti, informatizzazione
degli archivi, Rome, 1999; Erminia Pepe, ‘Le tre
cappelle rinascimentali in Santa Maria di
Monteoliveto a Napoli’, Napoli nobilissima, 37,
1998, 97–116.
See, for example, George L. Hersey, The Aragonese
Arch at Naples: 1443–1475, New Haven, 1973;
Rosanna Di Battista, ‘La porta e l’arco di Castel
nuovo a Napoli’, Annali di architettura, 10–11,
1998/1999, 7–21; Arnaldo Venditti, ‘Sagrera da
Maiorca a Castel Nuovo: architetti ispanici
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
nell’architettura aragonese a Napoli’, in Cesare
Cundari, ed., L’architettura di età aragonese nell’I
talia Centro-Meridionale: verso la costituzione di un
sistema informativo territoriale documentario icono
grafico, Rome, 2007, 19–38.
See Bianca de Divitiis, Architettura e Committenza
nella Napoli del Quattrocento, Venice, 2007, 43–135.
See, most recently, Benedetto Gravagnuolo,
‘Palazzo Orsini di Gravina’, in Arturo Fratta, ed.,
Il patrimonio architettonico dell’Ateneo Fridericiano,
Naples, 2004, 147–72; Francesco Divenuto, ‘Il
palazzo Orsini di Gravina a Napoli: dal Cinque
cento al ripristino novecentesco’, Palladio, 32,
2003, 53–70.
While it is clear that the construction of the arch
involved collaboration between architects, there
is still scholarly debate concerning the roles and
responsibilities of the individuals involved.
Even recent studies of renaissance art, such as
the trilogy of volumes in the Open University’s
series ‘Renaissance Art Reconsidered’, while not
ignoring art in Naples entirely, provide little
discussion of visual culture in the city. See Kim
W. Woods, ed., Making Renaissance Art, vol. 1,
London and New Haven, 2007; Carol M.
Richardson, ed., Locating Renaissance Art, vol. 2,
London and New Haven, 2007; and Kim W.
Woods, Carol M. Richardson and Angeliki
Lymberopoulou, eds, Viewing Renaissance Art,
London and New Haven, 2007. The privileged role
given in art history to work from central and
northern Italy at the expense of the south has
been recognized by some scholars of the renais
sance. Alison Cole attempts to assess this
inequality by analysing a variety of princely
courts, including Naples under Alfonso I of
Aragon. See Alison Cole, Virtue and Magnificence:
Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts, London and
New York, 1995, 44–65.
Studies of Vasari and his contributions to the early
history of Italian art are numerous. These include:
T. S. R. Boase, Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book,
Princeton, 1979; Patricia Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art
and History, New Haven and London, 1995; Philip J.
Jacks, ed., Vasari’s Florence: Artists and Literati at the
Medicean Court, Cambridge, 1998.
Vasari’s Vite was first published in 1550 and
subsequently expanded and reprinted in 1568.
The text is known in English as The lives of the most
excellent painters, sculptors and architects and is
commonly referred to simply as The Lives. All
excerpts in this chapter are taken from: Giorgio
Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e
architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, eds
Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 vols,
Florence, 1966–67. Unless otherwise noted,
quotations are taken from the 1568 edition and
all translations are the author’s.
Giovanni Previtali, ‘Il Vasari e l’Italia meridio
nale’, in Vasari storiografo e artistica, Atti del
congresso nel IV centenario della morte (Arezzo–
Florence, 1974), Florence, 1976, 691–9. For the
quotation, see 693.
33
25 Previtali added, however, that Vasari could not
be held up as the sole cause of the obliteration of
Naples from the modern critical conscience.
Concerned with the impact of Vasari’s work, he
focused on the wide-ranging historiographical
consequences of The Lives and the polemical
response of later Neapolitan writers. Giovanni
Previtali, La fortuna dei primitivi dal Vasari ai
neoclassici, Turin, 1964, 64–9; Giovanni Previtali,
‘Teodoro d’Errico e la ‘‘questione meridionale’’’,
Prospettiva, 3, 1975, 17–34.
26 Ferdinando Bologna, I pittori alla corte angioina di
Napoli 1266–1414 e un riesame dell’arte nell’età
Fridericiana, Rome, 1969, 5.
27 Paul Barolsky, ‘Fear of Fiction: The Fun of
Reading Vasari’, in Anne B. Barriault, Andrew
Ladis, Norman E. Land and Jeryldene M. Wood,
eds, Reading Vasari, London, 2005, 31–7.
28 Charles Hope, ‘Can You Trust Vasari?’, New York
Review of Books, 5, 1995, 10–13.
29 Paul Barolsky has been instrumental in bringing
this aspect of Vasari’s writing to the fore. See
Paul Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and its
Maker, University Park, PA, 1990; Paul Barolsky,
Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari,
University Park, PA, 1991; Paul Barolsky, Giotto’s
Father and the Family of Vasari’s Lives, University
Park, PA, 1992. The fictional and literary
elements of Vasari’s Vite have most recently been
explored in Barriault et al., Reading Vasari.
30 Vasari’s Tuscan bias was recognized by his
sixteenth-century contemporaries, but as
Edward Goldberg has argued, ‘his Tuscanophile
stance was not polemical since no discordant
views had yet been voiced.’ Edward Goldberg,
After Vasari: History, Art and Patronage in Late Medici
Florence, Princeton, 1988, 9. However, his work
inspired the writing of subsequent regional art
histories, such as Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina
Pittrice, Bologna, 1678, and Carlo Ridolfi, Mara
viglie dell’arte, Venice, 1648, which sought to
celebrate the specific local artistic cultures
overlooked in The Lives. In a similar vein,
Bernardo de Dominici’s Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed
architetti napoletani, Naples, 1742–45, was
intended to be both a continuation of the history
of Neapolitan art presented by Vasari and a
critical re-evaluation of this earlier work. De
Dominici’s text has recently appeared in a new
critical edition: Bernardo de Dominici, Vite
de’pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, eds Fior
ella Sricchia Santoro and Andrea Zezza, Naples,
2003. On Vasari’s Tuscan bias and the reception
of The Lives, see, for example, Rubin, Giorgio
Vasari, 1995.
31 S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500 to 1600,
London, 1971, 487–8.
32 ‘I admit to a personal slant in favour of Tuscany,
and especially Florence’: Frederick Hartt, History
of Italian Renaissance Art, New York, 1969, 7.
33 The most recent versions of the text have been by
edited and revised by David G. Wilkins: 4th edn
(1994), 5th edn (2001) and 6th edn (2006). Even
34
34
35
36
37
38
39
Wilkins’s update of Hartt (2006) does not include
Naples, out of respect for ‘Hartt’s thesis that
Renaissance art evolved in Florence and had its
most fulfilling later development in Rome,
Siena, and Venice’. Wilkins has further inter
esting things to say on the subject in his preface
to the 6th edn, 9–11.
John Paoletti and Gary Radke, Art in Renaissance
Italy, London and New York, 2005, in three
editions. The section on Naples has grown
slightly larger with each edition – fifteen pages
in the 1st edition (1997), eighteen pages in the
2nd edition (2002) and twenty pages in the 3rd
edition (2005). It is pertinent to note that the
image chosen for the cover of the 1st edition was
from southern Italy: a detail of the wedding
chest (cassone), now held in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, originally made for
the marriage of the King of Naples, Ladislas of
Durazzo and Maria d’Enghien, Countess of Lecce
and Brienne.
Paoletti and Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy, 243.
For instance: Francesco Abbate, Storia dell’arte
nell’Italia meridionale: Il Sud angioino e aragonese,
Rome, 1998; Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Giotto a
Napoli, Naples, 2006; Naldi, Girolamo Santacroce;
and Zezza, Marco Pino: l’opera completa. Recent
studies of visual culture during the Angevin,
Aragonese and Spanish Hapsburg periods by
scholars outside Italy include: Caroline Bruzelius,
The Stones of Naples: Church Building in the Angevin
Kingdom 1266–1343, New Haven and London,
2004; Yoni Ascher, ‘Politics and Commemoration
in Renaissance Naples: the case of Caterina
Pignatelli’, Zeitschrift f.ur Kunstgeschichte, 69, 2006,
145–68; and Beyer, Partenope.
For further discussion of the development of
local Neapolitan historiography, see Aurelio
Musi, ed., Dimenticare Croce? Studi e orientamenti di
storia del Mezzogiorno, Naples, 1991; Thomas
` stata opera di critica onesta, liberale,
Willette, ‘E
italiana: Croce and Napoli nobilissima (1892–
1906)’, in Jack d’Amico, Dain A. Trafton and
Massimo Verdicchio, eds, The Legacy of Benedetto
Croce: Contemporary Critical Views, Toronto, 1999,
52–87; Mario Del Treppo, ‘Bartolommeo Capasso,
la storia, l’erudizione’, in Giovanni Vitolo, ed.,
Bartolommeo Capasso. Storia, filologia, erudizione
nella Napoli dell’ Ottocento, Napoli, 2005, 15–131;
and Bianca de Divitiis, ‘Building in Local all’antica
Style: The Palace of Diomede Carafa in Naples’,
in this volume. I am grateful to the author
for sending me a copy of her chapter prior to
publication.
For a biographical outline of the artist’s career,
see Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 9–19. On Vasari’s views
of Rome and its place within The Lives, see the
collection of essays in the section ‘Vasari’s Rome
and the Noble Origins of Art’, in Barriault et al.,
Reading Vasari, 117–68.
Maureen Pelta, ‘‘‘If he, with his genius, had lived
in Rome’’: Vasari and the transformative myth of
40
41
42
43
44
45
Rome’, in Barriault et al., Reading Vasari, 154–68,
164.
‘[V]edendo la grandez[z]a degli edifizii e la
perfezzione dei corpi de’ tempii . . . E cosı́ dato
ordine a misurare le cornice e lever le piante di
quegli edifizii, egli e Donato continuamente
seguitando, non perdonarono né a tempo né a
spesa. Era Filippo sciolto da le cure familiari, e
datosi in preda agli studii non si curava di suo
mangiare o dormire: solo l’intento suo era
l’architettura, che già era spenta, dico gli ordini
antichi buoni . . . Et aveva in sé duoi concetti
grandissimi: l’uno era il tornare a luce la buona
architettura . . . l’altro di trovar modo se e’ si
potesse a voltare la cupola di Santa Maria del
Fiore di Fiorenza’: Vasari, Le vite, vol. 3, 148.
Vasari describes these commissions in his own
biography: Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 387–8, 396–7. On
Vasari’s commissions in the Palazzo della
Cancelleria, see Clare Robertson, ‘Il Gran Cardi
nale’ Alessandro Farnese Patron of the Arts, London
and New Haven, 1992, esp. 53–69. For the del
Monte chapel, see Alessandro Nova, ‘The Chron
ology of the De Monte Chapel in S. Pietro in
Montorio in Rome’, Art Bulletin, 66, 1984, 150–4.
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 381–2; and Juergen Schulz,
‘Vasari at Venice’, Burlington Magazine, 103, 1961,
500–11.
For example, in his life of Titian in the 1568
edition, Vasari notes that Giorgione, Jacopo
Palma and Pordenone had ‘concealed beneath
the glamour of colouring the painful fruits of
the ignorance of design, in the manner that was
followed for many years by the Venetian painters
. . . who never saw Rome or any other works of
absolute perfection’. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 155–6.
As Majorie Och has convincingly argued, Vasari
recognized that, following the Sack of Rome in
1527, Venice held the potential to be transformed
by the subsequent influx of foreign artists
arriving in the city with first-hand knowledge of
the all’antica style gained in Rome: ‘Vasari on
Venice’, unpublished paper delivered by Och at
the Renaissance Society of America Annual
Conference, Chicago, 2008.
On the presence of antique monuments in
Naples and their reception by later artists, see
Stefano Borsi, Giuliano da Sangallo: i disegni di
architettura e dell’antico, Rome, 1985; Stefania
Adamo Muscettola, ‘Napoli e le ‘‘belle ante
chetate’’’, in Fausto Zevi, ed., Neapolis, Naples,
1994, 196–208; Adriano Ghisetti Giavarina,
‘Andrea Palladio e le antichità della Campania, I/
II’, Napoli Nobilissima, 36, 1997, 207–14 and 38,
1999, 7–16. It is also interesting that, perhaps not
inadvertently, Vasari mentions nothing in The
Lives about his longstanding competitor, the
Neapolitan artist and antiquarian Pirro Ligorio.
While Ligorio spent much of his career outside
the regno, it was in Naples, during the first two
decades of his life, that he first encountered the
culture of Roman antiquity which would later
become a central theme in his artistic output.
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
See David Coffin, Pirro Ligorio. The Renaissance
Artist, Architect and Antiquarian, University Park,
PA, 2004, 1, 5.
Antonio Rossellino’s Nativity of 1475 was carved
in Florence and subsequently sent to Naples and
installed in the Piccolomini Chapel in Santa
Mario di Monteoliveto. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 3, 393.
The tomb of Cardinal Rinaldo Brancacci was
carved in Pisa by Michelozzo and Donatello and
sent to Naples, where it was installed in the
church of Sant’Angelo a Nido. Vasari, Le vite, vol.
3, 213.
‘[S]e bene indrizzato aveva il camino per venir
sene a Roma, et in quella ultimare il fine che si
cava dallo studio della pittura. Ma sı́ gli fu dolce
il canto della Serena . . . ch’e’ restò corpo di quell
sito, finché rese lo spirito al cielo et alla terra il
mortale.’ Vasari, Le vite, vol. 4, 525.
The exact dates of Vasari’s sojourn in Naples are
not clear. It appears that he arrived in the
autumn of 1544 and stayed until September
1545. Studies of Vasari’s work at Sant’Anna dei
Lombardi include Pierluigi Leone De Castris,
‘Napoli 1544: Vasari e Monteoliveto’, Bollettino
d’Arte, 66, 1981, 59–88; and Liana De Girolami
Cheney, ‘Vasari and the Monteolivetan Order’, in
Jeanne Chenault Porter and Susan Scott
Munshower, eds, Parthenope’s Splendor: Art of the
Golden Age in Naples, University Park, PA, 1993, 49–
80. Further examination of the work Vasari
completed in Naples is found in Giovanni Previ
tali, La pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli e nel Vice
reame, Turin, 1978, 40–4; Roberto Pane, ‘Vasari e
Dosio nella Napoli vicereale’, in Il potere e lo
spazio. Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’Europa del
‘500, Florence, 1980, 252–4; Pierluigi Leone de
85–134.
For the early history of the foundation of the
church and the subsequent change of its name
in 1581, see Franco Strazzullo, ‘La fondazione di
Monteoliveto di Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, 3,
1963, 103–11; Leone De Castris, ‘Napoli 1544’; De
Girolami Cheney, ‘Vasari and the Monteolivetan
Order’.
See Arnaldo Venditti’s comments in Cundari, Il
complesso di Monteoliveto a Napoli, 38.
‘[M]onasterio in quel luogo onoratissimo’. Vasari,
Le vite, vol. 3, 255.
On Vasari’s construction of fraternities of artists,
see Hayden B.J. Maginnis, ‘Giotto’s World
through Vasari’s Eyes’, Zeitschrift f.ur Kunst
geschichte, 56, 1993, 385–408. For Vasari’s use of
literal and figurative artistic genealogies in The
Lives, see Barolsky, Giotto’s Father.
De Girolami Cheney, ‘Vasari and the Monteoli
vetan Order’, 56.
Giorgio Vasari, Il Libro delle Ricordanze di Giorgio
Vasari, ed. Alessandro del Vita, Arezzo, 1927,
46–8.
‘[Q]uando giunsi fui per non accettare l’opera,
essendo quel refettorio e quel monasterio fatto
d’architettura antica e con le volte a quarti acuti,
35
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
36
e basse e cieche di lumi, dubitando di non avere
ad acquistarvi poco onore.’ Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6,
384.
The extensive correspondence between Vasari,
Don Minato and Don Ippolito is published in Karl
Frey, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasari, vol. 1,
New York, 1982. On Vasari’s work at San Michele
in Bosco, see De Girolami Cheney, ‘Vasari and the
Monteolivetan Order’.
‘[M]i risolvei a fare tutte le volte di esso refettorio
lavorate di stucchi per levar via, con ricchi
partimenti di maniera moderna, tutta quella
vecchiaia e goffez[z]a di sesti.’ Vasari, Le vite, vol.
6, 384.
‘Ma è gran cosa che, dopo Giotto, non era stato
insino allora in si nobile e gran città maestri che
in pittura avessino fatto alcuna cosa d’impor
tanza.’ Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 385.
‘[E] ssendo stati sotterrati tanti anni dalle ruine
delle guerre i modi delle buone pitture e i
dintorni di quelle, egli solo, ancora che nato fra
artefici inetti, con celeste dono quella ch’era per
mala via resuscitò e redusse ad una forma da
chimar buona’: Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2, 95. See also,
Hayden B.J. Maginnis, Painting in the Age of Giotto.
A Historical Re-evaluation, University Park, PA,
1997, 23.
Vasari explains the structure of his text in the
preface to Part 2, noting that he has divided his
book into three chronological ages, each defined
by specific characteristics. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 3, 3–
19. For further discussion of the structure of
Vasari’s text, see Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 1–7.
Eric Fernie, Art History and its Methods. A Critical
Anthology, London, 1995, 26.
On Cavallini, see Alessandro Tomei, Pietro Caval
lini, Milan, 2000, 120–33; and Cathleen Fleck,
‘The Rise of the Court Artist: Cavallini and Giotto
in Fourteenth-Century Naples’, in this volume. I
thank Cathleen Fleck for providing me with a
copy of her chapter prior to publication. On Tino
di Camaino, see Ottavio Morisani, Tino di Camaino
a Napoli, Naples, 1945; Julian Gardner, ‘A Princess
among Prelates: A Fourteenth-Century Neapo
litan Tomb and some Northern Relations’,
Römisches Jahrbuch fu. r Kunstgeschichte, 23, 1988, 29–
60; and Francesco Aceto, ‘Tino di Camaino a
Napoli’, Dialoghi di storia dell’arte, 1, 1995, 10–27.
On the work of Donatello and Michelozzo in
Naples, see Ottavio Morisani, ‘Il monumento
Brancacci nell’ambiente napoletano del Quat
trocento’, in Donatello e il suo tempo: atti del VIII
Convegno Internazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento,
Florence, 1968, 207–13; and Ronald Lightbown,
Donatello and Michelozzo: An Artistic Partnership and
its Patrons in the Early Renaissance, London, 1980,
83–127.
The history of southern Italy during these
periods is found in André Guillou et al., Il
Mezzogiorno dai bizantini a Federico II, Turin, 1983;
and Giuseppe Galasso, Il regno di Napoli: il Mezzo
giorno angioino e aragonese (1266–1474), Turin, 1992.
64 The Kingdom of Naples became part of the vast
Spanish empire in 1503. For discussion of Naples
under Spanish rule, see Giuseppe Galasso, Il
regno di Napoli: il Mezzogiorno spagnolo (1494–1622),
Turin, 2005.
65 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 385. For Perugino, see vol. 3,
605; for Raphael, see vol. 4, 184–5. Perugino
painted The Assumption of the Virgin with St
Januarius and Cardinal Oliviero Carafa for the
Neapolitan Oliviero Carafa. In the Life of Peru
gino, Vasari confuses the subject matter of this
painting (describing it as including a tomb) and
refers to it as being in Carafa’s palace. Scholars
remain uncertain about the specific circum
stances surrounding the commission for the
painting by Raphael. In his famous letter to
Marcantonio Michiel, Pietro Summonte places it
in San Domenico. See Fausto Nicolini, L’Arte
Napoletana del Rinascimento e La Lettera di Pietro
Summonte a Marcantonio Michiel, Naples, 1925, 164.
66 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 385.
67 Giotto worked for King Robert of Anjou at the
royal court in Naples between 1328 and 1333.
Useful sources on Giotto’s activity in Naples
include Bologna, I pittori alla corte angioina, 179–
227; Pierlugi Leone de Castris, Arte di corte nella
Napoli angioina, Naples, 1986, 313–73; Pierluigi
Leone de Castris, ‘La Peinture à Naples, de
Charles Ier à Robert d’Anjou’ in L’Europe des Anjou.
Aventure des princes angevins du XIIIe au XVe siècle,
Paris, 2001, 104–21; Leone de Castris, Giotto a
Napoli; and Fleck, ‘The Rise of the Court Artist.’
68 ‘[T]ali i sudditi suoi essere e tale il suo regno, nel
quale ogni giorno nuovo signore desideravano’.
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2, 109.
69 For Vasari’s interest in improving the status of
the artist, see Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 21–59.
70 For Robert of Anjou as a patron of art and
literature, see Samantha Kelly, The New Solomon:
Robert of Naples (1309–1343) and Fourteenth-Century
Kingship, Leiden, 2003, 26–41.
71 For the relationship between the myth of
Michelangelo and Florentine cultural authority
in the time of Vasari, see Frances E. Thomas,
‘‘‘Cittadin nostro Fiorentino’’: Michelangelo and
Fiorentinismo in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Flor
ence’, in Mary Rogers, ed., Fashioning Identities in
Renaissance Art, Aldershot, 2000, 177–87.
72 See Galasso, Il regno di Napoli: il Mezzogiorno
spagnolo.
73 For the socio-economic history of Naples during
this period, see Giuseppe Galasso, ‘Trends and
Problems in Neapolitan History in the Age of
Charles V’, in Antonio Calabria and John A.
Marino, eds, Good Government in Spanish Naples,
New York, 1990, 13–78. Artistic developments are
discussed in Franco Strazzullo, Edilizia e urbanis
tica a Napoli ‘500 al ‘700, Naples, 1995; and De Seta,
Napoli, 95–164.
` lvarez de Toledo in
74 The particular role of Pedro A
transforming the urban fabric of Naples is
discussed in Giulio Pane, ‘Pietro di Toledo Vicerè
Urbanista’, Napoli Nobilissima, 14, 1975, 81–95.
75 Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles
en el siglio XVI: el virrey Pedro de Toledo linaje, estado y
cultura (1532–1553), Valladolid, 1994.
76 Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Polidoro da Caravaggio.
L’opera completa, Naples, 2001.
77 ‘Ora, mentre che Roma ridendo s’abbelliva de le
fatiche loro, et essi aspettavano premio dei
proprii sudori, l’invidia e la fortuna mandarono
a Roma Borbone, l’anno MDXXVII, che quella città
mise a sacco . . . Polidoro verso Napoli preso il
camino.’ Vasari, Le vite, vol. 4, 466.
78 Leone de Castris, Polidoro, 9.
79 ‘Per che Maturino si mise in fuga; né molto andò
che dai disagi patiti per tal sacco si stima a Roma
ch’e’ morisse di peste’. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 4, 466.
80 ‘[E]ssendo quei gentiluomini poco curiosi delle
cose eccellenti di pittura, fu per morirvisi di
fame’. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 4, 466.
81 ‘Avvenne che stando egli in Napoli, e veggendo
poco stimata la sua virtù, delibero partire da
coloro che più conto tenevano d’un cavallo che
saltasse che di chi facesse con le mani le figure
dipinte parer vive’. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 4, 467.
82 The letter is dated 22 March 1539 and was
published amongst the letters collected by
Dionigi Atanagi in Delle lettere facete et piacevoli di
diversi grandi huomini et chiari ingegni. Scritte sopra
diverse materie raccolte per M. Dionigi Atanagi, vol. 1,
Venice, 1582, 203–4. See also Benedetto Croce, ‘Il
‘‘Paradiso Abitato da Diavoli’’’, in Uomini e Cose
della Vecchia Italia, vol. 1, Bari, 1927, 70–1.
83 ‘[P]oco ingegno’; ‘maligne e cattivo e traditrici’.
Piovano Arlotto Mainardi, Facezie Motti e Burle del
Piovano Arlotto, ed. Chiara Amerighi, Florence,
1980, 232.
84 On the religious climate in Naples during the
late 1520s and Polidoro’s second sojourn in the
city, see Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Polidoro da
Caravaggio fra Napoli e Messina, Rome, 1988, 53–62.
85 On these two styles of painted decoration used
on building exteriors, see Eleonora Pecchioli, The
Painted Facades of Florence: From the Fifteenth to the
Twentieth Century, Florence, 2005.
86 Vasari, Le vite, vol 6, 385–6; Karl Frey, Der litera
rische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, vol. 2, Munich, 1930,
862.
87 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, 385–6.
88 Frey, Der literarische Nachlass, vol. 1, letter 73,
155–6.
89 ‘[N]ovità scandolosa e vituperossima’. Frey, Der
literarische Nachlass, vol. 1, letter 73, 155.
90 Vasari sent twenty-four paintings for the church
of San Giovanni a Carbonara, as well as works
to Naples from Rome for the Florentine
merchant Tommaso Cambi. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6,
386.
91 Goldberg, After Vasari, 2.
92 On Vasari’s role in fashioning a dynastic identity
for Cosimo and the Medici, see Paola Tinagli,
‘The Identity of the Prince: Cosimo de’Medici,
Giorgio Vasari and the Ragionamenti’, in Rogers,
Fashioning Identities, 189–96; and Goldberg, After
Vasari, 3–14.
93 ‘[S]i può dire che nel Suo stato, anzi nella
Sua felicissima casa, siano rinate, e per benefizio
de’ Suoi medesimi abbia il mondo queste
bellissime arti recuperate e che per esse
nobilitato e rimbellito si sia’. Vasari, Le vite,
vol. 1, 2.
94 ‘Lei come erede della virtù loro e del lor
patroncino’. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 1, 2.
95 The political stability and longevity of the Vene
tian state was celebrated by panegyrists from the
late medieval period onwards in what came to be
known as the ‘myth’ of Venice. See John Martin
and Dennis Romano, eds, Venice Reconsidered: The
History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–
1797, Baltimore, 2000, 2.
37
3
THE RISE OF THE COURT ARTIST: CAVALLINI
AND GIOTTO IN FOURTEENTH-CENTURY
NAPLES
C AT H L E E N A . F L E C K
[. . .] fu dottissimo infra tutti gli altri maestri.
Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1455
In this quotation from his Commentaries on the work of earlier artists, the
fifteenth-century artist and historian Lorenzo Ghiberti presents a high opinion of
the Roman painter and mosaicist Pietro Cavallini (c. 1250–1330): ‘[. . .] he was most
learned among all the other masters’.1 Many later writers borrowed from
Ghiberti’s information about the artist’s work but their comments did not have
such a positive tenor. Most influential among those later writers was Giorgio
Vasari, who wrote The Lives of the Artists in the mid-sixteenth century.2 The
favourable bias of Vasari towards his Tuscan predecessor Giotto (c. 1267–1337), and
Vasari’s suggestion of Cavallini’s dependence on Giotto, have marked modern
opinion about the Roman artist.3 Art historians have traditionally adopted
Vasari’s judgements, thereby giving primacy to Florentine art and evaluating
Cavallini as a competent but not truly talented artist.4 Yet current scholarship
has challenged the factual reliability and reassessed the fictional creativity of
Vasari’s work.5 Moreover, scholars like Bruno Zanardi have recently argued that
Cavallini should be re-examined because of his possible involvement in the St
Francis cycle of frescoes in the Upper Church at San Francesco at Assisi, which has
led to queries about the extent of Giotto’s role there.6 Cavallini and Giotto also
worked in Rome on projects associated with ecclesiastical and papal patrons,
which Vasari noted and later scholars have thus studied.7 Vasari, however,
undervalued the art of Naples, such that later art historians have paid little
attention to the city or to the works created there by Cavallini and Giotto under
the Angevin rulers, who were allies of the popes.8 As a part of the effort to
reconsider Cavallini, this chapter will present a comparison of the careers of
Cavallini and Giotto as court artists in fourteenth-century Naples.9 This contri
bution will question the effect of the late medieval Neapolitan court on the status
38
THE RISE OF THE COURT ARTIST
of individual artists and will also consider the general effect of Vasari’s opinions
on the reception of Cavallini in modern scholarship.10
Defining the nature of Naples provides appropriate background for this
discussion. Under nobles from Anjou, Naples became one of the most important
Mediterranean capitals of the later Middle Ages and the capital city of the
southern Italian Kingdom of Naples. The Angevin kings, placed there by the pope,
ruled this realm from 1266 to 1442.11 Through marriage, and military and poli
tical efforts, the Angevins spread their influence beyond the Italian peninsula to
the Balkans, Hungary, Poland and the eastern Mediterranean.12 Charles I even
purchased a claim to the throne of Jerusalem from Mary of Antioch, pretender to
the throne from 1269 to 1277: the Angevins retained this largely honorific title
with the support of the papacy until 1382.13 Though Angevin interests stretched
over a wide geographical area, their focal point was the court in Naples. In a broad
context, a court was the space in which the lord of a territory, his family,
household, courtiers, nobles and officials lived as though circumscribed by invi
sible boundaries.14 The individuals who served and influenced the character of
the Neapolitan court were not fixed.15 Personnel and visitors came and went
regularly from other Italian cities as well as from farther abroad.16 In a study of
King Robert of Naples (r. 1309–43), Samantha Kelly has proposed that similarities
and differences existed between the court of Naples and the fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Italian courtly environments.17 The Neapolitan court had a
consistent character, similar to later courts, based on the rituals and structures
set by King Robert, his predecessors and their bureaucracy. This consistency was
fostered by the overlapping and stability of the household and government
administrations.18 As in later courts, a social circle existed around the Angevin
ruler: the prince’s magnificence was amplified by his court, and the nobility was
integrated into the realm’s administration. Kelly argues, however, that the court
circle around King Robert was not closed and that he did not distance himself
from his people. These two traits set him apart from later princes.19 In particular,
Kelly argues that cultural patronage and extensive publicity lent a singular
direction to King Robert’s long reign – and thus to the extended period of
influence of the court artists Cavallini and Giotto.20 Although at a crucial time of
transformation in Europe, the early fourteenth-century court in Naples defies
definition as either medieval or renaissance.21 As Kelly points out, this termi
nology was the invention of later Italian writers and has had the effect of
clouding the complexities of the development from traditional to humanist
concerns.22
Essential to this discussion of court art is Martin Warnke’s influential book,
The Court Artist (first published in German in 1985).23 Warnke argued that the role
of painters at royal courts, in contrast to republican city-states, resulted in higher
prestige for the artists, their elevation from craftsman status, and freedom from
the controls of the urban guild system.24 Many aspects of Warnke’s book, from
the idea of the court as separate from urban markets to the teleological devel
opment in the status of the artist because of his court position, have been ques
tioned in a collection of essays regarding early renaissance courts published in
2004.25 The editor, Stephen Campbell, states that courts themselves were myths
because they were, on the one hand, noble households with institutions of state,
and on the other hand, were constructs of a conception ‘of civilized life and of
39
1 Pietro Cavallini, Christ Enthroned,
detail of The Last Judgement,
c. 1292–93. Fresco. Rome: Santa
Cecilia in Trastevere. Photo:
Roma, ICCD, Fototeca Nazionale,
Neg. E110878.
refinement in human conduct’ – a poetic fiction.26 It is useful to explore how a
cultural fiction could serve the state of Naples.27 Warnke and other scholars of
court art, like Campbell, tend to pass quickly over the early fourteenth century
and over Naples, if they cover it at all.28 Indeed, there is much to learn about
court artists in this earlier time and place.
Naples was unusual in its multicultural environment, its political and
geographical position, and its artistic climate.29 The city had no apparent guild
system for artists, giving the court considerable latitude, and few named painters
were present in the Angevin capital before Cavallini.30 The premise for this
discussion of court art in Naples is that Cavallini and Giotto had roles as part of the
cultural manoeuvres of the Angevin kings to elevate the image of the court
through the presence and mastery of painters imported from abroad. To study
Cavallini and Giotto as court painters and visual ambassadors, a number of ques
tions must be addressed. It will be necessary firstly to examine the evidence
regarding their artistic production and secondly to compare the separate experi
ences of Cavallini and Giotto in order to question what it meant to be a court artist
in Naples. It will also be essential to consider why these particular painters from
Rome and Florence were invited to Naples when they were.31 In other words, what
meaning did their welcome convey? Cavallini and Giotto represented culturally
specific identities, defined through style, method and geography, which translated
40
into subtle political roles to aid the court in securing hegemony through particular,
especially regional and papal, associations.32 The evidence will demonstrate
that the rulers of Naples used the art of Cavallini and Giotto for their own
political benefit and, at the same time, will show the high regard in which both
artists were held at the Neapolitan court. In contrast to the judgement of Vasari,
the evidence will also demonstrate the respected status of Cavallini in his
own time.
While Giotto is a more familiar name to modern ears, Pietro Cavallini
requires an introduction. To understand Cavallini at the court of Naples, it is
necessary first to review his work and the history of his status among other artists
of his time. Modern scholarship has focused on problems of attribution, basing its
suggestions about Cavallini’s production on the statements of Ghiberti and
Vasari, written approximately 125–220 years after the artist’s death (c. 1330).
Ghiberti and Vasari are problematic as historical sources because of the literary
nature of their texts and the authors’ biases and available knowledge. Never
theless I shall refer to those sources for what they reveal about the perception of
these artists, their work, and their roles as court artists.
Few proven facts or documents verify Cavallini’s direct involvement in
artistic commissions or in the creation of workshops.33 The majority of the
attributions to Cavallini are by scholars who, with little documentation
available to them, based their arguments on the style of his Roman work and on
Ghiberti and Vasari’s words.34 As the quotation at the beginning of this
chapter demonstrates, Ghiberti believed that Cavallini was gifted, but never
theless dedicated many more lines to the Florentine Giotto (fifty-six lines in print)
than to the Roman Cavallini (sixteen lines).35 In the two editions of The Lives
of the Artists, Vasari described Cavallini as subordinate to Giotto.36 In the first
edition, he stated that Cavallini learned from Giotto when they worked together
in Rome and that Cavallini tried to become known as a disciple of Giotto.37 In his
more detailed second edition he claimed that Cavallini travelled to Florence and
Assisi to learn from pupils of Giotto.38 Ghiberti connected Cavallini to work in
several churches in Rome, including paintings at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (c.
1293; plate 1) and mosaics at Santa Maria in Trastevere (1290s; plate 2).39 The
mosaics of the Life of the Virgin in the apse in Santa Maria in Trastevere are still
typically attributed to Cavallini because of the remains of his name in an
inscription found in a seventeenth-century watercolour copy of the mosaics.40
Vasari gave a slightly different listing of Cavallini’s works.41 Many of these listed
works are now no longer extant, in bad condition, or have been credited to other
artists, yet these writings influenced opinions about Cavallini for the following
450 years.
A discussion of the frescoes on the counter-façade and nave walls at Santa
Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome (plate 1) will help to elucidate the influence
of Vasari’s writing on subsequent scholarship on Cavallini.42 In 1900 the
art historian Federico Hermanin drew attention to Cavallini’s work when he
attributed these newly rediscovered paintings to the Roman artist.43 This
attribution, along with the apparent quality, the subtlety of modelling
with colour, and the elegant corporeality of the figures, established Cavallini
as an important master.44 No more factual information was found to confirm
the artist’s involvement at Santa Cecilia, but the attribution of paintings in
41
2 Pietro Cavallini, Annunciation, 1290s. Mosaic. Rome: Santa Maria in Trastevere. Photo: Roma,
ICCD, Fototeca Nazionale, Neg. N34026.
Santa Cecilia to Cavallini by Ghiberti and Vasari was enough for Hermanin to make
his attribution and to re-evaluate other monuments on that basis.45 While not
firmly founded on the modern art-historical necessity for documents and facts, the
early twentieth-century reconsideration of Cavallini’s work has led to the artist’s
elevation among late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century artists.46
Documents place Cavallini in Naples, though none state where he worked while
he was there. Ghiberti and Vasari do not mention his time in the city at all.
Nevertheless, several frescoes in Naples have been attributed to Cavallini through
stylistic affinities with his Roman work: in the Cappella Brancaccio in San Dome
nico Maggiore (c. 1308; plate 3);47 in the Cappella Aspreno and Cappella degli Illu
strissimi (a Tree of Jesse) in the Cathedral; and in various parts of Santa Maria Donna
Regina (c. 1320).48 In Naples, the example of an Apostle and Prophet from frescoes at
Santa Maria Donna Regina (plate 4), and in Rome, the examples of the Annunciation
mosaic from Santa Maria in Trastevere (plate 2) and angels from the Last Judgement
fresco at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere demonstrate what has been defined as Caval
lini’s style: stocky figures with generally proportionate bodies and a firm corpore
ality. The soft shading of the faces and figures and the drapery stiffly moulding to
the forms suggest the physical presence of the figures in space. While there is no
firm evidence that any of these works are by Cavallini himself, they do have similar
characteristics that suggest the strong influence of one artist, if not his actual
involvement.
42
3 Pietro Cavallini (?), Noli me tangere, c. 1308. Fresco. Naples: Brancaccio Chapel,
San Domenico Maggiore. Photo: Roma, ICCD, Fototeca Nazionale, Neg. E63592.
4 Detail of Pietro Cavallini (?), St Thomas and a Prophet, c. 1320. Fresco. Naples:
Santa Maria Donna Regina. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
43
5 Birth of John the Baptist and the Annunciation from the Bible of Pope Clement VII, c. 1330. Miniature
painting. London: British Library, Add. MS 47672, fol. 397v. Photo: Conway Library, Courtauld
Institute of Art.
Despite the uncertainties about Cavallini’s work in Naples, he can be cate
gorized as an official court artist because documents confirm that two kings
provided him with a salary, duties and privileges.49 The Angevin archives are
problematic because of their destruction during the 1939–45 war and their
present existence only in dispersed transcriptions and publications. The
published information is considered generally reliable, though uneven in its
coverage.50 The first archival mention of Cavallini in Naples regards King Charles
51
II (r. 1289–1309) in 1308;
two others, in 1308 and 1309, regard his son and heir
apparent Robert, then Duke of Calabria.52 The first of these pertain to a yearly
allowance and home in Naples for the family of Cavallini, who is called ‘de Roma
pictor’. This was granted by Charles II in June 130853 and confirmed by Robert in
the second document in December 1308.54 The third document places Cavallini
among a group of artists getting paid by the court for unspecified work.55
The wording of the Neapolitan records indicates that Cavallini worked for
the kings and received benefits in return as the kings’ paid court member,
though no details are given. The extant documents do not mention Cavallini with
the title ‘familiaris’, yet his salary and home suggest that he was treated as
such. A familiaris had a special tie to the king’s household and was entitled to free
board and a salary. The term familiaris had been given at the Neapolitan court
from 1267 to nobles and dignitaries, but also to upper-middle-class bankers,
physicians and lawyers and, increasingly, to servants in the king’s own house
hold.56 Thus the offering of a house to Cavallini was fitting for a familiaris of the
court, though still a rare and prestigious reward for an artist to receive. Cavallini
was evidently respected in his time in order to be chosen as an official court
member with a yearly salary by not only one, but two, members of the Angevin
ruling family, namely King Charles II and Prince Robert. Robert, who became king
44
in 1309, may have been following in his father’s footsteps by continuing Caval
lini’s court status, yet he would not have made such a decision lightly regarding
an artist whose work would present a visual sign of his court to the public.
While there were foreign sculptors and architects present in the Kingdom of
Naples in the late thirteenth century, before the fourteenth century not many
painters anywhere served as official court artists with a document giving special
privileges.57
Because no indication of Cavallini has been found in Neapolitan documents
relating to the second decade of the fourteenth century,58 it seems likely that he
went back to Rome soon after 1308.59 Nevertheless, Ferdinando Bologna and
Pierluigi Leone de Castris have discussed how Cavallini’s Roman style remained
predominant in Neapolitan painting until Giotto introduced his Florentine
artistic language into the city in the late 1320s.60 Examples of Cavallini’s conti
nuing influence can be seen in the Santa Maria Donna Regina frescoes of c. 1320
(plate 4) and the Bible of Clement VII of c. 1330 (plate 5).61 These paintings were
produced by artists who must have trained with Cavallini in monumental and
miniature painting forms and who remained behind and worked with other local
and visiting artists.
As the documents are limited regarding Cavallini and his ties to his royal
patrons, Giotto’s better-documented case sheds light on the cultural environment
in Naples.62 Dante’s early fourteenth-century words in the Purgatorio of the Divina
Commedia demonstrate how well-known Giotto was in his own time:
In painting Cimabue thought the field
was his alone. Now the cry is Giotto,
so the fame of the other is in shadow.63
Despite Giotto’s renown amongst his contemporaries, most of the information
connecting him to completed monuments throughout Italy stem from the testi
mony of Ghiberti and Vasari, which later scholars repeated or altered on the basis
of stylistic attributions. A recent essay by Hayden Maginnis provides a thoughtprovoking discussion of how little is definite regarding attributions to Giotto.64
Nevertheless, the high prestige that Giotto had in his time is apparent from the
fact that, even if he was not involved in all of the monuments attributed to him,
his style was. Moreover, his invitation to Naples demonstrates that his reputation
had spread far beyond Florence.
The documentary evidence places Giotto as an official court artist in Naples
two decades after Cavallini: first in 1328 and then in 1333.65 Giotto’s expressive
vitality and skilful depiction of space was powerful enough to influence art in
Naples for the following several decades.66 Ghiberti mentions Giotto working in
Naples in the renovated castle – Castel Nuovo – that served as the main residence
of the royal family and the court and as a public meeting space for the Angevin
kings.67 Vasari notes that Giotto painted a chapel in the castle.68 Monthly
payments to ‘magistro Jocto de Florentia pictori’ began in December 1328.69 The
Angevin registers indicate that the treasurer paid Giotto for the decoration of two
palace chapels, including acquiring materials and arranging for workers and
their payments in 1331 and 1332.70 Unfortunately, only fragments remain of
Giotto’s supposed projects in the large main chapel of the palace, now a
45
6 Giotto (?), bust figure in a medallion,
c. 1331. Fresco. Naples: Castel Nuovo, former
main palace chapel. Photo: r Luciano
Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
museum.71 It contains a few vestiges of fresco painting that have been identified
as giottesque in style (plate 6).72 Furthermore, Vasari made a still-undocumented
claim that Giotto painted frescoes of the Old and New Testaments in the
Neapolitan church of Santa Chiara, built by the royal couple King Robert and
Queen Sancia in c. 1310–28.73 Little remains of the fourteenth-century painting in
this much-restored church.74 Some fragments do remain of a giottesque fresco
(plate 7) in the nuns’ retrochoir, located behind the sanctuary and the tomb of
King Robert, indicating that painters working in Giotto’s style decorated at least
some of the church.75
Another work by Giotto in Naples that Ghiberti and Vasari both noted was a
cycle of nine uomini famosi, or famous men, in the audience hall (plate 8) next to
the main chapel in the Castel Nuovo.76 Unfortunately, the altered audience hall is
now devoid of any decoration, and no court documents include information
about its painting.77 Because the evidence demonstrates that Robert selected
Giotto as a palace painter for the adjacent chapel and other public spaces within
the palace, it is possible that he also wanted the visiting master to paint the
audience hall,78 which was the site of widely attended events such as the cere
mony in 1333 designating Robert’s granddaughter Joanna as heir.79 Anonymous
sonnets in several mid-fourteenth-century Florentine manuscripts described the
cycle in the hall but did not ascribe it to any artist.80 The sonnets named two
Hebrew figures, Solomon and Samson, and seven Greeks and Romans: Alexander,
Hector, Aeneas, Achilles, Paris, Hercules and Caesar.81 The men’s exemplary
characteristics of saintly wisdom, physical strength, military prowess, fine intel
ligence and political and diplomatic acumen coincided with the persona that
Robert actively attempted to convey.82 As Stephen Campbell notes, a ruler needed
his practical, military, and even mercenary activities to be offset by art and
themes of honour.83 Considered a prototype for other late medieval and renais
sance uomini famosi cycles, Robert’s uomini famosi in this room of state represent a
common theme of illustrious men of the past bequeathing a meritorious legacy
to the patron and subsequent generations.84 The artist had an important role in
46
7 Giotto (?), mourning figures, c. 1330. Fresco. Naples: Santa Chiara (choir). Photo:
Roma, ICCD, Fototeca Nazionale, Neg. E63341.
8 Former audience hall, original construction 1279–82 with later alterations. Naples:
Castel Nuovo. Photo: Soprintendenza BAPPSAD di Napoli.
47
that arrangement as one who brought that honour into being. Regardless of
Giotto’s level of involvement in the uomini famosi, the acknowledged participation
of his workshop in the decoration of the large chapel adjoining the audience hall
hints at Giotto’s importance as the king’s visual ambassador. The centrality and
size of the chapel suggests that the court, plus other visitors, could have attended
services in the chapel.85 Thus the public that mattered to a ruler – the aristocracy,
foreign rulers and the educated men who served them – would have had access to
the frescoes and their message.86 Giotto does not seem to have done any work in
Naples for patrons other than the king, though his influence can be found in
works such as the frescoes of the Sacraments in the Church of Santa Maria
Incoronata by the local artist Roberto d’Oderisio.87
As in the case of Cavallini, a document confirms that Giotto had privileges
and a special link to the court confirmed by oath.88 In January 1330 the court
named ‘magister Joctus de Florentia’, ‘pictor’, as ‘familiaris et fidelis noster’:
We gladly accept into our familia those who are recognized for their honesty of character and
recommended by their special virtue. Forasmuch as Master Giotto, a painter from Florence, our
familiar and faithful servant, brilliantly performs honest acts and fruitful services, we accept
him as our familiaris and take him into our protection, desiring that he enter into enjoyment of
the honours and privileges possessed by the other familiars after swearing of the customary
oath.89
As was typical, a familiaris took an oath of service to the king in return for the
king’s special protection. Yet this text does not state the contractual obligations of
Giotto to produce work, nor does it praise Giotto for his painting.90 Rather the
text extols his personal character in a way that indicates that the court saw him
not only as a craftsman but also as an individual with something special to bring
to the court.91 At the same time, the words do not give the sense that he was
chosen for his characteristics of independent thinking or creative invention,
qualities often given to the artist by modern art historians. The document entitled
Giotto to a salary and to residence at the palace as was befitting a familiar.
Giotto’s residence in the palace, near the king, may indicate that he had greater
prestige than Cavallini, who had separate lodgings. However, it is also possible
that Giotto’s closer proximity to the king may have been related either to a
change in protocol under King Robert or to available space in the castle, which
was still under construction in Cavallini’s time.92 In 1332 Robert expressed his
pleasure with Giotto by granting him a lifetime annuity of twelve ounces in gold:
although Cavallini had been offered thirty ounces in gold, that offer did not seem
to have the longevity of Giotto’s payment.93 Could the terms of Giotto’s
employment and the special wording of the document quoted above have resulted
from a higher regard for Giotto than for Cavallini at the Angevin court, from a
change in documentary language, and/or from different expectations two
decades later?
The artistic activity of Giotto as a paid court artist might suggest several
things for the case of Cavallini. To be a salaried court artist in Naples meant that a
painter served the king by decorating the palace and perhaps other royal
possessions. Yet of what else did the exchange between artist and ruler consist? As
noted by Stephen Campbell, the benefits – such as the perception of prestige –
48
received by the artist and the returns received by the court patron – for services
beyond artistic production – were not always tangible; indeed it was often the
intangible elements that the parties valued most.94 Caroline Bruzelius suggests
that King Charles II’s architectural patronage borrowed from Roman and indi
genous Campanian models, not those of northern Europe as had his father’s, as a
‘part of a larger process of regeneration and reform’.95 Charles II may have first
chosen the Roman artist Cavallini as a part of that trend, as he worked to beautify
the new capital of his southern Italian kingdom. King Robert’s precise crafting of
his political and religious image through the paintings of the uomini famosi
indicates that he selected his subject matter for how it would add to his public
image as a knowledgeable, pious and cultured ruler.96 Through his court artist,
Giotto, who was elevated for personal qualities in addition to his work, Robert
might have hoped to demonstrate his own cultural sophistication in keeping with
his public image as a wise and erudite king.97 It is possible that Cavallini painted
similar special subject matter that demonstrated the refinement and piety of
Charles II and Robert the Wise, in addition to renovating their city through his
Roman culture. Though intangible, these purposeful uses of court artists suggest
that the artists had value as visual ambassadors and public relations imagemakers for the Angevin kings.
What none of these documents exposes is the more mundane, though still
significant, type of artwork that any court artist might possibly have been
required to produce. The preparation of banners, shields and pageant decorations
was a function that other court artists fulfilled. For instance, the painting of
pennants, banners, harnesses and escutcheons occurred on a large scale at the
ducal court of Burgundy in the late fourteenth century.98 Although these items
have often been considered to be less valuable art forms, Sherry Lindquist
suggests that the production of these pageant products was important in so far as
they dramatized the duke’s main political and personal causes. This author has
found no direct evidence of the Angevin use of such pageant regalia in Naples or
of the involvement of either Cavallini or Giotto in similar preparations. Yet, if
contemporary manuscript illustration is any indication, King Robert would have
required special decorative elements at least in relation to his throne and military
accoutrements.99 A court painter’s preparation, or at least organization, of these
decorations seems possible as a part of his role of promoting the king’s public
image. Kelly argues that the great quantity and range of the cultural and political
patronage for the benefit of Robert and his court indicate the attention to
propaganda in all forms in his realm.100 For the artists, it is probable that less
attractive rewards and working conditions existed than the solemn texts from the
Neapolitan court would lead readers to believe. The documentary evidence seems
to show a rather sporadic system of payment that was not any more regular or
secure in the courts than was the case for an independent or civic worker.101 The
distinctive perception and positive reputation gained by the artists from the
special nature of the court outweighed the negatives.102
Having discussed the problems of Cavallini’s and Giotto’s artistic production
and roles as Neapolitan court artists, this chapter will now address the possible
stylistic, aesthetic, technical and political justifications for Cavallini’s and
Giotto’s acceptance at court. Warnke did not broach the importance of a court
artist’s style, yet recent authors have realized its significance for cases in which
49
perception was a key factor.103 Style is significant in enabling an assessment of
Cavallini’s and Giotto’s extended artistic influences in Naples. Stylistic attribu
tions indicate that Cavallini’s workshop – whether it was a loose gathering of
artists coming together for specific projects or a multi-talented more cohesive
group – worked for patrons other than the Angevin kings.104 Though Giotto
seems to have been exclusively employed by Robert, the artist’s style still spread
widely in the region.105 Importantly, those patrons who commissioned Cavallini,
or who hired artists to copy the style of either Cavallini or Giotto, were closely tied
to the king. By sharing his artist and his style, the ruler was showing his gener
osity and spreading his refined court tastes.106 Thus, while being a court artist in
Naples involved a tie to the palace and ruler, as Giotto’s case indicates, the
dispersion of a new style by Cavallini, and later Giotto, visually defined the artistic
parameters of the court at large. For Cavallini’s imprint to be so long-lived, the
Angevin court must have appreciated his style in an aesthetic sense.
The strong Roman stamp in the painting in the Upper Church of San Fran
cesco, dated to about a decade before Cavallini’s sojourn in Naples (c. 1290–1300),
demonstrates that the Roman artistic language was à la mode on a broader
scale before 1308.107 As Joan Holladay has argued in relation to art of the
early fourteenth century, medieval patrons ‘chose artists not only for their ability
to produce works they found aesthetically pleasing, but in some cases went to
great lengths to select the artists for their commissions on the basis of their
ability to fulfil specific formal requirements’.108 She calls this an ‘iconography of
style’, where style refers to artistic characteristics or the ‘manner of representa
tion’. The kings of Naples chose Cavallini, who probably worked at San Francesco,
to bring to the Angevin realm aspects of Roman painting, such as monumental
narrative traditions and faux-architectural Cosmati borders, also found in
Assisi.109
It is unlikely that a style would have remained current for decades in the
Neapolitan kingdom if it had not been enjoyed for its wider associations as well as
its perceived beauty. As Castelnuovo has suggested, late medieval ‘style’ was
understood not only in a connoisseurial manner in terms of a ‘look’: expressions
such as opus anglicanum, or ‘English work’, referred both to a geographical region
and a technique practised there.110 Cavallini was named in the Neapolitan
registers as ‘de Roma pictor’. In Cavallini’s case, his celebrity may have originated in
part from his reputation as a painter in Rome and in part from his association
with prestigious commissions, such as that for San Francesco in Assisi.111 Parti
cularly ‘Roman’ elements of his work, such as his skill in the medium of mosaic,
for which he was praised by Ghiberti, may also have had appeal.112 Similarly, the
Neapolitan documents regarding Giotto indicate the artist’s origins in ‘Florentia’,
perhaps in order to indicate his skill in pictorial mural practices mastered in
central Italy and his part in prominent projects.113 Caroline Bruzelius’s discus
sion of the selection of architectural styles by the Angevin kings based on political
and regional interests supports this concept of the Neapolitan recognition of
regional components of style.114 For instance, Robert’s court supported southern
Italian architects, though those who often turned to northern Europe for inspi
ration.115 These architects referred both to the nothern regions of the Angevins’
heritage, where the forms of architecture were currently the most developed and
complex, and to the structural forms of their realm in southern Italy.
50
In addition to motivations of stylistic, aesthetic and technical appreciation,
political forces may have led to Cavallini’s royal invitation to work in Naples.
Cavallini’s stay there took place at a pivotal moment for the Angevin kings in
Italy, especially in terms of their relationship with the popes and Rome.116
Although the Angevin monarchy had its origins in France, its involvement in
Italian politics strengthened after Pope Clement IV affirmed the place of Charles I
(1266–85) on the throne of the Kingdom of Naples in 1266.117 In doing so the
papacy reclaimed the southern kingdom from the Hohenstaufen imperial family.
This caused continual tensions between the Angevin kings of southern Italy and
the Holy Roman emperors in northern Europe, while solidifying the relationship
between the papacy and the Kingdom of Naples. Charles I took advantage of this
new position of power to extend his reach further east. He established influence
over Corfu, Achaea, the Aegean islands, and Albania, made alliances with Baldwin
II (1217–73) – the last emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204–61) –
and bought the crown of the titular kingdom of Jerusalem (1277). On the Italian
peninsula, Charles I’s election as senator of Rome in 1265 demonstrates that he
was successful in forging political ties there as well.118 To consolidate this power,
the next Angevin king, Charles II (1289–1309), learned to exert pressure on Rome
and the papacy, still the source of his power in southern Italy. His attention
turned from the east towards southern France and central Italy – and papal
relations. For instance, in 1294 he joined the conclave which eventually selected
Pope Celestine V, the Angevin candidate.119 Celestine’s election was soon followed
by the promotion of twelve cardinals supported by Charles II. The king also
fostered relations with Celestine and his successor, Boniface VIII, to gain their
support in the fight with the Aragonese over Sicily.120 Close relationships
between the Angevins and the papacy continued with the election of the next
pope, Clement V, in 1305. Clement was elected pope while in France and never
succeeded in establishing himself in Rome.121 He eventually moved to Avignon in
Angevin territory and established a new residence there from 1309, the year of
Robert’s ascension to the Angevin throne.122 The following period of papal
absence from Rome (1309–77) allowed the Angevin influence in Avignon, Rome
and across Italy to grow. The Angevins no longer had their suzerain overseeing
their activities on the peninsula. At the same time they hosted the pope in their
own territory of Provence, where Charles II spent much of his time between 1306
and 1307. Robert, acting first as his father’s representative on the peninsula and
later, from 1309, as king, considered himself champion in the absence of the
papacy. He used the role not only to help the pope ward off imperial encroach
ments but also to help to affirm his own power in important areas like Tuscany.123
The pope affirmed the already-active role of the new king as his champion when
he chose Robert as his papal vicar in the northern region of Romagna (1310–18),
which bordered papal and imperial lands. Thus the pope created an even more
significant link between Naples and the papacy.124
One example of the complicated papal–Angevin interactions occurred when
the Holy Roman imperial candidate, Henry VII (1308–13), proclaimed his objec
tive, with papal approval, of travelling to Rome for his coronation.125 Ghibellines
and adversaries of the papal–Angevin alliance had tried to encourage the former
imperial candidate, Albert of Hapsburg (1298–1308), to come to Rome and use his
imperial authority in order to curb the power of the Guelfs. Also considered a
51
menace to the Guelfs from the outset of his candidacy, Henry VII proved himself
to be a serious danger by sending notice in 1310 of his intent to cross the Alps.
King Robert, concerned about the threat to his own power in Italy and particu
larly in Rome, returned from Provence to rally the opposition factions in defiance
of the pope’s support of Henry VII.126 His aim was to send a message that Henry VII
was not welcome in Italy and especially not in Rome. As Henry VII finally
approached Rome two years later in 1312, the opposing Guelf party, supported by
Robert, had control of most of the city, including Old St Peter’s basilica, where
coronations normally took place. Henry VII therefore had to settle for a coronation
by cardinals in St John Lateran. When he tried angrily to compel King Robert to
accept his imperial authority, the pope finally intervened in support of Robert as
his vassal and champion.127 After that incident Robert was named Senator of
Rome in 1313.128 It cannot be coincidental that in the same period that the ties
between Naples and Rome and the papacy were growing, the kings were elevating
a Roman artist and his style to a prominent status at their court. By importing
Cavallini and spreading his style at this strategic time, they were reminding
everyone in Naples of their Roman and papal connections. Even though the popes
had left Rome, the city still held a remarkable power as home to martyrs and
popes over the centuries.129 The Angevin kings associated themselves with that
mystique through the visual reference to Rome and the papacy via the work of
Cavallini, a quintessentially Roman painter.
King Robert’s associations with Florence suggest similar political motivations
for inviting Giotto to visit Naples in 1328. Robert had acquired the signory, or
lordship, of Florence in 1313. He ruled the city through a governor until 1322 and
then through his son, Duke Charles of Calabria from 1326 to 1328.130 In The Lives of
the Artists, Vasari stated that Robert wrote to Duke Charles asking him to send
Giotto, thus supposing that Robert knew of the artist already.131 Though Vasari’s
words are not based on documented fact, Duke Charles may have arranged for
Giotto’s move south when he and his Neapolitan companions were in Florence.132
Other political connections appear through Robert’s bankers, the Bardi and Peruzzi
families of Florence. They maintained branches and representatives in Naples, and
Florence had special trade allowances in the Neapolitan kingdom.133 With the
papacy’s move away from Rome in 1309, Florence gained in political consequence,
being a Guelf city and papal ally, and grew as an economic centre, being home to
the bankers of some major European powers.134 Giotto painted the chapels of the
Bardi and Peruzzi in Santa Croce in Florence before leaving for Naples, so perhaps
the artist came to Robert’s attention through those families. Benjamin Kohl
suggests that the Santa Croce chapels are signs of the alliance between Florence,
the papacy and the Kingdom of Naples, which helped to maintain the freedom of
the Florentine republic.135 The close economic and political ties of the king and his
court to Florence indicate that Robert chose Giotto as a way to exhibit his asso
ciation with the important Tuscan city-state and its papal–Guelf politics.
Using culture for political display was a policy practised from the beginning
of Angevin rule in Naples. This process, sometimes called ‘cultural translation’,
often takes place as a self-conscious, self-defining action of assimilation or
appropriation.136 It is typically based on the idea of a dominant group (in this
case the Angevins) being different from the ‘other’ (the Italian traditions), such
that the former group can articulate or refashion its image through the select
52
appropriation or rejection of distinct characteristics of the latter. Caroline
Bruzelius has demonstrated how King Robert’s grandfather, Charles I, employed
French artisans when he first conquered southern Italy in 1266 to establish his
political and cultural hegemony on the peninsula. They used French style,
northern techniques and the Angevin court’s French character, rejecting the local
styles.137 Charles II, Robert’s father, used French styles and artisans less often and
selected local ones to build churches in a manner that matched the integration
and collaborative spirit of his reign.138 Rome was a special influence in his
rebuilding project for the cathedral (from approximately 1294 to 1325), the focus
of the urban renewal of Naples. The church’s early Christian, even Constantinian,
origins and the legendary connection of Naples with St Peter, first bishop of Rome,
associated the project with the past.139 As Serena Romano has noted, a theme of
‘sacred episcopacy’ in this project joined with one of romanitas – the Petrine
theme in the new Minutolo Chapel, possible representations of Constantine in
the new royal burial chapel, and the design of the building which included
ancient columns and Roman building techniques – in order to recall its venerable
beginnings.140 Following Charles II’s move away from French influence and
towards Rome, Robert leaned still more towards the Italian peninsula, looking not
only to Florence and Rome but also to Siena and other Tuscan cities for painters
and sculptors. Robert’s cultural patronage seems to have tied his kingdom more
closely to Italy than that of his father or grandfather. He assimilated the local
culture to make clear his hegemony over the region.
The welcome extended to Cavallini, and later to Giotto, relates to the Angevin
kings’ construction of a new ‘nationalist language’ at court.141 Bruzelius implies
this approach in her discussion of the key renovation project of Charles II, the
Cathedral of Naples. The Angevin king wished consciously to evoke the ancient
and early Christian past to serve as an ideological statement asserting Italian
identity – an identity expressed for posterity through his burial chapel in the
cathedral.142 Cavallini’s arrival by 1308 was a logical extension of the romanitas
begun in the cathedral more than a decade earlier. Kelly argues that King Robert
also ‘was aware of the utility of [a broad] nationalist language in uniting subjects
around a common identity that was linked to their king and opposed to the king’s
rivals’.143 Though not perhaps ‘nationalist’ in modern terminology, the cultural
language of the Angevin kings helped them to develop a new identity. Like some
of their artists, the Angevins were originally outsiders in southern Italy, invited
into the realm by the pope. In turn, the Angevins welcomed foreign artists, in
order to demonstrate their own mastery, as foreigners, over their new kingdom.
Charles II and Robert were dealing with a variety of cultural factions in southern
Italy. The court elite, many of whom were imported nobility, were French- and
Provençal-speaking, though Latin was the language of the Church and even
Robert’s own sermons; the upper-class merchants and bankers were often Tuscan;
and the local nobility were southern Italian.144 Charles II and Robert needed to
create an atmosphere in which their varied subjects could unite. They showed
respect for the many regions present at their court by importing relevant artists,
as well as intellectuals and writers, thus allowing their subjects a cultural
presence at the same time that they expressed control over them.145
This ‘nationalist language’ had to work within the kingdom of Naples to
represent the authority of the Angevin kings, but also it had to project beyond its
53
borders to present a strong front. The variety of styles produced by Italian artists
established Angevin Naples as pluralist in nature and as capable of exerting
influence in a large part of the Italian peninsula.146 The Neapolitan kingdom held
a place geographically between Sicily (which the Angevins lost to the Aragonese in
1282) and Rome (which lacked its central leader the pope from 1309 to 1377), and
was politically tied also to northern Italy (which comprised numerous city-states
and regions allied with either papal or imperial factions that were continually
vying for power). The papal–Angevin alliance was the cornerstone in the papacy’s
Italian crusades against competing Christian lay powers from 1254 to 1343.147
Charles II and Robert had to protect not only their own interests but also those of
the absent papacy and the Guelf party in the north.148 By inviting Cavallini and
Giotto to work for the Angevin court in Naples, first Charles II and then Robert
were supporting artists from traditionally papal–Guelf cities. They made these
links visible through a generally ‘Italian’ painterly vocabulary for the eyes of the
court and visiting dignitaries.
This discussion of Cavallini and Giotto probes some received ideas about
artistic patronage in fourteenth-century Naples. It reveals the disparity of scholarly
opinion resulting from Vasari’s narrow focus on central Italy, which has to date led
to the neglect of artists such as Cavallini. The acknowledgement of the reception of
Cavallini by the Angevin kings should temper the traditional perception, created
by Vasari, of Giotto’s greater importance in the larger pattern of artistic develop
ment in fourteenth-century Italy. Cavallini, like Giotto, was treated with the
privileges of a court artist in Naples. This confirms that Cavallini, two decades
before Giotto arrived, had a special role in the court’s cultural programme, even if
it is not possible to confirm what he may have painted. The evidence reveals that
Charles II and Robert were concerned with the political impact of the art of their
new employees, clearly expecting that these masters could forge, through their
regional painting styles, a positive image of Angevin rule.
This case study of Cavallini and Giotto validates the essential argument of
Warnke: the position of the artist was changing in fourteenth-century society due
to court patronage.149 Furthermore, this chapter complements Warnke’s theories
by considering what the patron and the court situation reveal about the artist’s
status. Warnke focused on Giotto as his starting point because he fitted into his
paradigm of an artist returning to a republican city-state with a higher status
after a court stay.150 Warnke ignored Cavallini who had returned from Naples to
the deserted papal city of Rome, which had been left with no artists’ guilds and
only limited art patronage among the Roman nobility. Yet Cavallini still garnered
significant prestige, as demonstrated by his commission – one of the last papal
commissions in Rome for at least a decade – for the façade of one of Rome’s
principal basilicas, San Paolo fuori le mura.151 The question remains as to whether
Cavallini and Giotto were seen as more than mere craftsmen by their patrons as a
result of their appointments at the court of Naples – or if they were perceived as
such even before their visits there.152 This analysis does not suggest, as Warnke
did, a necessarily teleological development of the artist from anonymous
craftsman to self-conscious intellectual starting from the early fourteenth
century. The present study provides evidence to indicate that the value of artists
at this time included some personal merit, though their art was still the basis of
their worth to their patrons.153
54
This chapter offers a point of departure for further examination of the
broader implications of the argument that, as early as the fourteenth century,
European courts turned to art and artists to promote a public image and that
artists benefited from the change. The example of Pietro Cavallini suggests the
prestige in which he was held before going to Naples – as an artist, a Roman and a
visual ambassador – in order to be charged with such a significant appointment as
court painter. Additionally, it reveals that the Neapolitan court had its own
‘iconography of style’, recognizing Italian artists’ individual skills and regional
influences and using them to its advantage. The renown of the artists reflected
back onto their Angevin patrons, demonstrating the patrons’ culture and prestige.
As Samantha Kelly astutely states: ‘The fame of these [artists] redounded to the
greater glory of their patron, and spread the work of Robert’s patronage to their
various homelands and along the paths of their often international careers.’154
Notes
A version of this chapter was presented in the sessions, Import/Export: Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1266–1568, at the Renaissance
Society of America Annual Conference in San Francisco in 2006. I thank Janis
Elliott and Cordelia Warr for their careful organization and editing of this
volume.
1
2
3
4
I commentarii was written shortly before
Ghiberti’s death in 1455. Lorenzo Ghiberti, I
commentarii, ed. Ottavio Morisani, Naples, 1947,
36 (section 2, para. 9) and Lorenzo Ghiberti, I
commentarii, ed. Lorenzo Bartoli, Florence, 1998,
86 (section 2.1). I have referenced both editions
in the event that one is more accessible for the
reader. I did not notice any particular differences in the texts.
Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori
scultori e architettori nelle redazioni de 1550 e 1568,
eds Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6
vols, Florence, 1966–67, vol. 2/1 (Testo).
On Giotto, see Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 117, ll. 20–
4. On Cavallini, see Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 86, ll.
1–3, 18–20, and 184, ll. 8–9.
For a review of the scholarship on Cavallini, see
Alessandro Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, Milan, 2000,
11–21, esp. 13. The Vasarian bias was found, for
instance, in Abate Luigi Lanzi, Storia pittorica
della Italia dal risorgimento delle belle arti fin presso
al fine del XVIII secolo, ed. Martino Capucci, 1795–
96, Florence, 1968, vol. 1, 30, 41–2, 50, and
Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del
disegno da Cimabue in qua, per le quali si dimostra
come, e per chi le bell’ arti di pittura, scultura, e
architettura lasciata la rozzezza delle maniere greca,
e gottica, si siano in questi secoli ridotte all’antica
loro perfezione, Florence, 1681–1728, vol. 4, 132.
Among the first to reconsider Cavallini were
Jean-Baptiste Seroux d’Agincourt, Storia dell’arte
dimostrata coi monumenti dalla sua decadenza nel IV
secolo fino al suo risorgimento nel XVI, 7 vols, Prato,
5
6
7
[1823] 1828–29, vol. 5, 200–1; and Giovanni
Battista Cavalcaselle and Joseph A. Crowe, A New
History of Painting in Italy, from the Second to the
Sixteenth Century, 3 vols, London, 1864.
See Paul Barolsky, ‘What Are We Reading When
We Read Vasari?’, Source, 22: 1, 2002, 33–5; Anne
B. Barriault and Jeryldene M. Wood with
Andrew Ladis and Norman E. Land, ‘Introduc
tion’, in Anne B. Barriault, Andrew Ladis,
Norman E. Land and Jeryldene M. Wood, eds,
Reading Vasari, Athens, GA, 2005, 15–18.
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 100, ll. 9–13. See Bruno
Zanardi, ‘Giotto and the St. Francis Cycle at
Assisi’, in Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, eds,
The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, Cambridge,
2004, 32–62; and Bruno Zanardi, Federico Zeri
and Chiara Frugoni, Il Cantiere di Giotto. Le storie
di San Francesco ad Assisi, Milan, 1996. Regarding
Vasari’s attribution to Giotto, see Patricia Lee
Rubin, Giorgio Vasari. Art and History, New
Haven, 1995, 308, 15–17. On Assisi’s ties to
Rome, see Hayden B. J. Maginnis, ‘In Search of
an Artist’, in Derbes and Sandona, The
Cambridge Companion to Giotto, 10–31, esp. 28–9.
On the papacy’s influence in the Upper Church
cycles at San Francesco, see Hans Belting, Die
Oberkirche von San Francesco in Assisi: Ihre Dekora
tion als Aufgabe und die Genese einer neuen Wand
malerei, Berlin, 1977.
On Giotto, see Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 105–6.
See also Maginnis, ‘In Search of an Artist’, 30;
Miklos Boskovits, ‘Giotto a Roma’, Arte
Cristiana, 88, 2000, 171–80. On Cavallini, see
55
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
56
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 185–8. See also Tomei,
Pietro Cavallini, 22–119.
Vasari stated that, since Giotto’s sojourn in
Naples, there had been no masters of painting
who had done anything of importance in
Naples, which is why Vasari attempted to do so
himself. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 385, ll. 20–4. See
also Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 315.
Regarding Vasari’s comments on Giotto in
Naples, see Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 313–15.
Paul Barolsky, ‘Fear of Fiction: The Fun of
Reading Vasari’, in Barriault, Reading Vasari,
31–5.
´mile Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, Paris,
E
1954, 37–73.
Tommaso Astarita, Between Salt Water and Holy
Water: A History of Southern Italy, New York, 2005,
66–7.
Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 129–30.
Alison Cole, Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the
Italian Renaissance Courts, New York, 1995, 8. On
the Angevin court and its administration, see
Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli. Il Mezzo
giorno angioino e aragonese, Turin, 1999, 317–38;
Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 82–3; and
Samantha Kelly, The New Solomon: Robert of
Naples (1309–1343) and Fourteenth-Century King
ship, Leiden and Boston, 2003, 56–7.
Isabelle Heullant-Donat, ‘Quelques réflexions
autour de la cour angevine comme milieu
culturel au XIVe siècle’, in L’E´tat angevin: Pouvoir,
culture et société entre XIIIe et XIVe siècle, Rome,
1998, 173–91, esp. 182–4.
Kelly, The New Solomon, 56–72, 137–52.
Kelly, The New Solomon, 54–5.
On courts in general, see Cole, Virtue and
Magnificence, 9. Regarding Naples, see Kelly, The
New Solomon, 56–7, 71; Galasso, Il regno di Napoli,
319–27.
Kelly, The New Solomon, 70.
On the issue of humanism at King Robert’s
court, see Kelly, The New Solomon, 41–9.
Martin Warnke, The Court Artist: On the Ancestry
of the Modern Artist, trans. David McLintock,
Cambridge, 1993.
Warnke, The Court Artist, xiii–xv.
Stephen J. Campbell, ‘Introduction’, in Stephen
J. Campbell, ed., Artists at Court. Image-Making
and Identity 1300–1550, Boston, 2004, 9–18, esp.
9–10.
Campbell, ‘Introduction’, 16.
As Kelly states, the differences between
medieval and early modern courts is not clearcut. Kelly, The New Solomon, 70–1. See also Trevor
Dean, ‘The Courts’, in Julius Kirschner, ed., The
Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, Chicago,
1996, 136–51; Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court.
Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe,
1270–1380, Oxford, 2001; Ronald Asch and Adolf
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Birke, eds, Princes, Patronage and the Nobility. The
Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c. 1450–
1650, Oxford, 1991.
Compare L’europe des Anjou: aventure des princes
angevins du XIIIe au XVe siècle, Paris, 2001; Lorenz
.
Enderlin, ‘Der Kunstler
und der Hof im angio
vinischen Neapel’, in Medien der Macht. Kunst zur
Zeit der Anjous in Italien, Tanja Michalsky, ed.,
Berlin, 2001, 61–77. For information about
other royal courts and their art, several exhi
bition catalogues are informative though none
present the same situation with regard to
court artists in Naples at this time. See L’art au
temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils,
1285–1328, Paris, 1998; Danielle Gaborit-Chopin
and François Avril, eds, 1300 . . . L’art au temps de
Philippe le Bel, Paris, 2001; Barbara Drake Boehm
and Jiri Fajt, eds, Prague: The Crown of Bohemia
1347–1437, New York, 2005; J. J. G. Alexander and
Paul Binski, eds, Age of Chivalry: Art in Planta
genet England, 1200–1400, London, 1987; and
Helen C. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power
(1261–1557), New York, 2004.
On the diversity of the nobility, see Kelly, The
New Solomon, 139–44. On the culture and the
population, see Francesco Sabatini, Napoli
Angioina. Cultura e Società, Cava dei Tirreni,
1975, 67–91.
Ferdinando Bologna, I Pittori alla corte angioina
di Napoli 1266–1414 e un riesame dell’arte nell’età
Federiciana, Rome, 1969, 21–114.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to include
an analysis of another relevant court artist, the
Sienese sculptor Tino da Camaino, who worked
in Naples from 1324 to 1337. See Kelly, The New
Solomon, 59.
See Stephen J. Campbell and Stephen J. Milner,
‘Art, Identity, and Cultural Translation in
Renaissance Italy’, in Stephen J. Campbell and
Stephen J. Milner, eds, Artistic Exchange and
Cultural Translation in the Italian Renaissance City,
Cambridge, 2004, 1–13, esp. 4.
The first document seemingly related to him is
an act of sale dated 2 October 1273 mentioning
Petrus dictus Cavallinus de Cerronibus, although
with no mention of his work or a title. Ales
sandro Tomei suggests that perhaps he was
already so well known as a painter that he did
not need any more identification as such in the
document. See Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 11, for a
description and the most recent biography and
historiography of scholarship on Cavallini.
On Cavallini’s Roman works, see Guglielmo
Matthiae, Pietro Cavallini, Rome, 1972; Marcello
Fagiolo and Maria Luisa Madonna, eds, Roma
1300–1875. L’arte degli anni santi, Milan, 1984,
315–17; Miklos Boskovits, ‘Proposte (e
conferme) per Pietro Cavallini’, in Angiola
Maria Romanini, ed., Roma Anno 1300, Rome,
1983, 297–312, figs. 1–43.
Ghiberti, I commentarii, ed. Bartoli, 83–5 and
86–7 (II.1).
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
Regarding differences between the first and
second editions, and the representation of
Giotto in both editions, see Rubin, Giorgio
Vasari, 186–90, 306–20.
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 185, ll. 25–7 and 186, ll.
18–20: ‘. . . musaico (sic), la quale arte insieme
con la pittura apprese da Giotto . . .’ and ‘. . . si
sforzò sempre di farsi conoscere per ottimo
discepolo di Giotto . . . .’
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 187, ll. 9–10, 27–30:
‘Venne . . . Pietri in Toscana per veder l’opere
degl’altri discepoli del suo maestro Giotto . . .’
and ‘Passando . . . per Ascesi [Assisi] non solo
per vedere quelle fabbriche e quelle cosı́
notabili opere fattevi dal suo maestro e da
alcuni de’ suoi condiscepoli . . . .’
Other works he noted were paintings at Old St
Peter’s, San Crisogono, San Francesco a Ripa
and San Paolo fuori le mura, and mosaics at San
Paolo fuori le mura.
See Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 23–51; Paul Hether
ington, Pietro Cavallini, London, 1979, 13–28;
Livio Pestilli, ‘‘‘Ficus latine a fecunditate
vocatur’’: On an Unique Iconographic Detail in
Cavallini’s Annunciation in Santa Maria in
Trastevere’, Source, 20: 3, 2001, 5–14. The dating
has been traditionally c. 1291, though it has
been moved by several scholars to 1299–1300.
See Vitaliano Tiberia, Il Restauro dei Mosaici di
Santa Maria in Trastevere, Todi, 1996.
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 95–123. Vasari added
frescoes in Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, in
San Marco and San Basilio in Florence, and in
the Duomo of Orvieto, along with a painted
Crucifixion in the Lower Church of San Fran
cesco in Assisi. On Vasari’s attributions to
Cavallini in Rome, see Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 178.
On recent discussions about Santa Cecilia, see
Boris Hohmeyer, ‘Rom holt wieder auf’, Art, 8,
2001, 60–6; Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 16–17, 52–95.
See also Hetherington, Pietro Cavallini, 37–40.
Hermanin was viceispettore, vice inspector, in
the Galleria Nazionale di Roma. Federico
Hermanin, ‘Un affresco di Pietro Cavallini in
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere’, Archivio della società
romana di storia patria, 23, 1900, 397–410;
Hermanin, ‘Nuovi affreschi di Pietro Cavallini a
Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere’, L’Arte, 4, 1901, 239–
44. See also Hetherington, Pietro Cavallini, 37–
40; and Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 16–17.
The dating is traditionally c. 1292–93. Tomei,
Pietro Cavallini, 20.
Zanardi, ‘Giotto and the St. Francis Cycle’, 32–
62. On other re-evaluations of Cavallini, see
Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 16, 18, 19.
See, for example, Hohmeyer, ‘Rom holt wieder
auf’, 60–6.
Proposed first in Bologna, I Pittori, 26, 115. See
also Alessandro Tomei, ‘Qualche riflessione
sull’attività napoletana di Pietro Cavallini:
nuovi dati sulla cappella Brancaccio in San
Domenico Maggiore’, in Serena Romano and
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
Nicholas Bock, eds, Le Chiese di San Lorenzo e San
Domenico. Gli ordini mendicanti a Napoli, Naples,
2005, 126–44; Hetherington, Pietro Cavallini,
158, no. 10.
Some of these Neapolitan attributions have
shifted to other artists now, such as the Tree of
Jesse in the Duomo, now attributed to Lello da
Orvieto. See Bologna, I Pittori, 126–32. On
Cavallini and the frescoes of Santa Maria
Donna Regina, see Adolfo Venturi, ‘Pietro
Cavallini a Napoli’, L’Arte, 9, 1906, 117–24, 120;
Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 128–9. On other artists in
Santa Maria Donna Regina, see Tomei, Pietro
Cavallini, 125; Bologna, I Pittori, 132–5. See also
Serena Romano, ‘Review of Roma Anno 1300’,
Storia dell’arte, 52, 1984, 232–8, esp. 236; Janis
Elliott and Cordelia Warr, ‘Introduction’, in
Janis Elliott and Cordelia Warr, eds, The Church
of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and
Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, Aldershot,
2004, 1–12.
Martindale claims that no court status was
assigned to Cavallini in Naples, but a house
and salary seem to indicate differently. Andrew
Martindale, The Rise of the Artist in the Middle Ages
and Early Renaissance, New York, 1972, 35.
The project to reconstruct the archives from
published sources and handwritten notes is
slowly moving forward in its chronology.
Riccardo Filangieri, L’Archivio di Stato di Napoli
durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, ed. Stefano
Palmieri, Naples, 1996. See also Kelly, The New
Solomon, 10.
Published first in Heinrich Wilhelm Schulz,
Denkm.aler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien,
ed. Ferdinand von Quast, 5 vols, Dresden, 1860,
vol. 4, 127 (doc. CCCXXIV). See also Bologna, I
Pittori, 8.
The two documents of 1308 are published in
Ottavio Morisani, Pittura del Trecento in Napoli,
Naples, 1947, 125, and in Hetherington, Pietro
Cavallini, 153. The third, noted by Francesco
Aceto, ‘Pittori e documenti della Napoli
angioina: aggiunte ed espunzioni’, Prospettiva,
67, 1992, 53–65, esp. 62, appears in Carlo De
Lellis, Notamenta ex registris Caroli II, Roberti et
Caroli ducis Calabriae (ms. del XVII sec.), Naples,
n.d., vol. 4 bis, part 2, 884, and comes from the
records of the royal chancery, the Cancelleria
angioina (hereafter Canc. ang.), reg. 1306D, fol.
246.
For a transcription of the text, see Tomei, Pietro
Cavallini, 11; Matthiae, Pietro Cavallini, 9;
Bologna, I Pittori, 115; Hetherington, Pietro
Cavallini, 153.
For a transcription of the text, see Tomei, Pietro
Cavallini, 11; Hetherington, Pietro Cavallini, 153.
The third document, dated between June 1308
and August 1309 (between the sixth and
seventh indictions), indicates that Cavallini
received extra payment to the tune of 15
ounces. Aceto, ‘Pittori e documenti’, 62 and 65,
n. 85: ‘Multis servientibus Curiae provisio pro
57
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
58
solutione quantitatis, inter quos Domino
Nicolao episcopo Botrontino cappellano Regio,
Gottifredo et Miletto Aurifabris Regiis,
Magistro Petro Cavellino (sic) de Roma pittori
. . ., unc. 15.’, Canc. ang., reg. 1306 D, fol. 246,
cited in De Lellis, Notamenta, vol. 4 bis, part 2,
884.
Warnke, The Court Artist, 9.
Martindale, The Rise of the Artist, 35, claims that
in England and France before c. 1300 no artists
were named as having special court privileges.
An example of a later French court painter is
Jean d’Orléans. See Philippe Henwood, ‘Jean
d’Orléans, peintre du rois Jean II, Charles V et
Charles VI (1361–1407)’, Gazette des Beaux Arts,
95, 1980, 137–40.
Matthiae, Pietro Cavallini, 139; Hetherington,
Pietro Cavallini, 108–9.
Bologna, I Pittori, 126; Pierluigi Leone de
Castris, Arte di corte nella Napoli angioina, Flor
ence, 1986, 313.
London, British Library, Add. MS 47672. See
Cathleen A. Fleck, ‘Biblical Politics and the
Neapolitan Bible of Anti-Pope Clement VII’, Arte
Medievale, N.S. Anno 1 (1), 2002, 71–90.
Giotto did not come alone; artists such as Maso
di Banco followed him. See Alessandro Tomei,
‘Libri miniati fra Roma, Napoli e Avignone’, in
Alessandro Tomei, ed., Roma, Napoli, Avignone.
Arte di curia, arte di corte 1300–1377, Turin, 1996,
177–200, esp. 196.
Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, trans. W. S. Merwin,
New York, 2000, Canto 11, 106 and 107, ll. 94–6:
‘Credette Cimabue ne la pittura/tener lo
campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,/sı́ che la fama
di colui è scura.’
Maginnis, ‘In Search of an Artist’, 10–31.
Aceto, ‘Pittori e documenti’, 55–61.
The new giottesque Neapolitan artists include
Roberto d’Oderisio, Maestro di Giovanni Barile
and Cristoforo Orimina. See Pierluigi Leone de
Castris, ‘Pittura del duecento e del trecento a
Napoli e nel meridione’, in Enrico Castelnuovo,
ed., La pittura in Italia: Il Duecento e il Trecento,
Milan, 1986, 461–512, 477.
Ghiberti, I commentarii, Bartoli, ed., 84 (II.1): ‘. . .
in Napoli, dipinse nel castello dell’uovo (sic).’
The castle was first built between 1279 and
1282, and successive kings altered and added to
it. See Riccardo Filangieri, Castel Nuovo. Reggia
angioina ed aragonese di Napoli, Naples, 1964,
3–10.
This is noted in the 1550 edition of Vasari, Le
vite, vol. 2/1, 108, ll. 30–1: ‘Nel Castello dell’Uovo
(sic) fece ancora molte opere, e particolarmente
la cappella (sic) . . .’, and in the 1568 edition, Le
vite, vol. 2/1, 108, ll. 14–18: ‘Ma per tornare a
Napoli, fece Giotto nel Castello dell’Uovo (sic)
molte opere, e particolarmente la capella . . . .’
Cang. ang., reg. 1328 B, fol. 367. See F. Forcel
lini, ‘Un ignoto pittore napoletano del sec. XIV
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
e un nuovo documento sulla venuta di Giotto a
Napoli’, Archivio storico per le province napoletane,
35, 1910, 544–52, 545. See also Bologna, I Pittori,
183.
Various Angevin documents, all now lost,
mentioned these works. Filangieri transcribed
some of these particular documents: Canc.
ang., reg. 285, fol. 213–14; reg. 286, fol. 228; reg.
284, fol. 18v; and reg. 287, fol. 213, in Riccardo
Filangieri, Rassegna critica delle fonti per la storia
di Castel Nuovo, Naples, 1939, 26, 41, 74–5. For a
chronology of the documents, see Bologna, I
Pittori, 183–7; and Aceto, ‘Pittori e documenti’,
56–7. There may also have been an altarpiece
painted by Giotto.
On the form of the chapel, see Filangieri,
Rassegna critica, 19.
Bologna, I Pittori, 187; Leone de Castris, Arte di
corte, 313, 17. For a summary of the scholarship,
see Aceto, ‘Pittori e documenti’, 56.
In the 1550 version of Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1,
108, ll. 25–6: ‘Fu chiamato a Napoli dal re
Ruberto, il quale gli fece fare in Santa Chiara
. . . alcune cappelle . . . .’ In the 1568 version, Le
vite, vol. 2/1, 108, ll. 1–5: ‘. . . Ruberto re di
Napoli . . . avendo finito di fabricare S. Chiara
. . . voleva che da lui [Giotto] fusse di nobile
pittura adornata.’
Caroline Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples: Church
Building in Angevin Italy, 1266–1343, New Haven,
2004, 133–54.
Compare, in particular, the Lamentation scene
in the Arena Chapel, Padua. See Alessandra
Perriccioli Saggese, ‘Modelli giotteschi nella
miniatura napoletana del trecento’, in Il
Medioevo: i modelli, Atti del convegno inter
nazionale di studi (Parma, 1999), 2002, 661–7,
esp. 661; Bologna, I Pittori, 181, 84. See also
Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 142.
Ghiberti, I commentarii, ed. Bartoli, 84 (II.1);
Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 109, ll. 1–5.
The later Aragonese rulers altered the hall and
ruined the Angevin-period frescoes in the
fifteenth century. Filangieri, Castel Nuovo, 10, 18.
Leone de Castris, Arte di corte, 314–20.
Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, ‘Giotto’s Hero Cycle
in Naples: A Prototype of donne illustri and a
Possible Literary Connection’, Zeitschrift f.ur
Kunstgeschichte, 43, 1980, 311–18, esp. 316.
Giuseppe de Blasiis, ‘Immagini di uomini
famosi in una sala di Castelnuovo’, Napoli
Nobilissima, 9, 1900, 65–7, 66, n.1. Bologna
suggests a date of c. 1332–33, after Santa
Chiara. Bologna, I Pittori, 187.
According to Vasari, Giotto also painted a selfportrait in the room. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 109,
ll. 3–4 (only in 1568 edition): ‘fra essi [ritratti]
quello di esso Giotto . . .’.
On Robert’s projected persona, see Kelly, The
New Solomon, 304–5. Robert’s ownership of a
manuscript of the works of Livy (an ancient
Roman historian) and the presence of a De viris
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
illustribus (On Illustrious Men) volume in his
library by 1343 illustrates his interest in
historical personages. The former was illu
strated in the late thirteenth century in Naples.
Bologna, I Pittori, 221 and fig. I–29. See also
Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, ‘The Early Begin
nings of the Notion of ‘‘uomini famosi’’ and
‘‘de viris illustribus’’ in Greco-Roman Literary
Tradition’, Artibus et Historiae, 6, 1982, 97–115,
esp. 106 (on Livy).
Campbell, ‘Introduction’, 12–13.
Another example includes Francesco Carrara’s
Palazzo del Capitano at Padua by Guariento (c.
1350). Joost-Gaugier, ‘The Early Beginnings of
the Notion of ‘‘uomini famosi’’’, 98, 100.
Members of the royal family had their own
private chapels near their different quarters.
Filangieri, Castel Nuovo, 18.
Leone de Castris, Arte di corte, 374–81.
Warnke, The Court Artist, 9. See also Bologna, I
Pittori, 184.
Translation by Warnke. Warnke, The Court
Artist, 9, esp. n. 32. He quotes the original
document from Canc. ang., reg. 274, fol. 20,
published in Schulz, Denkm.aler der Kunst, vol. 4,
163: ‘Quos morum probitas approbat et virtus
descretiva commendat, familie nostre libenter
aggregamus. Sane attendentes, quod magister
Joctus de Florentia pictor, familiaris et fidelis
noster, fulciter providis actibus et exercitatur
servitiis fructuosis, ipsum in familiarem
nostrum recipimus et de nostro hospicio reti
nemus volentes, ut illis honoribus et privilegiis
potiatur et gaudeat, quibus familiares alii
potiuntur, receptor provide solito iuramento.’
See also Bologna, I Pittori, 184.
Regarding slightly later contracts in Italy and
their elements, see Michelle O’Malley, ‘Subject
Matters: Contracts, Designs, and the Exchange
of Ideas between Painters and Clients in
Renaissance Italy’, in Campbell and Milner,
Artistic Exchange and Cultural Translation, 17–37,
esp. 16–20.
For comparison, see the discussion of Simone
Martini at the Avignon court by C. Jean
Campbell, ‘‘‘Symoni nostro senensi nuper
iocundissima’’. The Court Artist: Heart, Mind,
and Hand’, in Campbell, Artists at Court, 33–45,
39.
See Bernhard Schimmelpfennig, ‘Ad maiorem
pape gloriam: La fonction des pièces dans le
palais des papes d’Avignon’, in Jean Guillaume,
ed., Architecture et vie sociale. L’Organisation intér
ieure des grandes demeures à la fin du moyen age et
à la Renaissance, Paris, 1994, 25–46; Gary Radke,
‘Form and Function in Thirteenth-Century
Papal Palaces’, in Guillaume, Architecture et vie
sociale, 11–24.
The annuity began in April. Canc. ang., reg.
286, fol. 74, transcribed by Morisani, Pittura del
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
Trecento in Napoli, 141–2. See also Bologna, I
Pittori, 185.
Campbell, ‘Introduction’, 10–11.
Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 76.
Petrarch’s praises of Robert suggest that he was
successful in conveying this perception. See
Ernest H. Wilkins, ‘The Coronation of Petrarch’,
Speculum, 18/2, 1943, 155–97, esp. 180, 183; Kelly,
The New Solomon, 42.
On his public image and on the frescoes, see
Sherry C. M. Lindquist, ‘ ‘‘The Will of a Princely
Patron’’ and Artists at the Burgundian Court’,
in Campbell, Artists at Court, 46–56, 54. On such
products, see also Cole, Virtue and Magnificence,
41.
For the pomp of his court, see the image of
Robert enthroned in the Anjou Bible (Leuven,
Katholiche Universiteit, Faculty of Theology,
Maurits Sabbe Library, Coll. of the Archdiocese
of Mechelen, cod. 1, fol. 3v) in Kelly, The New
Solomon, fig. 14. Robert’s throne and its dais are
painted, rich cloths hang behind him, and he
holds a sceptre and orb in his hand. For
Angevin military regalia, including a painted
shield and pennant, see the illustration of a
Latin poem dedicated to Robert c. 1335, Ad
Robertum Siciliae regem, in Florence, Biblioteca
nazionale, MS II I 27, fol. 24r in Sabatini, Napoli
Angioina, fig. 16.
Kelly, The New Solomon, 22–72.
Compare Joanna Woods-Marsden, ‘Review of The
Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist by
Martin Warnke’, Speculum, 71, 1996, 220–2.
See Campbell, ‘Introduction’, 18; Kelly, The New
Solomon, 51. On the negative aspects of a court
artist’s life, see Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 36–
7, 42.
Campbell, ‘Introduction’, 15.
The Cavallini-style painting in the Brancaccio
chapel of San Domenico, for instance, was not
produced for either Charles II or Robert. Tomei,
‘Qualche riflessione’, 126–44.
An example is found in the giottesque painter
Roberto d’Oderisio, active from about 1330 and
identified through a signed panel of a Cruci
fixion from San Francesco at Eboli, now in the
Museo del Duomo of Salerno. Leone de Castris,
Arte di corte, 388, fig. 1. For a reconstruction of
d’Oderisio’s career, see Bologna, I Pittori, 258–
74; Leone de Castris, Arte di corte, 374–407. See
also the frescoes in Santa Maria Incoronata,
prepared at the behest of Queen Joanna I
around 1370 and also tied to d’Oderisio,
demonstrating that the giottesque style
persisted at court long after Giotto’s sojourn.
See Leone de Castris, Arte di corte, 374–81.
As Stephen Campbell states, ‘[Style] is a repro
ducible effect, a means of extending a court
artist’s sphere of operation through the
collective activity of collaborators and
protégés’. Campbell, ‘Introduction’, 15.
59
107 Belting, Die Oberkirche von San Francesco; Enrico
Castelnuovo, ‘Arte della città, arte delle corti
tra XII e XIV secolo’, in Storia dell’ arte italiana,
Turin, 1983, 165–227, esp. 204–5; Maginnis, ‘In
search of an artist’, 28–31.
108 Joan A. Holladay, ‘Consciousness of Style in
Gothic Art’, in Katharina Corsepius, Daniela
Mondini, Darko Senekovic, Lino Sibillano and
Samuel Vitali, eds, Opus Tessellatum. Modi und
.
Grenzg.ange der Kunstwissenschaft. Festschrift fur
Peter Cornelius Claussen, Hildesheim, 2004,
303–14, esp. 304.
109 Zanardi, ‘Giotto and the St. Francis Cycle’, 53–
7; Joachim Poeschke, Antonio Quattrone and
Ghigo Roli, Italian Frescoes, the Age of Giotto, 1280–
1400, New York, 2005, 65.
110 In this case, opus anglicanum refers to a tech
nique of textile production. See Castelnuovo,
‘Arte della città, arte delle corti’, 168–9.
111 Zanardi, ‘Giotto and the St. Francis Cycle’, 53–
62; Maginnis, ‘In Search of an Artist’, 28–31.
112 Ghiberti, I commentarii, ed. Bartoli, 87, ll.3–4
(II.1).
113 Castelnuovo argues that the contemporaries of
Giotto read his success by his commissions (in
Rome, Padua, Assisi and Florence), as well as by
his capacity for innovation and imagination.
See Castelnuovo, ‘Arte della città, arte delle
corti’, 205–6. Scholars continue to debate the
artists who were involved at San Francesco in
part because Giotto, a Florentine, also worked
in Rome. He had already incorporated Roman
elements into his work before going to Naples.
See Maginnis, ‘In Search of an Artist’, 10–31.
114 Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, ix.
115 Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, ix, 143–4. See also
Marina Righetti Tosti-Croce, ‘Architettura tra
Roma, Napoli e Avignone nel trecento’, in
Tomei, Roma, Napoli, Avignone, 93–128, esp. 104.
116 Norman Housley, The Italian Crusades: The PapalAngevin Alliance and the Crusades against Christian
Lay Powers, 1254–1343, Oxford, 1982; Léonard, Les
Angevins de Naples, 32–5, 204–207.
117 Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 37–73.
118 Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 54, 61, 98.
121 Guillaume Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, 1305–
1378, trans. Janet Love, 9th edn, London, 1963,
3–8.
122 Bernard Guillemain, Les Papes d’Avignon (1309–
1376), Paris, 1998; Bernard Guillemain, La Cour
Pontificale d’Avignon (1309–1376): Étude d’une
société, Paris, 1962, 77–88; Mollat, The Popes at
Avignon, 3–8.
124 Kelly, The New Solomon, 6, 10, 104–5.
125 Kelly, The New Solomon, 7; Galasso, Il Regno di
Napoli, 117–25; Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples,
210–19.
60
127 Kelly, The New Solomon, 194–204; Galasso, Il
Regno di Napoli, 124; Léonard, Les Angevins de
Naples, 220–2.
128 Kelly, The New Solomon, 6.
129 On the contemporary mystique of Rome, see
Cathleen A. Fleck, ‘Linking Jerusalem and
Rome in the Fourteenth Century: Images of
Jerusalem and the Temple in the Italian ‘‘Bible
of Anti-pope Clement VII’’’, Jewish Art, 23/24,
(1997/98), 430–52.
130 Regarding Robert and Florence, see Kelly, The
New Solomon, 41, 42; Léonard, Les Angevins de
Naples, 220; Janis Elliott, ‘The Judgement of the
Commune: The Frescoes of the Magdalen
. Kunst
Chapel in Florence’, Zeitschrift fur
geschichte, 4, 1998, 509–19.
131 Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2/1, 108, ll. 1–3. The presence
of influential central Italian natives in Naples
could account for the spread there of Giotto’s
fame – among them: James of Viterbo, Giles of
Rome, Ptolemy of Lucca and Remigio de’ Giro
lami, as well as Niccolo Acciaiuoli and Cino da
Pistoia. See Kelly, The New Solomon, 63; Leone de
Castris, Arte di corte, 314.
132 The citizens of Florence asked Charles to be
their protector in late 1325 for ten years, but he
died before the end of his tenure in 1328. See
Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 246–7. See also
.
Enderlein, ‘Der Kunstler,’
67–8.
133 Kelly, The New Solomon, 227–35.
134 On the scope of Florentine economic activity,
see a graphic summary in Gene A. Brucker,
Florence, the Golden Age, 1138–1737, New York,
1984, 82–3.
135 Benjamin G. Kohl, ‘Giotto and his lay patrons’,
in Derbes and Sandona, The Cambridge Compa
nion to Giotto, 176–96, esp. 193–4.
136 Campbell and Milner, ‘Art, identity and
cultural translation’, 2.
137 Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 11–45; Caroline
Bruzelius, ‘Ad modum franciae: Charles of Anjou
and Gothic Architecture in the Kingdom of
Sicily’, Journal of Architectural Historians, 50,
1991, 402–20.
138 Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 3, 75–132; Caro
line Bruzelius, ‘Charles I, Charles II, and the
Development of an Angevin Style in the
Kingdom of Sicily’, in L’État angevin, 99–114, esp.
100–5, 114.
139 Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 78–95.
140 Serena Romano, ‘La cattedrale di Napoli, i
vescovi e l’immagine: Una storia di lunga
durata’, in Serena Romano and Nicholas
Bock, eds, Il Duomo di Napoli dal paleocristiano
all’età angioina, Naples, 2002, 7–20. Bruzelius
comments that the ancient columns, Roman
building techniques of opus reticulatum and opus
mixtum, and the high transept are particularly
Roman features. See Bruzelius, The Stones of
Naples, 93–4.
141 On literary evidence of nationalist conscious
ness at the Neapolitan court, see Patrick Gilli,
142
143
144
145
146
147
‘L’intégration manquée des Angevins en Italie:
le témoignage des historiens’, in L’État angevin,
11–33.
Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 94, 95.
Sabatini, Napoli Angioina, 8–9, 38–40.
Heullant-Donat, ‘Quelques réflexions’, 173–91;
Kelly, The New Solomon, 41–9; Alessandro
Barbero, Il mito angioino nella cultura italiana e
provenzale fra Duecento e Trecento, Turin, 1983.
On the ‘italianization’ effort under Robert, see
Gilli, ‘L’intégration manquée des Angevins en
Italie’, 19–26.
Housley, The Italian Crusades, 1–2. Though the
Angevins had some conflicts with the popes,
Robert’s sojourn in papal Avignon from 1319
to 1324 shows that their ties continued.
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 232–5. For the
term ‘cornerstone’, see Housley, The Italian
Crusades, 2.
Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, 210–22. This role
meant that they had to oppose their northern
Italian and imperial adversaries.
On the subtleties of patronage in Naples, see
Heullant-Donat, ‘Quelques réflexions’, 182–4.
Warnke, The Court Artist, 8.
Tomei, Pietro Cavallini, 134–42.
Fourteenth-century society was not yet cogni
zant of the idea of the intellectual artist. See
Francis Ames-Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the
Early Renaissance Artist, New Haven, 2000, 30;
Heullant-Donat, ‘Quelques réflexions’, 182–4.
Lindquist, ‘The Will of a Princely Patron’, 46.
61
4
THE LOCAL EYE: FORMAL AND SOCIAL
DISTINCTIONS IN LATE QUATTROCENTO
NEAPOLITAN TOMBS
TA N J A M I C H A L S K Y
The importation of ‘foreign’ artists is a familiar and much discussed art-historical
phenomenon, but one that – at least in the Neapolitan context – is often
discussed in narrow discipline-based terms: in discussions of stylistic classifica
tion, the aesthetic categories meaningful to a given client, and the history of the
art market.1 The recognition of the value of a comprehensive study to contex
tualize this phenomenon has been slow to emerge. The following discussion will
focus on an examination of the broader historical sensorium through which
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Neapolitans drew distinctions between local
traditions and imported innovations when choosing artists, types and decorative
styles for their monuments. Naples is a particularly good focus for such an
investigation. The city was home to several foreign imperial and royal dynasties
between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries with the result that the amalga
mation of divergent artistic forms of expression reached a particularly high level
of sophistication. That Neapolitans had the ability to make refined distinctions
can be demonstrated through a study of their tomb monuments as each one
alludes – by virtue of its memorial function – to both the past achievements and
future aspirations of a commissioning family. By reference to several particularly
eloquent late fifteenth-century examples, this chapter will investigate the possible
intentions of clients, the prototypes in relation to which they oriented their
decisions, and the degree to which they chose artists, forms and types for their
ability to embody and represent social status. In order to develop this argument,
and to examine the ability to make local and specific distinctions, it is useful to
move past Michael Baxandall’s concept of the ‘period eye’ to a ‘local eye’, for, in
the end, it is within local, urban society that these ‘fine distinctions’ came to be
made, and where they were exemplified in public monuments.2 Since, as one
would expect, these distinctions are not registered in textual form, we must rely
on formal analyses of, and comparisons between, the monuments themselves.
Beginning in the fourteenth century, when the Angevin rulers brought the
Sienese Tino di Camaino to Naples and commissioned him and his workshop to
construct their monuments, Neapolitan tomb sculpture began to be dominated
by foreign sculptors.3 This process of importation may be demonstrated with
reference to the oldest surviving Neapolitan dynastic tombs, those of Catherine of
62
THE LOCAL EYE: FORMAL AND SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS IN LATE QUATTROCENTO NEAPOLITAN TOMBS
1 (Left) Tino di Camaino, tomb of Catherine of Austria, 1325. Naples: San Lorenzo Maggiore.
Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
2 (Right) Tino di Camaino and Gagliardo Primario, tomb of Mary of Hungary, 1326. Naples: Santa
Maria Donna Regina. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
Austria in San Lorenzo Maggiore (plate 1) and of Mary of Hungary in Santa Maria
Donna Regina (plate 2). For the freestanding tomb of Catherine of Austria, whose
husband Charles of Calabria (d. 1328) was to have succeeded Robert of Anjou to
the throne, Tino di Camaino worked for the first time in mosaic, collaborating
with southern Italian mosaicists to create a new version of the baldachin tomb.4
The problematical character of this type of structure, which mingles various
decorative traditions, was counterbalanced by means of a subtly conceived
iconographic programme designed to fuse the client’s Franciscan piety with
demands for dynastic sanctity.5 Unprecedented for the tomb of a woman –
recognized neither for her outstanding religious or political deeds – were the
caryatids of the Virtues, derived from contemporary tombs of saints, whose
function was to honour the deceased as the representative of her family. In this
case, both the tomb type and the principal artist were imported and adapted to
specifically local conditions. Just one year later, the inconsistencies of Catherine’s
tomb were eliminated in the monument to Queen Mary of Hungary (the wife of
Charles II of Anjou) where Tino di Camaino is documented as collaborating with
the Neapolitan sculptor Gagliardo Primario.6 The result was an unusually wellproportioned, elegant architectural ensemble with reliefs which are now more
clearly accented by a few mosaic elements. Iconographically the tomb represents
a highly concentrated version of elements usually contained in Tuscan monu
mental walls tombs containing the figure of the Virgin Mary being honoured by
her son. The result is an especially successful artistic solution based on local
traditions. In particular, the sarcophagus relief, with its genealogical message,
becomes a principal element of Angevin sepulchral sculpture from this point on.
63
3 Tomb of Ladislas of Anjou, 1420s. Naples: San Giovanni a Carbonara. Photo: r Luciano
Despite the obvious changes in iconography and decoration observable in the
ensuing decades, this imported and modified type of monument became the
symbol of Angevin power in all the mendicant churches of Naples.7 The final
example of this Neapolitan–Angevin tradition is the tomb which Joanna II of Naples
erected for her brother Ladislas toward the end of the 1420s in San Giovanni a
Carbonara, the church of the Augustinian Hermits (plate 3).8 Almost filling the
64
4 Donatello and Michelozzo, tomb
of Rinaldo Brancaccio, 1426–33.
Naples: Sant’Angelo a Nido. Photo:
r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio
dell’Arte.
entire rear wall of the presbytery, this tomb – whose crowning equestrian figure
represents the king as ‘Divus Ladislaus’, and whose caryatids of the Virtues and
enthroned figures monumentalize the dynastic program in a way far transcending
familiar dimensions – impressively demonstrates the power of this typology. Once
again Tuscan sculptors contributed although, in contrast to those monuments
associated with Tino di Camaino, they were permitted minimal latitude.9 Simply to
identify this monument’s anachronisms and weaknesses would thus be to miss
both its message and its aspirations. Instead, a clear distinction should be drawn
between local formal prescriptions for Angevin royal monuments, on the one hand,
and attempts to modernize this form by relying on imported artists, on the other.
While recognizing familiar elements and simultaneously assessing the tomb’s
novel stylistic appearance, contemporaries would have regarded this monument
less as disconcerting than as a reassessment of strict traditions.10 In 1688, however,
Pompeo Sarnelli wrote in his guide to the city as follows: ‘. . . The sumptuous
sepulchre of King Ladislas is the summit of magnificence, and although done in
the gothic manner . . . is nonetheless a highly elaborate and superb work.’11 Here,
he played off the gothic style (from the perspective of the baroque) against the
monument’s vast scale: his perception of a formal discrepancy was crucial.
The tomb of Rinaldo Brancaccio in S. Angelo a Nido (plate 4) was erected
around the same time as the tomb of King Ladislas. In this monument to a
Neapolitan nobleman, traditional and innovative accents have been reversed
65
5 Pietro da Milano, Domenico Gagini and Francesco Laurana, (detail of) triumphal arch, 1440s–
1470s. Naples: Castel Nuovo. Photo: Author.
when compared to the tomb of King Ladislas: the format is traditional while the
style is innovative. The various components were shipped to Naples after
production in Florence in 1426–33 by Donatello and Michelozzo.12 Beneath the
canopy, there is a typical ensemble including caryatids bearing the sarcophagus
and angels holding curtains. The tomb still follows the structure of Angevin
prototypes. It is in the details, however, that the idiom of the artists who executed
the work becomes conspicuous. Deprived now of their attributes, the caryatids no
longer represent the Virtues, as in Angevin tombs; consequently, they no longer
embody specific moral qualities. Donatello’s delicate low relief, rilievo schiacciato,
at the centre of the sarcophagus displays far greater artistic skill than many
tombs then existing in Naples, but its symbolism remains within the boundaries
of Christian hopes for salvation. This tomb exemplifies how the imperative to
represent social status necessitated the choice of a famous foreign sculptor while,
at the same time, it shows how a local monument type might be adapted in an
artistically splendid yet iconographically weak manner.
In the decades following 1442 there was a shift to new forms of public
representations of royal power under the Aragonese kings, as well as to a different
and highly diverse group of sculptors whose members arrived from both southern
and northern Italy. The best-known example is the workshop which produced the
triumphal arch at Castel Nuovo, where Pietro da Milano, Domenico Gagini of
Sicily and Dalmatian-born Francesco Laurana worked together (plate 5).13 The
66
frieze on the lower arch displays the famous scene of Alfonso of Aragon entering
Naples in the guise of an emperor of antiquity. The upper arch must once have
featured an equestrian statue.14 Above, the Virtues recall Angevin tomb icono
graphy. The form and decoration of the triumphal arch, whose construction
extended into the 1470s, must have been perceived by the Neapolitans as a sign
simultaneously of artistic renewal and renewed occupation. Given its status as a
public and royal structure, the choice of both forms and artists had a profound
impact on all subsequent projects undertaken during the second half of the
fifteenth century. When analysing this arch, modern scholars have without
exception identified a wide-ranging network of allusions to ancient and medieval
monuments such as the Roman arch in Pula (first century BCE) and the gateway of
Frederick II in Capua (1230s). Such allusions were not merely elements of an
erudite humanistic dialogue; they were also perceptible and comprehensible to a
wide range of the inhabitants of Naples. The arch was intended (and regarded) as
an extravagant masterpiece, one capable of competing with antique prototypes –
even if such a double structure, with one arch set above the other, hardly appears
antique to modern eyes. It epitomizes the innovative tendencies arriving from
abroad that initiated changes in the visual habits of the lower nobility as its
members adopted the new forms and yet employed the same local artists.
Not surprisingly, the local culture was dominated to a considerable extent by
the artistic choices of the sovereigns of Naples. Given the perpetual change of
rulers and their artistic preferences, the Neapolitan elite was well schooled in
analysing visual modes of representation and artistic styles, which functioned as
codes indicating regional and social affiliations. In short: the existing Neapolitan
culture of public and private monuments determined the ways in which the
nobility was expected to enact social status by subscribing to a system of signif
icant types and perhaps even of styles as well.
A spectacular example of the orientation towards Tuscan forms is the
Cappella Piccolomini in S. Anna dei Lombardi (plate 6) from the 1470s, designed
almost entirely after a Florentine prototype. In terms of architecture and mate
rials, as well as the iconographical program, it reflects the Chapel of the Cardinal
of Portugal in San Miniato al Monte in Florence (1461–66).15 Although the specific
reason for this copy has yet to be clarified, it demonstrates the precision with
which chapel décor from other regions was imitated. The importation of whole
chapel types, together with the artists who executed them, must have been
perceived by contemporaries as the emulation of foreign models. As will be shown
in the case of another tomb dating from the 1490s, it was precisely such extra
ordinary monuments that would, in turn, influence later projects.
Observable alongside references to contemporary tendencies in other cities is
a recourse to local monuments. Social status was determined by, among other
factors, the age of the family line, its anciennité, expressed by allusions to older
monuments. With its combination of renaissance and baroque elements, the
chapel of the Sangro family in the Cappella del Crocifisso in San Domenico
Maggiore (plate 7) clearly demonstrates this approach. A guide to the church
dated 1828 fittingly captures the difficulty involved in disentangling the iden
tities of the various individuals commemorated by the tomb: ‘The mausoleum of
the Sangro family, richly decorated with statues and military trophies, and by
many souvenirs of the various heroes of that noble family . . .’.16 By adding his
67
6 Antonio Rossellino and Benedetto da Maiano, Cappella Piccolomini,
1470s. Naples: S. Anna dei Lombardi (formerly S. Maria di Monteoliveto).
own bust, his trophies and an enormous plaque with an inscription, Nicolao de
Sangro, who died in 1750, not only expanded and embellished the monument of
his ancestors, but also, so to speak, burst its frame with the force of a baroque
formal vocabulary.17 The fifteenth-century triumphal arch that once served as a
setting for the tomb of his forefather, Placido Sangro, who died in 1480 and was
interred according to the customs of the time, now retreats into the back
ground.18 Also dating from the fifteenth century are the statues of Peter and Paul,
housed in the lateral niches, as well as one representing the Archangel Michael.
The reclining figure of a man wearing armour should probably be assigned to the
sixteenth century and may have represented the other Placido Sangro referred to
in the inscription on the left-hand base.19 The surviving ensemble shows that
even two hundred and seventy years after its original decoration, the chapel’s
patronage remained in the hands of the family, whose youngest successor
deemed it appropriate to invoke his ancestors while inserting his own tomb into a
far older one. Unfortunately, Nicolao de Sangro’s precise motives for choosing this
68
7 Tomb of the De Sangro family, 1480s/1750s. Naples: San Domenico
Maggiore. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
solution can no longer be traced, although the rather banal possibility that it
represented an economical alternative to decorating a new chapel should not be
excluded. It is striking – and apparent even in the absence of documentation –
that, despite the recklessness of the baroque interventions, the older monument
has been preserved, that the elder eroi are not invoked merely through the
inscriptions which name each and register his deeds, and that, even at first
glance, the age of the family and of the chapel are manifest. Here a much older
monument has been ostentatiously exploited so as to testify to family history at
the cost of relegating earlier generations and their inscriptions to a subordinate
position. Neglected, for example, is the identification of the reclining figure who
69
is now pressed into service as a representative of various deceased individuals.
The superimposition of diverse, formally distinct layers in a single tomb monu
ment has been utilized to stress an historical pedigree.
Considerably more complex than these cases of direct imitation or the utili
zation of existing tombs are the webs of formal allusions found in various aris
tocratic monuments of the late fifteenth century. A variety of factors should be
taken into account when studying these tombs. First, there are the wishes and
associated visual expectations of the respective client; second, there are the
models and forms introduced by the artists; and last, but not least, there is the
vast network of relationships governing the local culture of remembrance.
The settings and formal attributes of Neapolitan renaissance tombs become
comprehensible only against the background of the social institution of the seggi.
The five seggi represented the well-established noble families that, for centuries,
had defined the individual urban districts.20 They demanded a say at court and
were often successful. The term seggio also referred to a seat or a place of assembly
for the nobility of a given quarter, whose origins could, according to legend, be
traced all the way back to antiquity.
Beginning in the later middle ages, the seggi were characterized in archi
tectural terms by loggia-style assembly rooms that served to convey the claims to
power of the various noble groups living within the city. These buildings have
virtually disappeared from contemporary Naples. Little more than remnants
survive, including those of the Seggio di Capuana found in the street bearing the
same name and located behind the cathedral. A brief description of the city
dating from 1444 demonstrates the importance of these assembly places for the
organization of the city and for the aristocracy affiliated with them:
The city mentioned is subdivided into five parts, the first of which is the Seggio di Capuana,
[after which follow] the Seggio di Montagna, the Seggio di Portanova, the Seggio di Porto, and
the Seggio di Nido: these buildings are elaborate and decorated loggias where all of the nobility
of the respective districts of the city gather, just as the nobility of other cities assemble in public
squares and palaces. The Neapolitan nobility gather in the Seggi after attending Mass, and
remain until it is time to dine.21
The Seggio di Capuana and the Seggio di Nido, both especially influential, interred
their members primarily in the cathedral, in San Giovanni a Carbonara, and in
San Domenico, churches which also accommodated the tombs of some members
of the Angevin and Aragonese dynasties. The seggi and their corresponding
sepulchral churches were set in close proximity to one another, so that structures
of political and familial representation spatially interlocked. This allowed the
seggi representation alongside royal burials.
Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Giuliana Vitale have dealt exhaustively with
the composition of the rival Neapolitan noble families, their legacy strategies and
memorial practices, and the political and social functions of the seggi.22 Their
examination of wills and testaments and of the guide literature to Naples shows
that the political system of the seggi is reflected in interment practices, so that
several churches were almost entirely in the hands of families who shared
membership in a single seggio. This system – which itself underwent changes as a
result of altered political circumstances – offers a faithful image of the social and
70
8 Jacopo della Pila, tomb of Tommaso Brancaccio, 1492. Naples: San Domenico Maggiore.
71
political order.23 Beginning in the later fifteenth century, the noble families of
the city – who found themselves drawn into the court’s orbit – found it necessary
to finance increasingly elaborate funeral obsequies and interment rituals to lend
proper expression to their social status.24 Family chapels became indispensable
status symbols. The seggi mediated in practical terms between social relationships
and specific localizations within the urban sphere, as was made manifest not only
in their loggia architecture, but also through the noble monuments planned and
erected under competitive pressure. It is this precarious relationship between
rivalry and collective affiliation that is demonstrated to some extent in the hybrid
forms of these memorials.
Just prior to the 1480s, when the majority of the nobility had finally exhausted
the potential for social propaganda and class representation offered by the
erection of increasingly numerous tombs, new monuments were commissioned
primarily from foreign sculptors, among them the Florentine Antonio Rossellino
and his pupil Benedetto da Maiano, Pietro da Milano, Pietro Belverte from
Bergamo, Tommaso Malvito from Como and Jacopo della Pila, also from
Lombardy.25 In 1492 Iulia Brancaccio signed a contract with Jacopo della Pila for
the tomb of her husband, Tommaso, in San Domenico Maggiore (plate 8).26 After
the usual clauses regarding materials and dimensions and mention of a preli
minary drawing, the text reads: ‘Iacopo della Pila promises to arrange the lower
part of the monument to be like the one designed for Cardinal Brancaccio in
Sant’Angelo a Nido.’ The document refers to the tomb sculpted by Donatello and
Michelozzo in the 1420s and discussed above (see plate 4). This approach was
customary since, from the client’s perspective, comparison with existing monu
ments, in combination with drawings, was the most reliable method for
cementing the terms of a commission. To modern eyes, nonetheless, it is aston
ishing how little correspondence exists between the two monuments.
A direct comparison between these tombs offers us only the insight that Jacopo
della Pila sculpted three caryatids identifiable as Justice, Temperance and Prudence.
Understandably Iulia Brancaccio wanted an explicit allusion to the tomb of a wellknown relative, a monument that stood just a few steps away across the road in a
nearby church in the same seggio.27 A comparison with this earlier Brancaccio
monument facilitates an understanding of the contemporary capacity for making
formal distinctions, and demonstrates that concerns with formal relationships were
aimed mostly at introducing restrictions. The similarities between the figures of the
two groups are confined to their function as caryatids, while Donatello’s style is
neither cited nor imitated. A comparison with another contemporary tomb in the
same important church offers additional clues. The tomb of Antonio Carafa, called
Malizia (plate 9), sculpted in part by Jacopo della Pila’s workshop, demonstrates the
customary inclusion of the trio of Virtues bearing the sarcophagus, and shows that
this motif is not necessarily restricted to tombs of one specific family. In order to
provide a visual framework for her husband’s tomb, Iulia Brancaccio simply seized
upon a concrete and familiar example.28
That the artists who executed the monument, with their own interests in
engaging in competition, took advantage of the existence of other locally
prominent monuments in designing this tomb is clearly shown by a comparison
with the tomb of Mary of Aragon (d. 1469) in S. Maria di Monteoliveto (plate 10).29
Although it is not mentioned specifically in the contract between Iulia Brancaccio
72
9 Workshop of Jacopo della Pila, tomb of Antonio Carafa (called Malizia), 1440s/1480s. Naples: San
Domenico Maggiore. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
and Jacopo della Pila, this monument was the model for the upper tier of the tomb
of Tommaso Brancaccio. It imitates a celebrated Florentine tomb – that of the
Cardinal of Portugal in San Miniato al Monte – and re-introduces the motif of the
partially drawn curtain, along with that of the tondo of the Virgin Mary borne aloft
by angels. Jacopo della Pila also appropriated, although on a smaller scale, the back
of the camera funebris, or funeral chamber, and translated it into his own stylistic
idiom. To the familiar, rounded arch of the camera funebris bearing heads of angels,
which was adopted from the tomb of Diomede Carafa in San Domenico Maggiore
(plate 11), he added a distinctive superimposed, densely folded curtain, and set the
family crest of the deceased in place of the Lamb of God. The result of this cut-and
paste method is a form that is as elegant as it is hybrid, but which was, at least in the
73
10 Tomb of Mary of Aragon, 1470s.
Naples: Cappella Piccolomini, S.
Anna dei Lombardi (formerly S.
Maria di Monteoliveto). Photo: r
Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
eyes of the daughter of the deceased who made the final payment on the contract in
1500, ‘not perfect, but instead defective’.30 Exactly to what this criticism was
intended to refer remains unclear as is the question of whether it might have been
aimed, as so often in such cases, at reducing the agreed price.
More instances of citation, imitation and affiliation of the type discussed
above could easily be offered. But the fundamental methodological issue remains
the same: namely, that those who interpret these monuments do not only
demonstrate the similarities between them, but, in effect, construct these simi
larities in the first place. On the typological, stylistic and decorative levels, such
similarities are always a question of an implicit system of references dependent
upon a conjectural plane of comparison that is based on extrapolations from
actual objects. Such formally and semantically coded relationships must be
recognized as historical phenomena. The formal similarities – whether they were
requested by patrons or created by artists – established a network of regional and
supra-regional links between tombs. However, what remains to be determined is
how far the Neapolitans, who were regularly exposed to tombs which were similar
to one another, were capable of distinguishing such subtleties and of construing
regional and historical stylistic contrasts.
Would the beholder of the 1490s have perceived the tomb of Tommaso Bran
caccio as a combination of a Neapolitan tomb type with caryatids executed by a
northern Italian artist under the influence of innovations found in imported Flor
entine prototypes? Did style matter? Even in the absence of documentary evidence
establishing such an understanding, the network of simultaneously divergent yet
related tombs alone gives us reason to believe that both form and style were delib
erately chosen and not simply dictated by the restricted supply of artists on site.
74
This assumption can be substantiated by referring to the tomb of Malizia
Carafa. The atypical assembly of this tomb – set in the second left-hand side
chapel of San Domenico Maggiore – becomes comprehensible only in terms of the
fusion of local traditions (see plate 9). The most recent components must have
been added in the 1480s, and if Francesco Abbate’s stylistic arguments are
accepted, then Jacopo della Pila was the sculptor responsible for planning it.31
Multiple temporal layers are united in this monument: the sarcophagus dates
from the fourteenth century, and is quite probably a remnant of the workshop
production of one of Tino di Camaino’s successors.32 Upon close examination,
the sarcophagus reveals a small praying figure of Malizia Carafa, which presum
ably once (i.e. in the fourteenth century) represented a different person. It seems
to have been altered, but only additional detailed analyses will show whether it
has been modernized – for example, by giving the figure a different hairstyle.
It is not yet known when the body of Malizia was interred in this sarcophagus
nor when the inscription was engraved in clumsy Roman capitals. This inscrip
tion reads: ‘The great knight Malizius Carrafa died on October 10 1438 (2nd
indiction)’.33 According to custom, the date of death appears on the sarcophagus,
while the lines of text directly below the reclining figure celebrate the deeds of
the deceased – a diplomat in the service of Alfonso of Aragon:
Thanks to me [Malizia], Alfonso [of Aragon] arrived on our coasts in order to bring peace to the
Italians. Only the piety of his [Malizia’s] descendants is responsible for this tomb, and it is
offered as a gift to Malizia.34
Based on formal criteria, the surrounding triumphal arch can be dated to the
period following Carafa’s death, i.e. the early 1440s, and should be understood as
a decidedly modern element. There is a compelling comparison with the tomb of
Rinaldo Brancaccio (see plate 4), found in the immediate vicinity in the church of
Sant’Angelo a Nido. It is conceivable that the arch was erected jointly with the
tomb chamber and the caryatids of the Virtues. According to Abbate, the Virtues
can be plausibly ascribed to Jacopo della Pila, who seems also to have been
responsible for the camera funebris, the recumbent figure and the lengthier and
more recent inscription.35 The usual fifteenth-century formal conceptions are
disregarded in the camera funebris in order to create a tomb chamber appropriate
to a fourteenth-century sarcophagus, on the ceiling of which the Carafa coats of
arms are prominently displayed.36
It is tempting to ascribe to Diomede Carafa (1404–87), a connoisseur of anti
quity and a humanist courtier, the ambition of associating his father’s tomb with
long bygone times, thereby alluding to his family’s longevity.37 Fourteenthcentury Neapolitan sarcophagus fronts can also be found on other fifteenthcentury tombs, demonstrating that this was a widely employed solution.38 This
phenomenon was not widespread elsewhere in Italy in the fifteenth century; in
Tuscany it was antique sarcophagi that were routinely reused or copied. The
reuse of late medieval saracophagi then, was confined to Naples, where the use of
a fourteenth-century insertion in the tomb of Malizia Carafa may have been
intended as an allusion to the glorious past – to which he had contributed
significantly by ensuring the peaceful surrender of power by Joanna II of Naples to
Alfonso of Aragon in 1420.39 In any event, the inscription stresses both Malizia’s
75
political service and the services to society of his children, who had endowed the
tomb, thereby simultaneously ensuring their father’s memory while beautifying
the city. As the inscription says, it was through the good offices of Malizia Carafa
that Alfonso of Aragon arrived in Italy, even if it would later fall to his descen
dants (and not to the ruling Aragonese dynasty) to erect a tomb for him.40 The
text reaches consciously into past and future to bring the generations together.
This is mirrored in the monument’s formal attributes which are indebted to a
local network of references. Based on these considerations, it seems reasonable to
suggest that the fourteenth-century sarcophagus was integrated into a contem
porary fifteenth-century monument designed by Jacopo della Pila and commis
sioned by Diomede Carafa to commemorate the reputedly peaceful transition to a
new ruling dynasty that had been facilitated by Carafa’s father.
That Jacopo della Pila was entrusted with the execution of such a project was
due to his status as a well-known artist and to Carafa’s aspirations to compete
with other noblemen and with their tombs. Despite the lack of documentary
evidence to corroborate this hypothesis, it is possible to identify strategies of
visualization. To substantiate these observations concerning conscious citations
from the monuments of older dynastic houses, more wide-ranging comparative
studies are necessary: grouping together monuments by client, artist and style
and attempting to identify those formal attributes that had the significance of
visual status symbols for the nobility of the period. It is important to recall the
omnipresence and monumentality of tombs in Naples, in particular those of the
Angevin royal family. In contrast, the late fifteenth-century coffins of the Arago
nese kings, which stood in the choir of San Domenico, were given a far more
ephemeral design: covered with brocade rather than being carved from marble.41
The petrifaction of local social memory and its localization within urban space
are easily underestimated. However, as a result of this entrenchment, Neapolitans
seem to have had an historical perceptiveness capable of registering and differ
entiating the formal details encompassed within a closely woven network of
references. The proper investigation of this phenomenon presupposes the estab
lishment of a formally, and simultaneously semantically-oriented art-historical
method. Following this method, these analyses would be undertaken not solely to
identify historical settings and dates, but also to shed light on the historical
capacities of contemporaries for making distinctions that were visually legible in
affiliations between monuments (if not recorded in the available documentation),
abilities that can be isolated only in the context of local traditions. In deter
mining the significance of these monuments for contemporary beholders, it is
less a question of identifying specific historical protagonists than developing
methods capable of determining the relevance of visual references.
One final example: the tomb of the highly-regarded humanist Diomede Carafa
(c. 1406–87 – mentioned earlier as the presumed commissioner of his father’s
tomb), today located to the right of the altar in the Cappellone del Crocifisso in
San Domenico (see plate 11), may be understood as an especially ambitious
project, demonstrated by its prestigious location. In the absence of textual
documentation, attributions – whether to one or more artists – remain contro
versial. Francesco Abbate attributes various portions to Jacopo della Pila, Tommaso
Malvito and Domenico Gagini.42 These observations are helpful in reconstructing
workshop conditions, although the current appearance of the tomb may also be
76
the result of later alterations. A Neapolitan
contemporary from the same social sphere
might, in this author’s view, have been capable
of distinguishing individual hands, and going
beyond this, would probably also have been
cognizant of the modernity of the smooth,
idealized reclining figure, of the novelty of the
Virtues distributed across the containing arch,
and especially of the bench, its backrest deco
rated with a coat of arms. Perception is always
guided by interest and, here, it may be
assumed that at the time of its execution, the
main accent was on socially relevant elements
and attributes.
In this case, the historical interest of the
benches – which can probably be interpreted
as a sign of political representation in the
seggi43 – is documented by a contract
concluded between Margherita Poderico and
Tommaso Malvito da Como in 1506 for the
double tomb of Mariano d’Alagno and his wife
Caterinella Ursina (plate 12) in the same
chapel.44 Unlike the first design for this tomb,
mentioned in the contract, which envisioned
several figures (presumably Virtues) for the
lower register, the artist was compelled to
place a bench there, with a panel bearing the
family coat of arms set into the floor. The
solution of the d’Alagno monument is unsa
tisfactory to the modern eye, with the
elements set one above the other so as to
suggest a lack of feeling for space or propor
tion. Here, in one of the most famous chapels
of the period – the cappellone housed a mira
culous crucifix said to have spoken to Thomas
Aquinas – competition between families,
enacted via the emulation of specific tomb
elements, clearly took precedence over
aesthetic decisions.
The following conclusions may be drawn
from the examples discussed above: the
importation of foreign sculptors to Naples had
its roots in royal commissions and sponsor
ship. The nobility, accustomed to distin
guishing between different styles and forms,
was able to assimilate new and imported
standards of representation. Given the specific
memorial function of tombs, it was rarely
11 (Above) Jacopo della Pila, Tommaso
Malvito da Como and Domenico
Gagini, tomb of Diomede Carafa, 1480s.
Naples: San Domenico Maggiore.
Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio
dell’Arte.
12 (Below) Tommaso Malvito da Como,
tomb of Mariano D’Alagno and Cater
inella Ursina, 1506. Naples: San Dome
nico Maggiore. Photo: r Luciano
77
possible to build strictly modern monuments, which meant a marked reliance on
local and familial traditions. One result of compelling foreign artists to conform
to local expectations was the creation of hybrid monuments. To refer to hybridity
may seem exaggerated, but the term does bring into focus the layers of tradition
and innovation that would have been evident to contemporaries. Hybridity is a
term familiar from post-colonial theory, where it is associated with a positive
appreciation for the amalgamation of heterogeneous elements drawn from a
variety of cultures.45 In this broader sense, the term is relevant for the recogni
tion of the localized development of forms, since, in Naples as elsewhere, a real
appreciation of the phenomenon of the synthesis of diverse traditions has not yet
been established. Both the network of visually related monuments and the
surviving contracts testify, on the one hand, to the rigour of typology and
decorum given to the visual frameworks and, on the other, to the potentiality
inherent in reinterpretations of earlier formulae.
Notes
A version of this chapter was presented in the sessions, Import/Export: Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1266–1568, at the Renaissance
Society of America Annual Conference in San Francisco in 2006. I wish to express
my gratitude to the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at
Columbia University in New York for the fellowship in 2004–05 which enabled me
to conduct part of the research for this chapter. Thanks are extended to Luciano
Pedicini (http://www.pedicinimages.com) for the provision of images.
1 For the Neapolitan sculpture of the Renaissance,
see Ferdinando Bologna, ‘Problemi della scultura
del Cinquecento a Napoli’, Sculture lignee nella
Campania. Catalogo della mostra, Naples, 1950, 153–
82; Oreste Ferrari, ‘Per la conoscenza della scul
tura del primo Quattrocento a Napoli’, Bollettino
d’arte, ser. 4, 39, 1954, 11–24; Ottavio Morisani,
‘La scultura del Cinquecento a Napoli’, Storia di
Napoli, 5, 2, 1972, 721–80; Francesco Abbate,
‘Problemi della scultura napoletana del Quattrocento’, Storia di Napoli, 4, 1, 1974, 447–94;
Roberto Pane, Il Rinascimento nell’Italia meridionale, 2 vols, Milan, 1975–77; Arnaldo Venditti,
‘Testimonianze brunelleschiane a Napoli e in
Campania. Evidence of the Influence of Brunel
leschi in Naples and Campania’, in Giovanni
Spadolini, ed., Filippo Brunelleschi: la sua opera e il
suo tempo, Florence, 1980, vol. 2, 753–77; Francesco Abbate, La scultura napoletana del Cinque
cento, Rome, 1992; Francesco Negri Arnoldi,
Scultura del Cinquecento in Italia meridionale,
Naples, 1997. New approaches are found in
Luciano Migliaccio, ‘I rapporti fra Italia meridionale e penisola iberica nel primo Cinquecento
attraverso gli ultimi studi: bilancio e prospettive,
pt. II: la Scultura’, Storia dell’arte, 64, 1988, 225–
31; Luciano Migliaccio, ‘‘‘Consecratio’ pagana ed
iconografia cristiana nella cappella Caracciolo di
Vico a Napoli. Un manifesto dell’umanesimo
78
napoletano e gli esordi di Bartolomé Ordóñez e
Diego de Siloe’, Ricerche di storia dell’arte, 53, 1994,
22–34; Riccardo Naldi, ‘Nati da santi. Una nota su
idea di nobiltà e arti figurative a Napoli nel
primo Cinquecento’, Ricerche di storia dell’arte, 53,
1994, 4–21; Riccardo Naldi, ‘Rapporti Firenze–
Napoli tra Quattro e Cinquecento: la cona
marmorea di Andrea di Pietro Ferrucci per Maria
Brancaccio’, Prospettiva, 91/92, 1998, 103–14.
Dealing explicitly with the import of foreign
sculptors is Francesco Abbate’s ‘Appunti su
Pietro da Milano scultore e la colonia lombarda a
Napoli’, Bollettino d’Arte, 69, 1984, 73–86.
2 Michael Baxandall’s term ‘period eye’ has
already been established. See Allan Langdale,
‘Aspects of the Critical Reception and Intellectual History of Baxandall’s Concept of the Period
Eye’, in Adrian Rifkin, ed., About Michael Baxan
dall, Oxford, 1999; Adrian Randolph, ‘Gendering
the Period Eye: ‘‘Deschi da parto’’ and Renaissance Visual Culture’, Art History, 27, 2004, 538–
62, in which ‘fine distinctions’ is an allusion to
Pierre Bourdieu, La distinction. Critique sociale du
jugement, Paris, 1979.
3 A historical interpretation of the Angevin
tombs is provided by Lorenz Enderlein, Die
Grablegen des Hauses Anjou in Unteritalien. Totenkult
und Monumente 1266–1343, Worms, 1997; Tanja
Michalsky, Memoria und Repr.asentation. Die
4
5
6
7
8
.
Grabmaler
des Königshauses Anjou in Italien,
Göttingen, 2000.
See Julian Gardner, ‘A Princess among Prelates: A
Fourteenth-Century Neapolitan Tomb and some
Northern Relations’, Römisches Jahrbuch f.ur Kunst
geschichte, 23/24, 1988, 31–60. The original setting
is still under discussion. Most recently, and based
on new assumptions, see Francesco Aceto, ‘Le
memorie angioine in San Lorenzo Maggiore’, in
Serena Romano and Nicolas Bock, eds, Le chiese di
San Lorenzo e San Domenico. Gli ordini mendicanti a
Napoli, Naples, 2005, 67–94, with further biblio
graphy. There was a long tradition of mosaic
inlay in Naples from the twelfth century
onwards. For this, and Tino’s introduction to
mosaic in Naples, see Tanja Michalsky, ‘Das
¨
Grabmal Katharinas von Osterreich.
Sein
Programm, seine Stellung in der Grabmals
.
plastik des fruhen
Trecento und sein Ort unter
den Anjou-Gr.abern Neapels’, unpublished MA
thesis, University of Munich, 1990, 37–44.
For the iconographical arguments of sainteté de
lignage, see Tanja Michalsky, ‘Die Repr.asentation
einer Beata Stirps. Darstellung und Ausdruck an
den Grabmonumenten der Anjous’, in Andrea
von Huelsen Esch and Otto Gerhard Oexle, eds,
Die Repr.asentation der Gruppen. Texte – Bilder –
Objekte, Göttingen, 1998, 187–224. For the
programme’s spiritualistic background, see
Tanja Michalsky, ‘Sponsoren der Armut. Bild
konzepte franziskanisch orientierter Herrschaft’,
in Tanja Michalsky, ed., Kunst zur Zeit der Anjous in
Italien. Ausdrucksformen politischer Macht und ihre
Rezeption, Berlin, 2001, 121–48, esp. 124–30. See
also Michalsky, Memoria, cat. no. 21, 281–9.
For the tomb, see Enderlein, Die Grablegen, 92–8;
Michalsky, Memoria, cat. no. 22, 289–97; Tanja
Michalsky, ‘‘‘MATER SERENISSIMI PRINCIPIS’’: The Tomb of
Queen Mary of Hungary’, in Janis Elliott and
Cordelia Warr, eds, The Church of Santa Maria
Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in
Fourteenth-Century Naples, Aldershot, 2004, 61–77.
See in detail Michalsky, Memoria, 41–153. On
Angevin architecture in Naples, see most
recently Caroline Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples:
Church Building in Angevin Italy 1266–1343, New
Haven and London, 2004.
See Antonio Filangieri di Candida, La chiesa e il
monastero di San Giovanni a Carbonara, ed.
Riccardo Filangieri, Naples, 1924, 33–43; Ottavio
Morisani, ‘Aspetti della regalità in tre monu
menti angioini’, Cronache di archeologia e storia
dell’arte, 9, 1970, 88–122; Roberto Paolo Ciardi,
‘‘‘Ars marmoris’’. Aspetti dell’organizzazione del
lavoro nella Toscana occidentale durante il
Quattrocento’, in Enrico Castelnuovo, ed., Niveo
di marmore. L’uso artistico del marmo di Carrara
dall’XI al XV secolo, exhib. cat., Genoa, 1992, 341–9;
Francesco Abbate, ‘Il monumento a Ladislao di
Durazzo’, in Le vie del marmo. Aspetti della produ
zione e della diffusione dei manufatti marmorei tra
Quattrocento e Cinquecento, Florence, 1994, 17–22.
The monument was completed in 1431 at the
9
10
11
12
13
earliest. See Nicolas Bock, ‘Antiken- und Flor
enzrezeption in Neapel 1400–1500’, in Klaus
Bergdoldt and Giorgio Bonsanti, eds, Opere e
giorni. Studi su mille anni di arte europea dedicati a
Max Seidel, Venice, 2001, 241–52, esp. 243. For the
historical background, see Alessandro Cutolo, Re
Ladislao d’Angiò-Durazzo, 2 vols, Milan, 1936–44;
Nunzio Federico Faraglia, Storia della regina
Giovanna II d’Angiò, Lanciano, 1904, 11ff. For the
accession to power of Joanna II and the conflict
between Joannna II and the wife of King Ladislas,
Maria d’Enghien, see Alessandro Cutolo, Maria
d’Enghien, Naples, 1929, 143ff.
For the arguments concerning attribution to the
workshop and its organisation, see Ciardi, ‘Ars
marmoris’.
Taking into account that historical cityguides
are not known for their objectivity, see the
impressive description of the monument in 1535
by Benedetto Di Falco, ‘Più oltre è la regal chiesa
di San Giovanni a Carbonara, dove in un
eminente sepolcro di marmo gentile sta seppel
lito Re Ladislao, con tal titolo latino fatto dal
Sannazaro’, in Ottavio Morisani, ed., Descrittione
dei luoghi antiqui di Napoli e del suo amenissimo
distretto, Naples, 1972, 32.
‘Sontuoso sepolcro del Re Ladislao di somma
magnificenza, anchorche di maniera Gotica . . .
opera molto ricca, e superba’, Pompeo Sarnelli,
Guida de’ forestieri, curiosi di vedere, e d’intendere le
cose più notabili della Regal Città di Napoli, e del suo
amenissimo Distretto, Naples, 1688, 164.
Ronald Lightbown, Donatello and Michelozzo, 2 vols,
London, 1980, 83–127; James Beck, ‘Donatello and
the Brancacci Tomb in Naples’, in K.-L. Selig and
R. E. Somerville eds, Florilegium Columbianum. Essays
in honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, Kristeller, New York,
1987, 125–40; Joachim Poeschke, Die Skulptur der
Renaissance in Italien, 2 vols, Munich, 1990, vol. 1,
121. The precise date of completion is not known;
in July 1427 the register taken for the Florentine
catasto indicates the completion of the main
elements. Lightbown, Donatello, 88. The monu
ment was brought from Pisa to Naples no earlier
than 1429. See Ciardi, ‘Ars marmoris’, 342. On
Brancaccio’s vita, see Dieter Girgensohn, ‘Bran
caccio, Rinaldo’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani,
Rome, 1960–, vol. 13 (1971), 797–9.
George L. Hersey, The Aragonese Arch at Naples,
1443–1475, New Haven and London, 1973; HannoWalter Kruft, ‘Francesco Laurana, Beginnings in
Naples’, Burlington Magazine, 116, 1974, 9–14;
Hanno-Walter Kruft and Magne Malmanger, ‘Der
Triumphbogen Alfonsos in Neapel: das Monu
ment und seine politische Bedeutung’, Acta ad
archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, ser. 4,
6, 1975, 213–305; Abbate, ‘Appunti’; Vladimir P.
Goss, ‘I due rilievi di Pietro da Milano e di Fran
cesco Laurana nell’ Arco di Castelnuovo in
Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, 20, 1981, 102–114;
Anna Alabiso, L’arco di trionfo di Alfonso d’Aragona e
il restauro, Rome, 1987; Andreas Beyer, ‘. . . mi
pensamiento e invencion . . . : König Alfonso I.
79
14
15
16
17
80
.
von Neapel triumphiert als Friedensfurst
am
Grabmal der Parthenope’, Georges Bloch Jahrbuch
des Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminars der Universit.at
.
Zurich,
1, 1994, 93–107; Arnaldo Venditti,
‘Presenze catalane nell’architettura aragonese,
1442–1501, a Napoli e in Campania’, in Cesare
Cundari, ed., Verso un repertorio dell’architettura
catalana: architettura catalana in Campania:
province di Benevento, Caserta, Napoli, Rome, 2005,
145–64.
See Alan Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous. King of
Aragon, Naples and Sicily, 1396–1458, Oxford, 1990.
For the historical event, see Ellen Callman, ‘The
Triumphal Entry into Naples of Alfonso I’, Apollo,
110, 1979, 24–31; Marzia Pieri, ‘‘‘Sumptuosissime
pompe’’. Lo spettacolo nella Napoli aragonese’,
in Studi di filologia e critica offerti dagli allievi a
Lanfranco Caretti, Salerno, 1985, 39–82; Grazia
Distaso, Scenografia epica. Il Trionfo di Alfonso–
Epigono Tassiani, Bari, 1999. For the related illu
strated manuscript, see Fulvio delle Donne, ‘La
Historia Alphonsi primi regis di Gaspare Pelle
grino: il ms. IX C 22 della Biblioteca Nazionale di
Napoli’, Archivio storico per le Province di Napoli, 118,
2000, 89–104. For another tournament of
1423, see Hope Maxwell, ‘‘‘Uno elefante grand
issimo con lo castello di sopra’’: il trionfo
aragonese del 1423’, Archivio storico italiano, 150,
1992, 847–75.
George L. Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal
of Naples, 1485–1495, New Haven and London, 1969,
111–15; Martina Hansmann, ‘Die Kapelle des
Kardinals von Portugal in S. Miniato al Monte’, in
Andreas Beyer and Bruce Boucher, eds, Piero
de’Medici ‘il Gottoso’ (1416–1469). Kunst im Dienste der
Mediceer, Berlin, 1993, 291–316; Francesco Quin
terio, Giuliano da Maiano ‘Grandissimo Domestico’,
Rome, 1996, 510–26; Erminia Pepe, ‘Le tre
cappelle rinascimentali in Santa Maria di
Monteoliveto a Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, 37,
1998, 97–116; For the attribution to Antonio
Rossellino and Benedetto Maiano, see Doris Carl,
Benedetto da Maiano. Ein Florentiner Bildhauer an der
Schwelle zur HochRenaissance, 2 vols, Regensburg,
2006, vol. 1, 381–92. For the Florentine Chapel,
see Frederick Hartt, Gino Corti and Clarence
Kennedy, The Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal
(1434–1459) at San Miniato al Monte in Florence,
Philadelphia, 1964; Linda A. Koch, ‘The Early
Christian Revival at S. Miniato al Monte. The
Cardinal of Portugal Chapel’, Art Bulletin, 78,
1996, 527–55.
‘Il mausoleo della Famiglia Sangro, ricco di
statue, e di trofei militari, e con molte memorie
di varij Eroi di questa nobilissima Famiglia.’
Vincenzo Maria Perrotta, Descrizione storica della
chiesa e del monastero di S. Domenico Maggiore di
Napoli, Naples, 1828, 54.
See Giuseppe Sigismondo, Descrizione della città di
Napoli e suoi borghi, 3 vols, Naples, 1788, vol. 2, 21:
‘. . . i depositi della famiglia di Sangro; ed ulti
mamente vi fu aggiunto quello di Nicola di
Sangro che servı́ il nostro Monarco Carlo
Borbone, nel quale vedesi il suo mezzo busto
espresso al vivo fra le militari bandiere, e i
guerrieri trofei, sotto de’quali si legge: ‘‘Ad
memoriam nominis immortalis/Nicolai de
Sangro/e Sancto Lucidensium Marchionibus/
Fundorum et Princibus Marsorum Comitibus/
Philippi V. Hispaniarum Regis a cubiculo/ab
eodem aurei velleris honore insigniti/a Carolo
utriusque Siciliae Rege/inter Sancti Ianuarii
Equites adlecti/& Campane Arci Praefecti/per
gradus omnes clarissimae militiae/in Hispaniis
Adlegati/Neapoli ad summi Ducis dignitatem
evecti/Viri avita religione/et rebus domi forisque
praeclare gestis/posteris admirandi/Dominicus &
Placidus fratres/pietatis officiique memores P./
Vixis ann. LXXII. Obiit ann. MDCCL’’.’
18 See the inscription in Cesare D’Engenio Carac
ciolo, Napoli sacra, Naples, 1624, 275, and Carlo
Celano, Delle notizie del bello, dell’antico e del curioso
della città di Napoli, ed. Giovanni Battista Chiarini,
Naples, 1856–1870, 5 vols (1st edn 1692, 3 vols),
vol. 3.2, 528: ‘Placito (sic) Sangrio Equiti optimo/
Ob fidem in gravissimis rebus Domi militiaequ./
probatum Alfonso et Ferdinando/Nepolitanorum
Regibus/Inter primos maxime accepto/Berar
dinus Filius Officii et Debitae pietatis/non
immemor/Obiit M CCCC LXXX.’ On the family,
see B. Candida Gonzaga, Memorie delle famiglie
nobili delle provincie meridionali d’Italia, Naples,
1875, vol. 3, 206–17.
19 ‘Placitus (sic) Sangrius Ber. F./Difficillimis, ac
pene
desperatis
Patriae
temporibus/Pro
communi bono/Ad Caesarem Carolum V. Legatus
Hic quiescit/Vir certe animi constantis et Semper
invicti/Ac suis magis quam sibi natus/MDLXX’, in
Celano/Chiarini, Notizie, vol. III.2, 527. See also
D’Engenio Caracciolo, Napoli sacra, 276.
20 The fundamental essay, containing historical
documents, is still Camillo Tutini’s Dell’origine e
fundazione de’ seggi di Napoli, Naples, 2nd edn,
1754. See Benedetto Croce, ‘I seggi di Napoli’ in
Benedetto Croce, ed., Aneddoti di varia letteratura,
Naples, 2 vols, 1942, vol. 1, 239–46; Maria Anto
nietta Visceglia, ‘Corpo e sepoltura nei testa
menti della nobiltà napoletana (XVI–XVIII)’,
Quaderni storici, 17, 1982, 583–614; Maria Anto
nietta Visceglia, Identità sociali. La nobiltà napole
tana nella prima età moderna, Naples, 1998;
Christoph Weber, Familienkanonikate und Patron
atsbistu. mer. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte von Adel und
Klerus im neuzeitlichen Italien, Berlin, 1988, 279ff.;
Giuliana Vitale, ‘La nobiltà di seggio a Napoli nel
basso Medioevo: aspetti della dinamica interna’,
Archivio per le province napoletane, 106, 1988, 151–
69; Giuliana Vitale, ‘Uffici, militia e nobiltà,
processi di formazione della nobiltà di seggio a
Napoli: il casato dei Brancaccio fra XIV e XV
secolo’, in Giuliana Vitale, ed., Identità nobiliari in
età moderna, Naples, 1993, 22–52; Elisa Novi
Chavarra, ‘Nobiltà di seggio, nobiltà nuova e
monasteri femminili a Napoli in età moderna’,
in Maria Anonietta Visceglia, Identità nobiliarii in
età moderna, Naples, 1993, 84–111. Helpful but
21
22
23
24
25
26
falling below scholarly standards is Luigi De
Lutio di Castelguidone, I Sedili di Napoli (Origini,
azione politica e decentramento amministrativo),
Cremano, 1973. See also Bianca de Divitiis,
Architettura e committenza nella Napoli del Quat
trocento, Venice, 2007, 137–69.
‘La ditta cidade se parte in cinque parti e cinque
sedie; la prima e la Sedia de Capuana, la Sedia di
Montagna, la Sedia di Portanova, la Sedi de
porto, la Sedia de lo Nido: le qual Sedie sono lozie
lavorate e ornate, dove se reduce tuti i zentil
huomini delle ditte contrade e parte deladicta
citade, dove se reduce nele altre citade i zentil
huomini ale piace e palaci, li napoletani zentil
huomini se reduce ala dicte Sedia, la mattina da
può la messa per fina a ora de manzare.’ Cesare
Foucard, ‘Fonti di storia napoletana nell’Archivio
di Stato di Modena. Descrizione della città di
Napoli e statistica del Regno nel 1444’, Archivio
storico per le province napoletane, 2, 1877, 725–57,
esp. 732.
See Visceglia, ‘Corpo e sepoltura’, 597–600;
Giuliana Vitale, ‘Modelli culturali nobiliari a
Napoli tra Quattro e Cinquecento’, Archivio storico
per le province napoletane, 105, 1987, 27–103;
Giuliana Vitale, ‘La nobiltà di seggio’; Giuliana
Vitale, ‘Uffici’.
It is a ‘controllo degli spazi sacri’, as Giovanni
Muto put it in ‘‘‘Segni d’honore’’. Rappresenta
zione delle dinamiche nobiliari a Napoli in età
moderna’, in Maria Antonietta Visceglia, ed.,
Signori, patrizi, cavalieri in Italia centro-meridionale
nell’età moderna, Rome and Bari, 1992, 171–92,
quotation at 187.
For the funeral pomp, see Visceglia, ‘Corpo e
sepoltura’, 586ff. For the growing building
activity of the nobility and its aggressive political
symbolism, see Gerard Labrot, Baroni in città.
Residenze e comportamenti dell’aristocrazia napole
tana 1530–1734, Naples, 1979.
Tanja Michalsky, ‘Tombs and Chapel Decoration’,
in Andreas Beyer and Thomas Willette, eds, Art
and Historical Consciousness in Renaissance Naples,
New York, forthcoming.
Gaetano Filangieri, Documenti per la storia, le arti e
le industrie delle province napoletane, 6 vols, Naples,
1883–91, vol. 3, 15–20. The contract was
concluded in 1492 with the widow of the
deceased, Julia Brancatia. Iacopo della Pila
promises, ‘eidem domine Julie presenti infra
menses octo a presente die in antea numerandos
facere et laborare seu fieri et laborare facere
Cantarum unum seu sepoltura de lapide gentili
et de carrara in quo sit sculpitus idem quondam
dominus Thomasius ut armiger dictumque
cantarum facere longitudinis palmorum octo in
fructu et altitudinis palmorum quatuor in
fructu manco tre data. Et quod vacuum ibi
dictum cantarum sit palmorum novem inter
cluso dicto cantaro in fructu. Itaque largitudo
ubi erunt columpne seu venit lo diricto dell’arco
sit palmi unius et terzii pro qualibet banda.
Ipsumque cantarum infra dictum tempus facere
27
28
29
30
31
et laborare ut supra ad laudem bonorum
magistrorum in taliubus expertorum cum alti
tudine cendecenti et cum omnibus illis figuris ac
eo modo et forma prout in quodam dissigno
facto per ipsum magistrum Jacobum et
consignato coram nobis eidem domine Julie ac
etiam in eodem cantaro fecere arma seu insigna
de domo de brancatiis prout voluerit ipsa
domina Julia videlicet in uno capite dicti cantari
arma dicti quondam domini Thomasii et in alio
capite ispius domine Julie. Nec non promisit
dictis magister Jacoubus facere in ipso cantaro
inbassiamentum inferiorem adornatum prout
est in cantaro domini Cardinalis brancatii posito
intus ecclesiam sancti Angeli ad Nidum.’ In
return he is to receive, ‘ducatos centum quatra
ginta de carlenis argenti de quibus ducatis
centum quatraginta prefatus magister Jacobus
coram nobis presentialiter et manualiter recepit
et habuit ac dicta domina Julia sibi dante
ducatos quindecim de carlenis argenti residuum
ipsa domina Julia promisit solvere singulis
duobus mensibus a presenti die in antea ratam
partem in pace.’ See also Catherine E. King,
Renaissance Women Patrons. Wives and Widows in
Italy c. 1300–1500, Manchester and New York, 1998,
84–7, with an interpretation of the widow’s role
given in the inscription: ‘Magnifico militi tho/
masio brancatio de/Neapoli qvi cvm mo/riens de
sepoltvra/nihil excogitasset/ivlia brancatia co/
nivgi dilectissimo/ac benemerenti faci/vndam
cvravit/mcccclxxxxii.’
See
Celano/Chiarini,
Notizie, vol. 3.2, 565.
Giuliana Vitale interprets the choice of S. Angelo
a Nido (and not San Domencio Maggiore) for the
erection of Rinaldo’s tomb as clear evidence of
the intention of family autonomy. See Vitale,
‘Uffici’, 39.
On the tomb and its attribution to Jacopo della
Pila, see Abbate, La scultura napoletana, 23ff.
For the building of the chapels in S. Maria di
Monteoliveto (today S. Anna dei Lombardi), see
Quinterio, Giuliano da Maiano, 510–26; Erminia
Pepe, ‘Le tre cappelle’; Arnoldo Venditti, ‘La
fabbrica nel tempo’, in Il complesso di Monteoliveto
a Napoli: analisi, rilievi, documenti, informatizzazione
degli archivi, Cesare Cundari, ed., Rome, 1999, 37–
116, with references and good new illustrations.
For the foundation of the church, see Francesco
Strazzullo, ‘La fondazione di Monteoliveto di
Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, 3, 1963, 103–11. For the
tomb, see Hersey, Alfonso II, 111–15.
‘. . . non perfectum sed defectivum’, in G. Filan
gieri, Documenti per la storia, vol. 3, 20.
See Abbate, La scultura napoletana, 22. De Divitiis,
Architettura e committenza, 161–65. Antonio Carafa
(called Malizia) had an important position at the
court of Joanna II, and later at the court of
Alfonso of Aragon. He managed some of the
negotiations related to Joanna’s adoption of
Alfonso. In the end, he stood on the side of the
Aragonese, and in his last will, he requested that
his children remain loyal to Alfonso. Tommaso
81
Persico, Diomede Carafa uomo di stato e scrittore
del secolo XV, Naples, 1899, 9–11; Franca Petrucci,
‘Carafa, Antonio’, in Dizionario Biografico
degli Italiani, Rome, 1960–, vol. 19, 1976, 476–8;
see also Faraglia, Storia della regina Giovanna II,
181ff.
32 See as a prototype the tomb of Catherine of
Austria in San Lorenzo Maggiore (plate 1). See
also the references in note 5. The large number
of fourteenth-century tombs for the Neapolitan
nobility has not been explored in detail. See
some examples in Francesco Aceto, ‘‘‘Status’’ e
immagine nella scultura funeraria del Trecento
a Napoli: le sepolture dei nobili’, in Arturo Carlo
Quintavalle, ed., Medioevo: immagini e ideologie,
Milan, 2005, 597–607; Valentino Pace, ‘Morte a
Napoli. Sepolture nobiliari del trecento’, in
Wolfgang Schmid, ed., Regionale Aspekte der Grab
malforschung, Trier, 2000, 41–62; and especially
the works of Nicolas Bock, ‘Honor et Gratia. Das
Grabmal des Lodovico Aldomoresco als Beispiel
.
familiarer
Selbstdarstellung im sp.atmitte
lalterlichen Neapel’, Marburger Jahrbuch f.ur
Kunstgeschichte, 24, 1997, 109–13; Bock ‘Antiken
und Florenzrezeption’; Nicolas Bock, Antonio
Baboccio. Abt, Maler, Bildhauer, Goldschmied und
Architekt. Kunst und Kultur am Hofe der Anjou–
Durazzo (1380–1420), Munich and Berlin, 2001.
33 ‘Magnificvs dns Malicia carrafa miles obiit an di.
mccccxxxviii die x octobris iie ind’.
34 ‘Auspice me latias Alfonsus venit in oras// rex
pius ut pace redderet au son (ie)// natorum hoc
pietas struxit mihi sola sepulcrum Carrafe//
dedit hec munera Ma (licie).’ The letters in
brackets stand at the right and are not visible in
the illustration.
35 Abbate, La scultura napoletana, 22.
36 See the double tomb of Joanna of Anjou-Durazzo
and Robert Artois in San Lorenzo Maggiore, a
late example of the Angevin type. Bock, Antonio
Baboccio, 131, ill. 70.
37 Diomede Carafa, Memoriali, ed. Franca Petrucci
Nardelli, Naples, 1988. For Carafa’s Neapolitan
palace, see Andreas Beyer, Parthenope. Neapel und
der S.uden der Renaissance, Berlin, 2000, chap. 2;
Fiorella Sricchia. Santoro, ‘Tra Napoli e Firenze:
Diomede Carafa, gli Strozzi e un celebre
‘‘lettuccio’’’, Prospettiva, 100, 2000, 41–54. For
Carafa’s political theory, see Lucia Miele, Modelli e
ruoli sociali dei ‘memoriali’ di Diomede Carafa,
Naples, 1989, esp. 40ff., for his recognition at the
Aragonese court.
38 For another example of the tendency in
fifteenth-century Neapolitan tomb sculpture to
incorporate or imitate fourteenth-century
sarcophagi, see the tomb of Niccolò Tomacelli.
Michalsky, Memoria, ill. 157; King, Renaissance
Women Patrons, 119–20.
39 As a typological reference to foreign tombs, see
the tombs of cardinal Asciano Sforza and
82
40
41
42
43
44
45
cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere in the
choir of S. Maria del Popolo in Rome, which draw
on famous tombs of the doges in Venice. Philipp
Zitzlsperger, ‘Die Ursachen der SansovinoGrabm.aler im Chor von S. Maria del Popolon’, in
Arne Karsten and Philipp Zitzlsperger, eds, Tod
und Verkl.arung. Grabmalskulptur in der Fr.uhen
Neuzeit, Cologne, 2004, 91–113. For the transfer of
power from Joanna II to Alfonso of Aragon, see
Petrucci, ‘Carafa, Antonio’, 476–8; Faraglia, Storia
della regina Giovanna II, 181ff.
See the Latin text in note 34.
See Le arche dei re Aragonesi, exhib. cat., Naples, 1991.
Abbate, La scultura napoletana, 18–20, dates it to
the 1470s.
Tanja Michalsky, ‘La memoria messa in scena.
Sulla funzione e sul significato dei ‘‘sediali’’ nei
monumenti sepolcrali napoletani intorno al
1500’, in Nicolas Bock and Serena Romano, eds,
Le chiese di San Lorenzo e San Domenico. Gli ordini
mendicanti a Napoli, Naples, 2005, 172–91.
The contract between Margherita Poderico and
Tommaso Malvito is dated 7 November 1506 (10th
indiction). See G. Filangieri, Documenti per la storia,
vol. 3, 583: ‘Maestro Tommaso da Como contratta
colla Rev.da D.a Margherita Poderico . . . Die VII
novembris . . . in monasterio Sancti Sebastiani et
Petri ordinis predicatorum in gratis fereis dicti
monasterij Reverenda domina Margarita pulderica
. . . ex una parte et magistro thomasio de como
marmorario ex altera prefata domina priorissa
dedit . . . dicto tomasio ducatos quatraginta et in
alia manu confexa fuit ducatos undecim consis
tentes in vino et legnaminibus et sunt . . . in
partem ducatorum octuaginta olim depositorum
penes dictum monasterium per quondam
dominam Caterinellam ursinam Comitissam de
vochianico et penes ducissam suesse olim prior
issam dicti monasterii pro faciendo uno cantaro
marmoreo in venerabili ecclesia et monasterio
Sancti dominici de neapoli in cappella Sancti . . .
[Cappella del Crocifisso] . . . in dicta ecclesia . . .
quod cantarum thomasius ipse promisit facere et
complere hinc et per totas festivitates pasce
resurrectionis domini primo venture cum figuris
marmoreis videlicet uno arco et figuris quinque
marmoreis videlicet una virgene maria cum filio
duobus angelis et cum figura de relevo quondam
comitis armati et alia figura a facie cantari
mulieris videlicet dicte comitisse et alia secundum
disignacionem factam et signatam inter eos quod
designum conservatur penes dompnum petrum S
. . .. quod cantarum predictum sit altitudinis xvii
palmorum et largitudinis a parte inferiori x
palmorum et quia in dicto designo sunt figure a
parte inferiori dicte figure non debent ibidem fieri
et loco ipsarum est faciendus unus sedialis et una
lapis in terra cum scuto armorum ursini et de
lagni . . .’. See also Pane, Il Rinascimento, vol. 2, 156.
Homi K. Bhaba, The Location of Culture, London,
1994.
5
BUILDING IN LOCAL ALL’ANTICA STYLE: THE
PALACE OF DIOMEDE CARAFA IN NAPLES
BIANCA DE DIVITIIS
Studies of fifteenth-century art in Naples are far from numerous, but those on the
city’s architecture of the period are even fewer. A rapid look at Ludwig Heyden
reich’s book on quattrocento architecture in Italy published in 1974 is evidence
for the low status given to Neapolitan architecture at the time when he was
writing. Heydenreich devotes only three pages of text to Naples, accompanied by
five images, in the concluding section of the chapter which bears the significant
title ‘The Fringes, North and South’, just before his discussion of the transition to
the following century with which he ends his study. Naples and southern Italy in
general, together with Piedmont and Liguria, are seen as peripheral regions
where the all’antica style, which had originated in Florence, arrived very late.1
Furthermore, Naples has remained marginal in both national and international
scholarship, despite the fact that since 1975 there have been numerous books,
catalogues and exhibitions on Italian renaissance architecture.2 This chapter
looks at some of the historiographical prejudices which can explain the periph
eral status held by quattrocento Neapolitan architecture, and the misunder
standings of the specific nature of local antiquarian culture. The palace
constructed in the fifteenth century by Diomede Carafa (c. 1406–87) is an
important example of the way in which all’antica constructions were designed in
Naples. This chapter will focus on how and when this building responded to new
architectural fashions from other parts of Italy.
The lack of attention given to Neapolitan architecture of this period is partly
due to the scarcity of surviving material and archival evidence. The few buildings
which still exist are almost all in a poor state of conservation, and form part of an
urban context where traces of architectural continuity have been lost, submerged
in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century baroque renovations. Moreover, it is well
known that Neapolitan archives have suffered huge losses, especially as regards
fifteenth-century sources, which are less numerous here than in other Italian
centres.
However, the lack of sources is not a sufficient explanation as to why fifteenthcentury Neapolitan architecture is regarded as marginal within the Italian and
European context. While the highly negative treatment of Neapolitan art and
architecture can certainly be traced back to the writing of Giorgio Vasari, the
influence of his ideas would not have been so harmful if they had not been
reinforced by a range of different problems which arose in subsequent centuries.3
83
.
B U I L D I N G I N L O C A L A L L’ A N T I C A S T Y L E
The attitudes of nineteenth- and twentieth-century historiographers were crucial
not only in creating a homogeneous image of a backward southern Italy, which
remained behind the rest of Italy and Europe, but also in interpreting the earlier
history of the region in the light of this image.4 This particular historiographical
approach has led to the creation of inadequate concepts such as centre and
periphery, and development and backwardness, which have provided the frame
work within which the relationship between the Neapolitan quattrocento and the
Renaissance in the rest of Italy have been interpreted and evaluated, not least by
Neapolitan scholars themselves.5
The so-called ‘questione meridionale’, or ‘southern question’, which arose after
Italy’s unification in the 1860s, not only relegated the south to a subordinate
position in the national context as a whole, but also weakened the territorial and
art-historical awareness which had been prevalent in the local and regional
culture.6 Indeed, the erudite local Neapolitan historiographical tradition
founded by Bartolommeo Capasso at the end of the nineteenth century, which led
to a series of important studies on the historical topography of the city and on its
monumental buildings, was later dismissed as merely local and eventually
abandoned.7 Thus, since Naples has been regarded as a peripheral city merely
waiting for the influence of the new Florentine style to reach it, little attention
has been paid to the original character of local architectural forms and no
detailed attempt has been made to understand the specific interpretation of the
new language inspired by the antique which developed there during the quat
trocento.8
Throughout much of Italy in the fifteenth century a new conception of
architecture gradually emerged which explicitly harked back to classical anti
quity; at the same time there was a growing awareness of a new all’antica style
based on an investigation of the underlying principles and motifs of classical
buildings, in order that these could be re-applied in contemporary construction.9
The ‘ancient way of building’, in the words of Antonio Filarete (c. 1400–69), arose
from the detachment and distance with which fifteenth-century Italian huma
nists had begun to see both the immediate past and remote antiquity, now chosen
as a new model.10 The new ways of building in Florence have always been
acknowledged as forerunners of the all’antica style, which were unmatched else
where on the peninsula; yet the solutions found there were merely one of many
possible approaches to the problem of how to use the architecture of classical
antiquity as a model for contemporary building. Local and regional formulations
of the all’antica style are found in several different parts of Italy and have recently
become the objects of study and research.11
The history of Neapolitan architecture illustrates well this fundamental
aspect of the early Renaissance – a paradigmatic and precocious example of a
local antiquarian tradition which had no direct link to Florence and Rome, or
with the revival of classical orders, but developed from local sources and remains,
which were still widely visible at the time both in the city and in its surroundings.
As Nicolas Bock has shown, Naples saw the emergence, by the beginning of the
fifteenth century, of an architectural style quite consciously related to that of
antiquity and paralleling in many ways the new approaches in Florence.12
This early manifestation of the new style in Naples was due in part to the
city’s uninterrupted links with the material evidence of classical antiquity, as
84
1 Façade of Diomede Carafa’s
palace. Naples. Drawing: Studio
Tecnico Pesce/Arch. Cassano.
revealed in the continuity of the urban settlement and the abundance of ruins,13
and in part to a long tradition, dating from the medieval period, whereby the
ruling elites of the city sought to acquire political legitimacy and authority by
intentionally invoking the precedents of antiquity.14 Even when the Angevin
dynasty judged the all’antica style to be less appropriate than the gothic for its
purposes, allusions to classical buildings and sculpture still formed part of their
strategical use of the inheritance from antiquity. In the monument which
Joanna II commissioned for her brother Ladislas (1428–32), which in its imitation
of earlier Angevin tombs, in particular that of Robert of Anjou, represents a clear
assertion on Joanna’s part of her dynastic legitimacy, a fully developed appre
ciation of the new all’antica style is already evident in the use of the round arch,
the marble coffered ceiling, the ropework in the architrave and the capitals in the
lower level, and the corbels with putti holding heraldic devices. In fifteenthcentury Naples, as elsewhere in Italy, the commissioning of art and architecture
was a high priority among the nobility; building in the all’antica style became an
important element for such patrician patrons in their search to gain immortality
through the construction of palaces and funerary monuments. Even though some
characteristics of the Neapolitan nobility differentiate them from their counter
parts in other Italian cities, the importance they placed on the palaces they built
is equivalent to that found in cities such as Vicenza, Venice or Florence in the
fifteenth century.15
Diomede Carafa was one of the most important figures at the Aragonese court
under Ferrante I (1423–94). Such was his authority that in 1472 the Venetian
ambassador Zaccaria Barbaro even described him as a ‘second king’.16 Like the
other great patrons of the period, such as Cosimo de’ Medici, Ludovico Gonzaga
and Giovanni Rucellai, Diomede Carafa felt the need to build himself a domus
befitting his status, in which he would house a notable collection of antiquities.17
Built in the mid-fifteenth century, between c. 1444 and c. 1470, in the heart of the
city’s historical centre, Carafa’s palace exemplifies the specific ways in which
buildings in the all’antica style were constructed in Naples. The architecture of the
palace reveals not just a full awareness of the ideas and fashions which were then
circulating throughout Italy, but also a striking independence in the choice and
use of the available sources (plate 1).
85
2 Drawing of the properties
incorporated in Diomede
Carafa’s palace. Naples. Drawing:
Studio Pesce/Arch. Cassano, with
additions by Bianca de Divitiis.
Research on Diomede’s palace has almost always emphasized the building’s
juxtaposition of Catalan features with the new Florentine style.18 The disconti
nuities of style which are clearly visible both on the façade and in the courtyard
may, however, be interpreted not so much as an eclectic combination of different
styles, but as a reflection of at least two distinct phases in the development of
Diomede’s project. An examination of the individual parts of the palace reveals a
change of design, which resulted in a different idea of the all’antica style and in a
sudden updating of subsequent models. In order to evaluate this change it is
important to understand how the palace was conceived. In the inscription in
Roman lettering on the pedestal of the column in the courtyard, Diomede
declares – almost apologizing for choosing such a cramped space for his new
residence – that, although a better and larger site was available, the idea of
moving away from the area where his ancestors had always lived was disagreeable
to him.19 Apart from being an explicit declaration of the genealogical signifi
cance of the site of the palace, the inscription also tells us that he used property
which already belonged to his family.20 His new residence was not built ex novo,
but united already existing properties on the site. Two newly discovered docu
ments in the Naples State Archives – the only ones so far to have come to light on
the palace – demonstrate that in 1449 Diomede obtained from his elder brother
86
Francesco a property on the platea
Domus Novae (today vico SS. Filippo e
Giacomo), which in turn included
within its boundaries two adjoining
houses on the platea Nidi (today via
San Biagio de’ Librai), which Diomede
himself had acquired a few years
previously from the Pignatelli family
(plate 2 [nos 2–3]).21 From the archi
tectural survey, and from a direct
examination of the building itself, it
is clear that an old tower was also
incorporated into the new palace and
that a street originally ran along the
west side of the building (plates 2 [no.
1] and 3). Thus, through his acquisi
tions, Diomede had become the
owner of the entire block of buildings
that faced the main thoroughfare of
the Seggio di Nido.
Proceeding in a similar way to the
work on Leon Battista Alberti’s
Palazzo Rucellai in Florence (1446–51),
once Diomede had completed a first
phase of acquiring properties, he
began transforming his palace into a
magnificent edifice, seeking to bestow
symmetry and regularity within, by
means of the courtyard, and on the
outside enclosing the collection of
disparate buildings in an imposing
all’antica cover composed of equal
courses of alternating grey and yellow
low-relief tufa blocks, that could be
read as opus isodomum (plate 4), that is,
one of two types of wall construction
developed by the Greeks and
described by Vitruvius in the second
book of De architectura.22 Without
orders or stringcourse fascias, the
decoration consists of imposing
marble features such as the ionic
portal in the centre on the main
façade (plate 5); corbels intended as
pedestals for busts on the ground
floor (plate 6); windows with enta
blatures on the piano nobile (plate 7);
and the classicizing cornice (plate 8).
3 Tower incorporated in Diomede Carafa’s
palace. Naples. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/
Archivio dell’Arte.
4 View of the façade on the platea Domus Novae,
showing the opus isodomum and the windows,
Diomede Carafa’s palace. Naples. Photo: Fabio
Donato.
87
5 Ionic portal, Diomede Carafa’s palace. Naples. Photo: Soprintendenza BAPPSAD di Napoli.
The first phase of work to unify the incongruent buildings already reveals
Diomede’s wish to follow the antique style, seeking inspiration from other resi
dences in Naples and elsewhere. The east side of the quadrangular courtyard is
formed of a loggia on two levels modelled on the single-level loggia in the
Castelnuovo (plate 9). The double-height barrel vault of the vestibule has been
regarded as an example of ‘Catalan style’, as it terminates with a depressed and
polylobed arch (plate 10).23 The vault is, in fact, an all’antica feature, which
88
appears to have no precedent in
Neapolitan domestic architecture
and probably derives from the
entrance to the Palazzo Medici,
built a few years earlier, a
building that Diomede must have
known well as he had many
connections with the ruling
family of Florence.24 Diomede
was aware of Medicean taste in
architecture and collecting. In
1468 he asked his friend Filippo
Strozzi to send him drawings of 6 Corbel on the ground floor, Diomede Carafa’s
Piero de’ Medici’s studiolo and of palace. Naples. Photo: Fabio Donato.
the ceiling of the Gran Sala in the
Medici Palace.25 He was also one
of the few recipients of important
diplomatic gifts from Lorenzo de’
Medici,
which
considerably
increased his collection of anti
quities. The Venetian ambassador
Zaccaria Barbaro mentions that,
together with the famous bronze
head of a horse, Lorenzo sent
Diomede six antique bronze
statues and a group of gemstones
originating from Pope Paul II’s
collection.26
The use of opus isodomum is
also significant. If, on the one
hand, Diomede was motivated by
the need to give a sense of regu
larity to what were disparate
properties, on the other hand, in
the middle of the quattrocento,
not very many buildings were
constructed with opus isodomum.
Moreover,
Diomede’s
opus
isodomum anticipates its use in 7 Window of the piano nobile, Diomede Carafa’s palace.
Palazzo della Cancelleria in Naples. Photo: Fabio Donato.
Rome, usually considered to be
the earliest building where this
feature is employed.27 Even though it has been established that this type of wall
surface cannot be considered a direct derivative of Florentine models, palaces
such as those of Cosimo de’ Medici and Giovanni Rucellai must surely have
suggested to Diomede that the best way to achieve an all’antica appearance was to
erect a façade made up of large hewn blocks which, according to Filarete’s treatise
on architecture (c. 1460–64), befits the residences of the nobility and polite
89
8 Upper cornice, Diomede Carafa’s palace.
Naples. Photo: Author.
9 Loggia in the courtyard, Diomede Carafa’s
palace. Naples. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/
10 Barrel vault in the vestibule, Diomede
Carafa’s palace. Naples. Photo: Soprintendenza
BAPPSAD di Napoli.
90
classes.28 In order to construct his
isodome façade, Diomede, unlike the
Florentines, did not need to go far to
find antique models which he could
use. A well-known and very early
example of this feature can be found
in the lower part of Palazzo Penna in
Naples, dating to 1406 (plate 11).29
Even the Neapolitan historian Carlo
Celano in the seventeenth century
noted the all’antica character of the
‘square-cut stones’ of these two
palaces, a shared feature which is
related in both cases to the stonework
of the towers of Emperor Frederick II’s
gate in Capua (plate 12).30 The
connection must also have occurred
to the eighteenth-century writer
Bernardo de Dominici, who dated
both buildings to the end of the thir
teenth century and attributed them
to the imaginary architect, Masucio
Primo, who was trained ‘under a
foreign military architect of great
renown’ employed in the service of
Frederick II.31 The existence from the
early fifteenth century onwards of an
architectural
tradition
which
modelled its all’antica style on the gate
at Capua is also demonstrated by the
bell tower of the Pappacoda Chapel,
which itself provided another impor
tant model for the façade of
Diomede’s palace (plate 13). The upper
level, with its chequered pattern of
regular yellow and grey tufa stones,
and framed antique sculptures set
into the surface, is not only an
obvious precedent for the two
coloured patterning of Diomede’s opus
isodomum, but also served as a model
for the manner in which he set
antique sculptures into the façade.32
Even though the lack of documents
makes it impossible to establish a
precise chronology for the construc
tion of the main façade and of the two
lateral facades, an analysis of the
11 Façade of Palazzo Penna, 1406. Naples.
Photo: Soprintendenza BAPPSAD di
Napoli.
discontinuities in the careful regularity of the isodome stonework shows that the
ornamental parts in marble were added later.
The same can be said of the column made up of ancient sculptural and
architectural remains (spolia) in the courtyard of the Carafa palace. This appears
to have replaced an earlier support, which was possibly more consistent in style
with the piperno stone mouldings of the polylobed arch overhead and the facing
suspended capital (plate 14). The evidence that these elements were put in place at
a later date testifies further to the fact that they represent a changed way of
thinking about the all’antica style. Moreover their innovative character – not only
for Neapolitan architecture but also in relation to that of the rest of Italy – would
seem to indicate that an expert, capable of selecting and adapting the features of
classical architecture for modern buildings, had offered his advice on the design.
This is the case, for example, with the seven windows with entablatures, a cornice
with dentils and a frieze inscribed with moralizing phrases in roman capitals that
adorn the piano nobile (see plate 7). Such windows were a complete novelty in
Naples and have no precedents in Tuscan or Roman buildings. In order to find
windows similar to those of the Palazzo Carafa it is necessary to look at the area
round Mantua and Urbino during the 1450s and 1460s, and in particular the
windows of the palace at Revere belonging to Ludovico Gonzaga, one of Alberti’s
most important patrons.33 In comparison with these, the design of the windows
in the Palazzo Carafa represents a further step towards the fully fledged window
with entablature, much like those designed at the same time by Luciano Laurana
for the ducal palace of Urbino.34
Until the building of the Palazzo Carafa the doorways of Neapolitan palaces
had been in Catalan style with a flattened arch, as in the Palazzo Penna and in the
91
Palazzo Bonifacio.35 Diomede’s style
of ionic portal (see plate 5) was
unheard of in Naples and it can be
included among the earliest attempts
to design ionic portals that were
taking place elsewhere on the Italian
peninsula. The inner part of the
portal takes the traditional fifteenthcentury form, consisting of a simple
architrave and corbels placed at the
upper corners of the opening. This
12 Remains of drafted masonry in the lateral
can be found in several churches and
towers of Frederick’s Gate, 1234–39. Capua.
chapels in Naples, such as S. Giovanni
Photo: Soprintendenza BAPPSAD di Napoli.
a Carbonara (1427–30), S. Angelo a
Nilo (1426; also known as S. Angelo a
Nido), and the Cappella Palatina in the Castelnuovo (1469–74), from which
Diomede’s portal also takes the style of the door-post mouldings (plate 15). Over
the architrave is placed what one might call the innovative ‘ionic section’ of the
portal which, in line with Leon Battista Alberti’s precepts of the same period, is
made up of two long corbels and a pulvinated fascia frieze, formed by a projecting
baton of laurel bound with acanthus. The portal is completed by another smooth
frieze, decorated with the Carafa family arms and Diomede’s own heraldic
devices, and a cornice with an inscription in Roman lettering, bearing the date
1466. In terms of what constitutes a correct ionic portal, where the consoles frame
the baton of laurel leaves on each side and support the cornice, the features of
this portal – the presence of a double frieze, the extension of the pulvinated fascia
beyond the jambs, and the lowered corbels – appear at first sight to be errors.
However, it should be remembered that precise rules for this feature had not yet
been established. Even Alberti did not adhere dogmatically to the theories he was
developing, but was ready to adapt them to suit the particular situation.36 Most
scholars who have written on the portal have perceived Alberti’s influence.37 On
the other hand Andreas Beyer has recently questioned the existence of a direct
connection between the portal of Diomede’s palace in Naples (see plate 5) and the
portal of San Sebastiano in Mantua, preferring to explain their resemblance by
suggesting they both draw, independently, on the same passage in Vitruvius,
where the author recommends that in an ionic doorway the cornice has to be
supported by consoles on each side.38 Nevertheless, Alberti’s influence on the
Carafa palace portal remains clear, and there are further arguments that can be
made in support of this. The presence of a pulvinated frieze is of great signifi
cance because at this time only a few examples had been created in sculpture and
architecture. Before being codified by Alberti, the pulvinated frieze was used by
Donatello in the frieze of the door of the Eucharistic Tabernacle, today in the
Sacrestia dei Beneficiati in the Vatican (1432–33).39 Two of the earliest examples
of ionic portals are by Filarete: first, in his reconstruction of Hadrian’s Mauso
leum on the Bronze Doors of St Peter’s (1433–45), where an opus isodomum wall is
also depicted; and second, in the two side doors in the design of the façade of the
Duomo in Bergamo (1457).40 Vitruvius had chosen to overlook the pulvinated
frieze, preferring to describe the ionic portal in terms of the Greek model. Alberti
92
13 Upper level of the bell tower of
the Pappacoda Chapel, 1415. Naples.
Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio
dell’Arte.
was the first to propose its use in De re aedificatoria, written in 1452, where he tried
to overcome the contradictions between Vitruvius’s text and the evidence of its
frequent use on the ancient Roman buldings which he could see all around
him.41 It is moreover important to remember that Alberti employed pulvinated
friezes not only on ionic portals, but also for the windows in the interior of the
Rucellai Chapel in San Pancrazio, Florence, where his design does not follow the
conventional rules (as is also the case with the frieze in the Palazzo Carafa).42
The ‘innovation’ in the smallest details of the ionic section of the portal is not
matched by the lower section. On the basis of an examination of this part, it is
possible to hypothesize that Diomede initially envisaged a portal with an archi
trave like those which were still the norm in Naples in the mid-fifteenth century,
and that the classicizing part above the architrave, with two friezes, side corbels
and cornice, might be part of a change of design adopted after the portal had
been begun. It seems plausible to suggest that authoritative advice lay behind
Diomede’s decision to transform his portal with architrave into a more obviously
all’antica ionic portal and that this advice came from Alberti. Luca Boschetto has
recently shown that Alberti was in Naples as the guest of Filippo Strozzi between
the end of March and the beginning of June 1465 – in other words, a year before
the date on the cornice of the portal.43 Filippo Strozzi had long had financial
dealings with Diomede, but from the later 1460s onwards he became increasingly
important as a contact in artistic matters, making a notable contribution to the
93
14 Column formed by spolia in the courtyard, Diomede Carafa’s palace.
Naples. Photo: Soprintendenza BAPPSAD di Napoli.
splendours of the palace: he procured luxurious furnishings such as the
‘lettuccio’, sent him sumptuous gifts for the collection, and had drawings of the
Gran Sala and Piero’s studiolo in Palazzo Medici done for him.44 It is therefore not
difficult to imagine that Diomede came into contact with Strozzi’s illustrious
guest. It is also known that Alberti was in the habit of giving architectural advice
and it seems probable that, on arriving in Naples when the construction of
Palazzo Carafa was already well advanced, he might well have shared with
Diomede his reflections on palaces and ancient buildings.45 For example, he
could have suggested to Diomede what he had only recently written in De re
aedificatoria – that a private residence should have an ionic portal – and gone on to
describe its components.46 It is possible that Diomede had seen for himself
examples of classical ionic portals, and that Alberti helped him to make the
94
connection between these and the
design of a modern portal, which the
reading of Vitruvius alone would not
have done. In fact, it seems improb
able that Diomede could have been
inspired directly from his own
reading of Vitruvius, an author who
was difficult even for trained archi
tects to understand and presumably
even more so for Diomede, as he
apparently did not know Latin.47 But
given the brevity of Alberti’s stay in
Naples and the final appearance of
the portal itself, Alberti’s role must
have been limited to giving advice and
he is unlikely to have supervised its 15 Door-post mouldings, Diomede Carafa’s
construction. Once he had chosen this palace. Naples. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/
type of portal, Diomede, guided by Archivio dell’Arte.
the outlook of a collector of anti
quities rather than the philological accuracy of an antiquarian scholar, went on to
create an eclectic and personalized version of an ionic doorway in which he
combined elements taken from both antique and fifteenth-century architecture,
as if they were spolia.
Diomede seems at first to have drawn his inspiration from Naples and then
from Florence, whose models he interpreted with a Neapolitan perspective and
from within a Neapolitan context. Later his choice of architectural language
became more modern and the references wider. Hitherto, the only dated
reference for the building is 1466, as it is carved on the cornice of the portal. All
studies of the palace have taken this as a terminus ante quem for the completion of
a single extended building project.48 Yet there are a number of reasons for
believing that 1466 represents not the date of completion, but a turning point in
the all’antica style of the palace. The years between 1465 and 1466 were particu
larly significant in both the history of the regno and in the personal life of
Diomede. By 1466 the kingdom was enjoying a new period of peace and political
calm after the death of Alfonso in 1458. Ferrante had by then succeeded in
suppressing the first conspiracy of the barons and had fought off French claims to
the throne.49 As a close associate of Ferrante, Diomede was actively involved in
these military and political events. In 1465 his loyalty was rewarded when he was
made Conte di Maddaloni.50 Considering, as Giovanni Pontano did, that ‘noble
works’ should only be created in happy times and not in periods of public
misfortune, it seems improbable that Diomede would have undertaken work on
his palace between 1458 and 1465.51 It is likely instead that construction began
again in 1465, just as it did on Castelnuovo.52 Alberti’s visit to Naples occurred
just at this time and Diomede could have taken advantage of his presence to ask
his advice on ways of making his residence even more magnificent and splendid,
as befitting his new rank as count.
In conclusion, from the outset Diomede Carafa wished to keep up with the
latest developments in the rest of Italy and sought inspiration in contemporary
95
buildings and ideas, yet each architectural element was always interpreted in the
context of the traditional attitude to the antique upheld in Naples. In terms of
architectural vocabulary the solutions may not always have been typical – as has
already been seen, for example, with the ionic portal – yet this was not necessarily
a shortcoming but the result of the need to adapt external ideas to the urban
context and to the patron’s demand for self-representation. Indeed, it should
not be interpreted as a sign of backwardness or as a misunderstanding of
more ‘advanced’ stylistic ways. Those features of the building which might be
interpreted by a modern observer as mere vestiges of the past, such as
the decorative crenellation formed by small, lowered arches and corbels in the
internal façades and the depressed arches of the vestibule and the loggia in
the courtyard, would, at the time, have been perfectly congruent with the local
all’antica architecture.53
In addition to this, Diomede’s palace shows clearly how the Neapolitan
interpretation of the new fifteenth-century style was notably influenced by
the ways in which the antique was used in the local medieval tradition, in
particular in the architecture of Frederick II and in those Angevin buildings
which referred back to antiquity by means of Frederick’s gate.54 These
constructions not only influenced the way the architecture of antiquity was
perceived in Naples but, as in the case of isodome stonework, actually provided
the direct sources of the new style. If references back to architectural styles under
Frederick II can already be found in Neapolitan art and architecture during the
Angevin period, Diomede’s approach is best seen as both a conscious attempt at
cultural mediation with the classical past and a strategic employment of a
cultural inheritance which re-awakened the interest of Aragonese humanists in
the figure of Frederick II55 – an interest which Diomede actively encouraged not
only in architecture with the building of his palace but also, for example, in
the field of law, by commissioning an important vernacular edition of Frederick
56
II’s Liber Augustalis.
Diomede’s palace rightly takes its place among the other residential buildings
erected by members of the ruling classes in various Italian cities during this
period and should be understood as one of the many possible responses that arose
from the quattrocento desire to build in the all’antica style. The palace, with its
use of entirely new features, represented a turning point in Neapolitan archi
tecture. Even more than those found in the works commissioned by the royal
family, these architectural features provided models, which members of the
ruling class were quick to imitate. It is also worth noting that a number of the
solutions adopted by Diomede were exported outside the kingdom: for example,
drafted masonry was increasingly found in Tuscany from the end of the 1460s
after Giuliano da Maiano had used it in the buildings he designed on his return
from Naples.57
Diomede Carafa’s response to the local and external models he adopted is,
therefore, the determining aspect of the building, since it is precisely his personal
interpretation, which lays such stress on varietas, that brings out the all’antica
character of the palace.58 The Carafa palace should be considered not only as one
of the most significant contributions to Italian fifteenth-century architecture, but
also as a manifestation of the vigorous humanistic culture and international
status of Naples during this period.
96
Notes
I would like to thank Janis Elliott and Cordelia Warr for their encouragement. I
am also grateful to Stephen Parkin for translating this chapter into English, and
Aislinn Loconte and Francesco Pasquale for their useful comments. Thanks are
extended to Luciano Pedicini (http://www.pedicinimages.com) for the provision of
images. An earlier version of this chapter was presented at Import/Export: Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1266–1568, sessions at the
Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference in San Francisco in 2006.
1 Ludwig H. Heydenreich, Architecture in Italy. 1400–
1500, ed. Paul Davies, New Haven and London,
1996 (first published 1974), 130–5.
2 Paul Davies, ‘Introduction’, in Heydenreich,
Architecture, 1–6, 5.
3 Giovanni Previtali, ‘Il Vasari e l’Italia meridio
nale’, in Il Vasari storiografo e artista, Florence,
1976, 691–3, 693. On Vasari and southern Italy,
see Aislinn Loconte, ‘The North looks South:
Giorgio Vasari and Early Modern Visual Culture
in the Kingdom of Naples’, included in this
volume. I am grateful to the author for letting
me read her manuscript before its publication.
4 Igor E. Mineo, ‘Alle origini dell’ Italia di antico
regime’, in Francesco Benigno, Carmine
Donzelli, Carlo Fumian, Salvatore Lupo and Igor
E. Mineo, eds, Storia medievale, Roma, 1998, 617–
52, 650.
5 The anachronism of such concepts in relation to
the medieval period was first recognized by
David Abulafia, ‘Southern Italy and the Flor
entine Economy, 1265–1370’, Economic History
Review, 34, 1981, 377–88, 388; David Abulafia, The
Two Italies. Economic Relations between the Kingdom
of Sicily and the Northern Communes, Cambridge,
1977, 7–12, 369–71.
6 For a discussion of territorial and geographical
awareness in southern culture before Italy’s
unification, see Maria Antonietta Visceglia,
‘Storia regionale’, in Aurelio Musi, ed., Dimenti
care Croce? Studi e orientamenti di storia del Mezzo
giorno, Napoli, 1991, 13–41, 41. The influence of
the ‘questione meridionale’ on the perception of
southern Italy’s art-historical tradition is found
in Previtali, ‘Il Vasari’, 694.
7 Mario Del Treppo has recently shown how
significant the contribution of this historical
school was to Neapolitan historical topography
and has also identified the point of rupture in
the historiography of southern Italy after Unifi
cation in the opposition between Benedetto
Croce and Bartolommeo Capasso. Mario Del
Treppo, ‘Bartolommeo Capasso, la storia,
l’erudizione’, in Giovanni Vitolo, ed., Barto
lommeo Capasso. Storia, filologia, erudizione nella
Napoli dell’ Ottocento, Naples, 2005, 15–131. On the
influence of Benedetto Croce’s historiographical
orientation on the southern Italian territorial
culture, see Visceglia, ‘Storia regionale’, 22–3.
8 On the historiography of the Neapolitan renais
sance in relation to that of the Florentine
9
10
11
12
13
renaissance, see David Abulafia, ‘The Diffusion of
Italian Renaissance: Southern Italy and Beyond’,
in Jonathan Woolfson, ed., Palgrave Advances in
Renaissance Historiography, Basingstoke, 2005, 27–
51. For a further discussion of Neapolitan quat
trocento architectural historiography, see B. de
Divitiis, ‘La committenza dei Carafa della
Stadera a Napoli nel Quattrocento’, unpublished
doctoral thesis, Venice: Scuola di Studi Avanzati
di Venezia, 2006, 5–22.
Howard Burns, ‘Quattrocento Architecture and
the Antique: Some Problems’, in Robert R. Bolgar,
ed., Classical Influences on European Culture. A.D.
500–1500, Cambridge, 1971, 269–87; Giorgia
Clarke, Roman House – Renaissance Palaces. Invent
ing Antiquity in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Cambridge,
2003, 163–4.
Antonio Filarete praised Brunellechi for having
revived in Florence ‘lo modo antico dello edifi
care, per modo che oggi dı́ non s’usa se none
all’antica’. See Antonio Averlino, detto il Filarete,
Trattato di Architettura, eds Anna Maria Finoli and
Liliana Grassi, 2 vols, Milano, 1972, vol. 1, 227–8.
On the development of a new attitute towards
the past in the fifteenth century, see, most
recently, Elisa Romano, ‘L’antichità dopo la
modernità’, Storica, 7, 1994, 9–24; Francesco
Paolo Fiore, ‘Introduzione’, in Francesco Paolo
Fiore, ed., Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il Quat
trocento, Milan, 1998, 9–37, 9–10.
See, for example, Richard Schofield, ‘Avoiding
Rome: An Introduction to Lombard Sculptors and
the Antique’, Arte Lombarda, 100, 1992, 29–44;
Richard Schofield, ‘The Colleoni Chapel and the
Creation of a Local all’antica Architectural Style’,
in Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Luisa Giordano
and Richard Schofield, eds, Bramante milanese e
l’architettura del Rinascimento lombardo, Venice,
2002, 167–92; Paul Davies and David Hemsoll, ‘I
portali dei palazzi veronesi nel rinascimento’, in
Paola Lanaro, Paola Marini and Gian Maria Vara
nini, eds, Edilizia privata nella Verona rinascimentale,
Milan, 2000, 252–66. Marco Rosario Nobile, Un
altro rinascimento. Architettura, maestranze e cantieri
in Sicilia 1458–1558, Benevento, 2002.
Nicolas Bock, ‘Antiken und Florenzrezeption in
Neapel’, in Klaus Bergdolt and Giorgio Bonsanti,
eds, Opere e Giorni. Studi su mille anni di arte europea
dedicati a Max Seidel, Venice, 2001, 241–50.
For the persistence of the road system and
settlement in the ancient centre of Naples, see
97
14
15
16
17
18
98
most recently Paul Arthur, Naples, from Roman
Town to City-State: An Archaeological Perspective,
Rome and London, 2002; Gabriele Capone and
Alfonso Leone, ‘‘‘Griptae antique’’ a Napoli
nell’Alto Medioevo’, in Marcello Rotili, ed.,
Incontri di popoli e culture tra V e IX secolo. Atti delle V
giornate di studio sull’età romanobarbarica, Naples,
1998, 233–40. For the continous use of ancient
infrastructures, such as the aquaduct and the
sewer system, see Giuliana Vitale, ‘I bagni a
Napoli nel Medioevo tra pratiche igienico-sani
tarie, industria, luoghi di piacere’, Archivio Storico
per le Province Napoletane, 123, 2005, 1–48. For the
wide availability of ancient remains in Naples and
its surroundings, see Stefania Adamo Muscettola,
‘Napoli e le ‘‘belle antechetate’’’, in Fausto Zevi,
ed., Neapolis, Naples, 1994, 196–208; Stanko
Kokole, ‘Totius antiquitatis egregius admirator:
Christophorus Rauber zwischen Kampanien und
Krain’, in Janez Höfler and Jörg Traeger, eds,
Bayern und Slowenien in der Fr.uh- und Sp.atgotik:
beziehungen, Anregungen, Parallelen, 2003, 175–97.
For re-use of the antique during the high
medieval period, see Patrizio Pensabene, ‘Nota
sul reimpiego e il recupero dell’antico in Puglia e
Campania tra V e IX secolo’, in Rotili, Incontri di
popoli e culture, 181–231.
William F. Kent, ‘Palaces, Politics and Society’, I
Tatti Studies, 2, 1987, 41–70; Richard Goldthwaite,
‘The Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture’,
American Historical Review, 77, 1972, 977–1012. For
an analysis of the Neapolitan elite, see Maria
Antonietta Visceglia, Il bisogno di eternità. I
comportamenti aristocratici a Napoli in età moderna,
Naples, 1988; Giuliana Vitale, Élite burocratica e
famiglia. Dinamiche nobiliari e processi di costruzione
statale nella Napoli angioino-aragonese, Naples, 2003.
Zaccaria Barbaro, Dispacci. 1 novembre 1471–7
settembre 1473, ed. Gigi Corazzol, Rome, 1994, 225,
n. 104, dated 31 March 1472. On Diomede Carafa,
see Tommaso Persico, Diomede Carafa: uomo di
stato e scrittore del secolo 15, Naples, 1899; Franca
Petrucci, ‘Carafa, Diomede’, in Dizionario Biogra
fico degli Italiani, vol. 19, Rome, 1976, 523–30.
For Diomede’s collection, see Bianca de Divitiis,
Architettura e committenza nella Napoli del Quat
trocento, Venezia, 2007, 43–135; Bianca de Divitiis,
‘New Evidence on Diomede Carafa’s Collection of
Antiquities’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes, 70, 2007, 99–117. See also I. M. Iasiello, Il
collezionismo di antichità nella Napoli dei Viceré,
Naples, 2003, 110–18; Eloisa Dodero, ‘Le antichità
di palazzo Carafa-Colubrano: prodromi alla
storia della collezione’, Napoli Nobilissima, ser. 5,
8, 2007, 119–40.
Giuseppe Ceci, ‘Il palazzo dei Carafa di Madda
loni poi di Colubrano I’, Napoli Nobilissima, 2,
1893, 149–52, 168–70; Roberto Pane, Architettura
del Rinascimento in Napoli, Naples, 1937, 105–13;
Roberto Pane, Il Rinascimento nell’Italia meridionale,
2 vols, Milan, 1975–77, vol. 1, 209–11; A. Venditti,
‘Presenze ed influenze catalane nell’architettura
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
napoletana del Regno d’Aragona (1442–1503)’,
Napoli Nobilissima, ser. 3, 13, 1974, 12–13.
The complete inscription is: ‘est et forte locus
magis aptus et amplus in urbe ab agnatis disce
dere turpe putavit.’
For the genealogical significance of the palace,
see Giuliana Vitale, ‘La ‘‘regio nilensis’’ nel basso
medioevo. Società e spazio urbano’, in Irene
Bragantini and Patrizio Gastaldi, eds, Palazzo
Corigliano: tra archeologia e storia, Naples, 1984,
88–9; Vitale, Élite, 138–9.
Archivio di Stato di Napoli (ASN), Archivio
privato Carafa di Maddaloni II/D/11; ASN,
Archivio privato Carafa di Maddaloni, II/D/13.
Vitruvio, De architectura, 2 vols, eds Pierre Gros,
Antonio Corso and Elisa Romano, Turin, 1997,
vol. 1, book 2, chap. 8, 140–3; Clarke, Roman
House, 190–200. See Andreas Beyer, Parthenope.
Neapel und der Su. den der Renaissance, Munich and
Berlin, 2000, 118–19.
See, for example, Venditti, ‘Presenze’, 12.
Over thirty letters held in the Florence State
Archives (Archivio Mediceo avanti il Principato)
and one in Amsterdam University Library prove
Diomede’s political ties with the Medici. See
Francesco Novati, ‘I manoscritti italiani d’alcune
biblioteche del Belgio e dell’Olanda’, Rassegna
bibliografica della letteratura italiana, 2, 1894, 199–
209, 206; John D. Moores, ‘New Light on Diomede
Carafa and his ‘‘Perfect Loyalty’’ to Ferrante of
Aragon’, Italian Studies, 26, 1971, 1–23, 1–4.
Eve Borsook, ‘A Florentine scrittoio for Diomede
Carafa’, in Moshe Barasch and Lucy Freeman
Sandler, eds, Art the Ape of Nature. Studies in Honor
of H. W. Janson, New York, 1981, 91–6.
Barbaro, Dispacci, 225, n. 104, dated 31 March
1472; 384, n. 181, dated 4–5 October 1472; de
Divitiis, Architettura, 98–99. On the bronze head
of the horse, see Gaetano Filangieri, ‘La testa di
cavallo in bronzo già in casa Maddaloni in via
Sedile di Nido ora al Museo Nazionale di Napoli’,
in Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane, VII,
1882, 407–20; Francesco Caglioti, ‘Catalogue
Entry Horse’s Head (Naples, Museo Archeologico
Nazionale)’, in Mina Gregori, ed., In the Light of
Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece, exh. cat.
(Athens, National Gallery – Alexandros Soutzos
Museum, 22 December 2003 – 31 March 2004),
Milan, 2004, 198–200 n. II.5; Laurie Fusco and
Gino Corti, Lorenzo de’ Medici collector and anti
quarian, Cambridge, 2006, 11–12.
See Andreas Beyer, Parthenope, 118–19. On the
wall surface of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, see
M. Daly Davis, ‘‘‘Opus isodomum’’ at the Palazzo
della Cancelleria: Vitruvian studies and arche
ological and antiquarian interests at the court of
Raffaele Riario’, in S. Danesi Squarzina, ed.,
Roma, centro ideale della cultura dell’antico nei secoli
XV e XVI, Milan, 1989, 442–57, 445.
Filarete, Trattato di Architettura, vol. 2, 623. See
Roberto Gargiani, Principi e costruzione nell’archi
tettura italiana del Quattrocento, Rome, 2003, 340.
29 Giuseppe Ceci, ‘Il palazzo Penna’, Napoli Nobi
lissima, 3, 1894, 83–6; Aldo De Rinaldis, ‘Forme
tipiche dell’architettura napoletana nella prima
metà del Quattrocento’, Bollettino d’arte, 4, 1924,
168–70; Nicolas Bock, Kunst am Hofe der AnjouDurazzo: der Bildhauer Antonio Baboccio (1351–c.
1423), Munich, 2000, 197–216.
30 Carlo Celano, Delle Notizie del bello, dell’antico, e del
curioso della città di Napoli, Naples, 1692, Quarta
Giornata, 27. On Frederick’s gate, see Carl Arnold
Willemsen, Kaiser Friedrichs II. Triumphator zu
Capua. Ein Denkmal Hohenstaufischer Kunst in
.
Sudenitalien,
Wiesbaden, 1953; Creswell Shearer,
The Renaissance of Architecture in Southern Italy,
Cambridge, 1937; Julian Gardner, ‘An Introduc
tion to the Iconography of the Medieval Italian
City Gate’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 41, 1987, 199–
213, 208–9. For discussion on the stonework of
Frederick’s gate as a model for the Carafa palace
drafted masonry, see Heydenreich, Architecture,
134; Beyer, Parthenope, 111; Clarke, Roman House,
196–7; Gargiani, Principi e costruzione, 185. For the
drafted masonry of Palazzo Penna, see Bock,
Kunst, 202–3; Clarke, Roman House, 195.
31 Bernardo De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed
architetti napoletani (Naples, 1742–45), eds Fiorella
Sricchia Santoro and Andrea Zezza, Naples, 2003,
101, 107–8.
32 Bock, Kunst, 68–75.
33 For a comparison between the windows at the
piano nobile of Diomede Carafa’s palace and those
of the Palazzo Gonzaga at Revere, see Clarke,
Roman House, 197. For the influence of Urbino’s
architecture on that of the Neapolitan quat
trocento, see Anthony Blunt, Neapolitan Baroque &
Rococo Architecture, London, 1975, 15. For the
Palazzo Gonzaga at Revere, see James Lawson,
‘The Building History of the Gonzaga Palace at
Revere’, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Insti
tuts in Florenz, 29, 1985, 197–228; Howard Burns,
‘Alberti’, in Fiore, Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il
Quattrocento, 114–65, 143.
34 Francesco Paolo Fiore, ‘Siena e Urbino’, in Fiore,
Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il Quattrocento, 272–
313, 295–6.
35 Nicola Barone, ‘Il palazzo Bonifacio a Portanova’,
Napoli Nobilissima, s. n. 1, 1920, 83–7.
36 For Vitruvius’ description of the ionic door, see
Vitruvio, De architectura, vol. I, book 4, chap. 6,
388–91, 490–1, nn. 213–16; For Alberti’s descrip
tion, see L. B. Alberti, De re aedificatoria, ed.
Giovanni Orlandi, Milan, 1966, book 7, chap. 12,
622–23. For Alberti’s interpretation of Vitruvius’
ionic door, see Christoph Luitpold Frommel, ‘La
porta ionica nel Rinascimento’, in Christoph
Luitpold Frommel, Architettura alla corte papale nel
Rinascimento, Milan, 2003, 35–88, 38–9.
37 Gustavo Frizzoni, Arte italiana del Rinascimento,
Milan, 1891, 37; Pane, Architettura, 107; Blunt,
Neapolitan baroque, 15.
38 Andreas Beyer, ‘Napoli’, in Fiore, Storia dell’archi
tettura italiana. Il Quattrocento, 434–59, 446; Beyer,
Parthenope, 88.
39 Francesco Caglioti, ‘Donatello (1386–c. 1466) e
aiuti. Tabernacolo eucaristico (1432–1433)’, in
Antonio Pinelli, ed., La Basilica di S. Pietro in Vati
cano, Modena, 2000, 922–7, nn. 1824–7.
40 For Filarete’s Bronze Doors of St Peter’s, see
Maria Beltramini, ‘Antonio Averlino detto
Filarete (1400 ca – post 1466). Porta (1433–1445)’,
in Pinelli, La Basilica, 480–7, nn. 215–1. For Filar
ete’s design of the façade of the Duomo in
Bergamo, see Richard Schofield, ‘The Colleoni
Chapel’, 172–3.
41 Frommel, ‘La porta ionica nel Rinascimento’,
37–8.
42 In the Rucellai chapel the windows are
surmounted by a pulvinated frieze, on which lies
the complete entablature that surrounds the
interior of the chapel. For this observation I am
indebted to Professor Howard Burns, who does
not exclude that Alberti may have provided a
drawing for Diomede’s portal, which was subse
quently executed in an imaginative way, espe
cially for the frieze.
43 Luca Boschetto, ‘Nuove ricerche sulla biografia e
sugli scritti volgari di Leon Battista Alberti. Dal
viaggio a Napoli alla nascita del ‘‘De iciarchia’’
(maggio–settembre 1465)’, Interpres, 20, 2001
[2003], 180–211; Luca Boschetto, ‘Alberti e gli
Strozzi tra Firenze e Napoli’, Atti del convegno
Alberti e Napoli, Capri, May 2004. I am grateful to
the author for allowing me to read the manu
script before its publication.
44 See Eve Borsook, ‘Documenti relativi alle
cappelle di Lecceto e delle Selve di Filippo
Strozzi’, Antichità Viva, 3, 1970, 3–20, 14, n. 2;
Borsook, ‘A Florentine scrittoio’; Mario Del
Treppo, ‘Le avventure storiografiche della Tavola
Strozzi’, in Paolo Macry and Angelo Massafra,
eds, Fra storia e storiografia. Scritti in onore di
Pasquale Villani, Bologna, 1994, 483–515, 511.
45 On Alberti’s role as an influential architectural
expert who served as an advisor to the leading
courts of renaissance Italy, see Burns, ‘Alberti’, 142.
46 Alberti, De re aedificatoria, book 9, chap. 3, 800–1.
47 Frommel, ‘La porta ionica nel Rinascimento’, 35. For
Diomede’s limited knowledge of Latin, see Barbaro,
Dispacci, 360, n. 171, dated 24 September 1472.
48 Pane, Architettura, 107; Pane, Il Rinascimento, vol. 1,
209; Beyer, ‘Napoli’, 442; Beyer, Parthenope, 84.
Hersey considered 1466 to be the date of the
beginning of the construction of the palace.
George Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of
Naples. 1485–1495, New Haven, 1969, 12.
49 Persico, Diomede Carafa, 73–82.
50 Persico, Diomede Carafa, 85–6, 297–304.
51 Giovanni Pontano, ‘‘‘De magnificentia’’’, in
Giovanni Pontano, I libri delle virtù sociali, ed.
Francesco Tateo, Roma, 1999, 184–5.
52 The most recent discussion of the chronology of
the arch of Castelnuovo is in Rosanna Di Battista,
‘Il cantiere di Castelnuovo a Napoli tra il 1443 e il
1473’, unpublished doctoral thesis, Venice, Isti
tuto Universitario di Architettura Venezia, 1998.
99
53 Clarke, Roman House, 180, 260. For a similar
statement in relation to the modillions which
support the projection of the massive cornice of
Palazzo Medici, see Burns, ‘Quattrocento archi
tecture and the antique’, 273.
54 On this concept relating to fifteenth-century
architecture, see Burns, ‘Quattrocento archi
tecture and the Antique’, 270. For Frederick II
and the antique, see Jill Meredith, ‘The Revival of
the Augustan Age in the Court of Emperor
Frederick II’, David Castriota, ed., Artistic Strategy
and the Rhetoric of Power: Political Uses of Art from
Antiquity to the Present, 1986, 39–56; Arnold Esch,
‘Friedrich II. und die Antike’, in Arnold Esch and
Norbert Kamp, eds, Friedrich II: Tagung des Deut
schen Historischen Instituts in Rom im Gedenkjahr
.
1994, Tubingen,
1996, 201–34.
55 For the resurgence of imperial sentiment under
Alfonso of Aragon and his political references to
the reign of Frederick II, see Ernesto Pontieri,
Alfonso il Magnimo re di Napoli 1435–1458, Naples,
1975, 99, 104–5; Alan Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples
under Alfonso the Magnanimous. The Making of the
Modern State, Oxford, 1976, 124–5, 324–5, 368–9.
For the Aragonese artistic interest in Frederick II,
see Joanna Woods-Marsden, ‘Art and Political
Identity in Fifteenth-Century Naples: Pisanello,
Cristoforo di Geremia, and King Alfonso’s
Imperial Fantasies’, in Charles M. Rosenberg, ed.,
Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renais
sance Italy, 1250–1500, Notre Dame and London,
1990, 11–37, 17–18; Ferdinando Bologna, ‘DIVI
IVLI CAEsaris: un nuovo busto federiciano e gli
interessi dei circoli umanistici del Regno per
Federico II’, Dialoghi di Storia, 1, 1996, 4–31.
References to Frederick’s gate in the arch of
Castelnuovo were emphasized by Demetrio Sala
100
zaro, L’arco di trionfo con le torri di Federico II a
´mile Bertaux, L’art dans
Capua, Caserta, 1877; E
l’Italie méridionale, Paris, 1903, 717; Ernst Kantor
owicz, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite, 2 vols, Berlin,
1927–1931, 538, 601; George Hersey, The Aragonese
Arch at Naples, 1443–1475, New Haven and London,
1973, 17, 23; and Andreas Beyer, Parthenope, 54–8.
It should be pointed out that the Neapolitan
historiographical tradition remains too attached
to the image of Frederick II as propagandist
of the antique and a precursor of the renaissance
despot as drawn by Ernst Kantorowicz, whereas
David Abulafia (Frederick II. A Medieval Emperor,
London, 1988) argues that the emperor was
in every respect a man rooted in his own time.
See Julian Gardner, ‘Review of Arte di corte nella
Napoli Angioina’, Burlington Magazine, 1037, 1989,
562.
56 In 1472 Ferrante had confirmed the Constitution
of the Reign of the Two Sicilies, of which the
Liber Augustalis constituted the nucleus, thus
opening the way to the compilation of com
mentaries and other publications relating to the
jus regni. For Diomede’s edition, see Domenico
Maffei, Un’epitome in volgare del ‘Liber Augustalis’,
Bari, 1995; Ortensio Zecchino, Le edizioni delle
‘Constitutiones’ di Federico II, Rome, 1995, 9–18; de
Divitiis, Architettura, 16–17.
57 Giuliano da Maiano must have known well
Diomede’s palace, for which he executed a
‘lettuccio’. See Borsook, ‘Documenti relativi’, 14,
n. 2. After Giovanni Bono Boni’s palace and that
of Ambrogio Spannocchi in via Banchi di Sopra
in Siena, Giuliano’s interest in new forms of
rustication culminated in the Palazzo Strozzi.
See Gargiani, Principi e costruzione, 340–5.
58 Clarke, Roman House, 42–3.
6
FROM SOCIAL VIRTUE TO REVETTED INTERIOR:
GIOVANNI ANTONIO DOSIO AND MARBLE
INLAY IN ROME, FLORENCE, AND NAPLES
JOHN NICHOLAS NAPOLI
INTRODUCTION: MAGNIFICENCE, CENTRES AND PERIPHERIES
The piers that form the triumphal archway over the high altar of the Carthusian
monastery of Naples, the Certosa di San Martino, exhibit the spectacular and
jewel-like marble revetment of the sculptor architect Cosimo Fanzago (1591–
1678). Each pier is composed of a series of pilasters. In plate 1 the left pilaster
incorporates the corner of the pier and the right pilaster projects outward
towards the high altar. Closer examination of the piers reveals that the projecting
pilaster (the right pilaster as shown in plate 1) is sheathed in revetted marble
panels with simple rounded and squared edges, differing noticeably from the
more complex, floral silhouettes of Fanzago’s panels on the recessed corner
pilaster (the left pilaster as shown in plate 1). Documents reveal that the marble
work on the projecting pilasters (one on each side of the high altar) was installed
in the eighteenth century, well after Fanzago’s departure from the monastery in
1656. The discrepancy in patterning and the late installation of the revetment led
Renato Ruotolo, a scholar of Neapolitan art and architecture, to conclude that the
Carthusian monks, eager to complete the marble revetment begun by Fanzago,
used pre-existing components that were manufactured by a generation of archi
tects and sculptors present in Naples prior to Fanzago in the late sixteenth
century.1 The present writer finds this hypothesis convincing: the projecting
high-altar pilasters, while installed in the eighteenth century, were assembled
with materials left over from the decorative campaigns of the late sixteenth
century. These pilasters in the Certosa di San Martino, therefore, reveal the
sixteenth-century precursors of Fanzago’s revetment.
Research on the Certosa of San Martino has shown that Florentine architects
such as Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533–1609) and other Tuscan sculptors and
stoneworkers came to Naples in the late sixteenth century and brought the
sculptural and architectural forms of the late Renaissance (derived from Miche
langelo and even earlier Renaissance precedents) and the tradition of marble
inlay to their Neapolitan projects.2 In examining the work of these architects and
sculptors, scholars have answered questions related to the precedents of form:
Dosio’s work in Naples – especially at the Oratorian church of the Gerolamini and
101
FROM SOCIAL VIRTUE TO REVETTED INTERIOR
the Carthusian monastery the Certosa di San Martino – provided architects like
Fanzago with architectural models on which to build and elaborate.
Building upon this research, this chapter focuses on the meanings embodied
in Giovanni Antonio Dosio’s use of polychrome marble revetment, and argues
that the practice of working in multicoloured marbles embodied a rich array of
moral, intellectual, political, economic, technological and aesthetic associations
in Florence, Rome and Naples in the late sixteenth century. The associative
meanings inherent in the use of polychrome marble revetment were part of a
broader theory of artistic and architectural magnificence that had enjoyed a
pedigree of European scope since antiquity.3 This theory – discernible in the
treatises and panegyrics of humanist advisers and architects from Galvano
Fiamma (active as Azzone Visconti’s adviser in the 1320s and 1330s)4 and Leon
Battista Alberti (author of I libri della famiglia, 1432–34, and De re aedificatoria, 1452)
to Giovanni Pontano (author of De liberalitate De beneficentia De magnificentia De
splendore De conviventia, 1498) – maintained that the construction of imposing
buildings with sumptuous decoration could be viewed as an expression of social
and religious virtue.5 Citing a broad range of classical texts, biblical passages and
medieval theology, including Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Pliny’s Natural History,
The Book of Psalms and St Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, these writers
provided a philosophical and moral justification for the ambitious building
campaigns of the Medici in Florence (prominent in Florence from 1402), the
Visconti in Milan (1287–1447), and the Aragonese monarchs in Naples (1443–1501).
Interpreting the grand projects of their patrons as manifestations of the social
virtue of magnificence derived from Aristotle’s notion of megaloprepeia as it
appeared in the Nicomachean Ethics,6 these writers were able to create an asso
ciation between grand architecture – including fortresses, churches and palace
interiors – and social virtue.
Two aspects of the virtue of magnificence, as it was conceived in the early
modern period, deserve special attention. First, acts of magnificence made powerful
claims about the moral character and social rank of the patron – as Aristotle
postulated, ‘a state of character is determined by its activities and by its objects.’7
Both Aristotle and Aquinas characterized magnificence as a specialized version of
liberality: magnificence is an act of spending or giving of extraordinarily large
scale.8 Where a spirit of sincere generosity motivated the actions of the liberal
person, the magnificent act was generated out of religious piety and a public-spirited
ambition.9
By the sixteenth century the Italian elite recognized the close relationship
between magnificent expenditure and material means, and saw the act of
magnificence as confirmation of nobility of soul and aristocratic status.10 The
elite laity was not the only sector of the population to be interested in magnifi
cence. In De Cardinalatu (1510) Paolo Cortesio argued that the extravagant and
wasteful expenditures of the cardinals were justified as magnificent as they
should be considered princes of the church.11 In addition, both lay and eccle
siastic princes began to perform magnificent acts that emulated antique exam
ples. In his book on magnificence, Giovanni Pontano promoted such emulation, as
he lauded the lavish funeral ceremonies that Ferdinand of Aragon (King of Naples,
1458–94) organized for his wife Isabella and his daughters alongside Hadrian’s
spectacular celebrations in honour of his father Trajan.12 Imitation of ancient
102
1 Revetment, left pilaster of triumphal arch,
Certosa di San Martino, Naples. Late
sixteenth-century manufacture. Courtesy of
the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo
Museale di Napoli. Photo: Author.
acts of magnificence, furthermore, would help to guarantee the appropriateness
of the contemporary magnificent act.
The second aspect of magnificence that merits attention were the physical
and aesthetic qualities of the act itself. Galvano Fiamma and Giovanni Pontano
identified the qualities of scale, craftsmanship and material preciousness as
central criteria with which to evaluate the magnificent work. When describing
Azzone Visconti’s fourteenth-century palace in Milan, Galvano Fiamma paid
special attention to both the exquisite craftsmanship of the palace’s decoration
and furnishings and to the sumptuous materials with which they were made.
Physical characteristics were vital to an object’s capacity to instil admiration and
wonder in the beholder; they were the means by which to achieve the final effect
of admiration.13 With attention to the physical characteristics of the magnificent
act and to its desired effect of inspiring awe and admiration, the theorists of
magnificence began to explain the aesthetic means through which the associa
tion of architecture and virtue operated.
As an act of patronage that reflected an impressively large but appropriate
expenditure and which inspired awe and admiration in its beholders, the
103
magnificent act could encompass almost any large-scale artistic or architectural
commission. In his book on magnificence, Giovanni Pontano argued that projects
from illustrious palaces and temples of fine manufacture to streets and seaports
could be considered magnificent. Even the sewage systems of ancient Rome – in
their imposing size, spaciousness and the solidity of the vaulting of their
underground channels – inspired the wonder and admiration of a grand act.14
The present examination of Giovanni Antonio Dosio’s work in Rome, Florence
and Naples, therefore, focuses on a highly specific act of magnificence – the
construction of interior spaces with polychrome marble revetment. The use of
polychrome revetment could make an astonishing range of claims about its
patron in both secular and ecclesiastical contexts: it conferred political and
dynastic pretensions; it embodied the ideals of piety and spiritual renewal in a
particularly powerful fashion; and it emulated ancient practices of magnificence
in both form and process.
Paying attention to the theory of magnificence and its implementation in late
sixteenth-century Florence, Rome and Naples also casts in a new light the artistic
geography of the Italian peninsula in the late Renaissance. Vasari’s The Lives of the
Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, in its emphasis on the greatness of
Florentine and Tuscan artists, relegated almost every other urban centre in Italy
(with the possible exceptions of Rome and Venice) to the cultural periphery.15
Naples is certainly peripheral in The Lives. While the careers of artists and archi
tects like Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533–1609), Michelangelo Caccini (1566–c.
1612–14) and Pietro Bernini (1562–1629) began too late to receive attention in The
Lives, their journeys south would appear to confirm Vasari’s thesis that Florentine
and Tuscan artists, in their artistic greatness, could effect momentous change
and innovation when they moved to peripheral centres like Naples. A considera
tion of Dosio’s work with polychrome revetment, however, reveals that this
movement of artists from Florence to Naples was part of a much larger artistic
and cultural phenomenon.
From Azzone Visconti in Milan in the 1320s and 1330s to Alfonso I in Naples in
the 1440s, the commissioning of grand art and architecture as a gesture of
magnificence was diffuse throughout the Italian peninsula and beyond. In other
words, the cultural practice of magnificence had no centres or peripheries on the
Italian peninsula. The geography of princely magnificence would be more accu
rately modelled on an electrodynamic metaphor, hypothesized by George Kubler,
replete ‘with impulses, generating centers, and relay points; with increments and
losses in transit; with resistances and transformers in the circuit’.16 Dosio’s work
in Naples, consequently, is no longer seen as the innovative intervention of an
artist trained in the northern centres of Rome and Florence, but rather as a
continuous adaptation to the needs and aspirations of his patrons in all three
centres – from the antiquarian Niccolò Gaddi in Florence to the Oratorian priest
Antonio Talpa in Naples. Dosio, however, was not merely a technician at the
service of the learned and socially ambitious elites of the Italian peninsula. A
review of his career demonstrates that he was an architect who was familiar with
the material culture of antiquity and who collaborated closely with his sponsors
to produce interiors that imitated the decorative schemes of the ancient world.
With his patrons Dosio was a fully fledged collaborator in emulating the ancients
in their gestures of magnificence.
104
CONSIDERING THE CULTURES OF INLAID MARBLE IN
FLORENCE AND ROME
For Cosimo de’ Medici (1519–74, Grand Duke of Tuscany 1537–74), the raw mate
rials needed for a revetted interior were just as important as the completed
product. Both the raw materials and the polychrome revetted chapel – as exem
plified in the Medici mausoleum, the Cappella de’ Principi in the church of San
Lorenzo, Florence – communicated magnificence through sensory impact,
through the practical appeals of technological innovation and political capital,
and through the intellectual appeal of antiquarian enquiry.17
Cosimo de’ Medici’s interest in the raw materials of marble inlay was shared
by one of his chief panegyrists: Giorgio Vasari. In both the first and second
editions of Vasari’s Lives (1550, 1568), the ‘Introduction to the three arts of
disegno’ introduces the reader to what could be called a culture of stone.18 In a
comprehensive survey of stones and quarries in the Mediterranean, from Egypt
and Greece to sites throughout the Italian peninsula, Vasari paid attention both
to aesthetic qualities, such as colour and lustre, and the uses of stone in building,
from statuary and architectural details to structural support. Comparing ancient
and modern uses of stone, he believed that the ability to sculpt hard stone like
granite and porphyry into columns was a testament to the technical expertise of
the ancient Romans and Egyptians.19
Cosimo de’ Medici’s discovery of a temper for chisels, enabling sculptors to
carve porphyry, was viewed as a technological breakthrough with several important
implications.20 The ability to cut and sculpt porphyry, as evidenced by the work of
Francesco Ferrucci del Tadda, was a significant advance in the artistic emulation of
the ancients.21 Believed to be named after its purplish hue (the ninth-century Latin
porphyrus), porphyry is also found in hues of green and black, but the ancient
Romans prized the deep purple-red variety of the stone which came from Egyptian
quarries. In his Natural History, Pliny (23–79 CE) recorded that the importation of
porphyry statues from Egypt by Emperor Claudius (r. 41–54 CE) was considered an
innovation.22 By the time of Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305 CE) the colour of
Egyptian porphyry carried associations with the imperial family and this connec
tion was bolstered when its use became the exclusive privilege of the emperor.23
From the fifth century onwards, the mortal remains of Roman emperors were to be
placed in porphyry sarcophagi.24 By the sixteenth century the imperial associa
tions of the stone and its resistance to the chisel were legendary. The production of
tools strong enough to cut porphyry in Grand Ducal Tuscany became an issue of
governmental interest: Duke Cosimo de’ Medici’s officials required official regis
tration for all iron products, making blacksmithing a government monopoly.25
Unlike Claudius, who imported porphyry directly from its quarries in Egypt,
the patrons and artists of medieval and renaissance Italy used porphyry frag
ments as and when they could find them in ancient monuments (frequently
employing them as spolia – building materials, including bricks, marble columns
and paving stones, plundered from ancient buildings) or abandoned as pre-hewn
fragments in the various construction sites and quarries of ancient Rome.26 Using
spolia and incorporating their building materials in modern projects provided yet
another way to emulate the ancients. When spolia became more difficult to find in
the mid-sixteenth century, patrons, architects and sculptors turned to quarries
throughout the Italian peninsula for their raw materials.27 The act of quarrying
105
stone or importing newly quarried stone could also be seen as an emulation of the
ancients. Duke Cosimo’s discovery of coloured marble quarries at S. Giusto a
Monterantoli and near the town of Seravezza gave him an exclusive supply that
invited comparisons with the ancient Roman monopoly of the Egyptian porphyry
quarries.28 The use of these quarries facilitated the decoration of the Cappella de’
Principi in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence.29 Vasari began to plan the
decoration of this chapel in the early 1560s, and commented on his designs for it
in his autobiography in the 1568 edition of The Lives; he anticipated the realization
of ‘a new, truly regal mausoleum of the utmost magnificence’.30 Vasari’s choice of
the phrase ‘veramente reale’ to describe the planned chapel reveals the royal
aspirations of the Medici in the late sixteenth century.
In late sixteenth-century Rome, the practice of decorating with polychrome
marble revetment was a gesture of magnificence that sought to communicate a
political and spiritual message through the use of a rigorously applied metaphor.
Revetted chapels became a fitting expression of the spiritual splendour and
dynamic renewal of the post-Tridentine church. This expression is visible in
Domenico Fontana’s Sistine Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore, commissioned by
Pope Sixtus V (r. 1585–90). The use of polychrome revetment revived the metaphor
of the Heavenly Jerusalem – a trope used by medieval poets to describe the
physical church as an image of celestial paradise, made manifest as an archi
tecture of gold and jewels – and represented a justified expenditure commensu
rate with the spiritual wealth of the church and the piety of the commissioner of
the chapel, Sixtus V.31 In addition, spaces like the Sistine Chapel sought to revive
an early Christian form of decoration, symbolizing the spiritual and physical
renewal of the church after the Council of Trent (1545–63).32
The use of multicoloured stone in Florence and Rome offers crucial insights
into how polychrome marble interiors embodied the early renaissance theory of
magnificence in the late sixteenth century. It illustrates what the magnificent
gesture sought to communicate, the intended effect of the act, and how the
gesture was morally justified. First, as exemplified by the case of Duke Cosimo de’
Medici’s Cappella de’ Principi, the use of multicoloured stone was a self-conscious
reference to antiquity; it emulated the ancient Roman practice of quarrying rare
stone from an exclusive site and using this material in the decoration of impor
tant spaces. The second observation is, in part, a consequence of the first: the
patrons who commanded the resources to quarry rare materials and to use them
in architectural and decorative campaigns enjoyed an enhanced political prestige.
Third, an interior decorated with intarsiated marbles, like the Sistine Chapel in
Santa Maria Maggiore, represented the spiritual wealth uniquely suited to a
tested and triumphant Catholic church.
G I O VA N N I A N T O N I O D O S I O A N D M A R B L E I N L AY: ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCH AND CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE
With his activities as an antiquarian, architect, decorator and marble dealer,
Giovanni Antonio Dosio’s career represented a lifelong collaboration with
patrons and artists in identifying the use of polychromed revetment as an ancient
Roman decorative practice, assessing its place in the architectural legacy
of antiquity, and recreating similar schemes in his building commissions.
106
Examining his graphic work (including his drawings of the interior of the
Pantheon and Raphael’s Chigi Chapel) and his built commissions (the Gaddi and
Niccolini chapels in Florence) reveals a process in which Dosio observed monu
ments, identified key features of their decorative ensembles, adapted these
features to new projects, and assisted in procuring marbles for the projects.
Dosio’s Florentine chapels for Niccolò Gaddi and Giovanni Niccolini followed the
precedent of Raphael’s Chigi Chapel in that they made extensive use of spolia. One
of the first references to Dosio’s use of spolia is in Istoria delle Pietre (1597) by the
Dominican monk Agostinio del Riccio.33 The Gaddi and Niccolini chapels contain
examples of many types of stone addressed by del Riccio, including porphyry,
marmo giallo, Porta Santa marble from Libya, Nero Orientale, Marmo Verde d’Egitto,
Bianco e Nero Orientale, Broccatello Orientale and Breccia Pellegrina. While Agostino del
Riccio was aware of the far-reaching origins of these stones (he probably relied
upon Pliny for the geographical origins of the different stones) all these pieces
were found on the Italian peninsula as spolia from ancient sites. Nonetheless, the
exotic origins of the stone spoke to the patrons’ aspirations of the economic
means to import stones as the Romans had once done. While it is not possible to
speak of a geography of mercantilism, it is possible to speak of a geography of
aspiration.34 Dosio’s process was central to transforming the social theory of
grand, yet appropriate, expenditure into visually arresting spaces that imitated
ancient precedents with archaeological accuracy and intellectual authenticity.
Born in 1533 in San Gimignano, Dosio arrived in Rome in 1548, when he
entered the workshop of the sculptor and architect Raffaello da Montelupo, an
assistant of Michelangelo.35 He resided primarily in Rome until 1576, working
both under Raffaello da Montelupo and Pirro Ligorio, Neapolitian architect and
antiquarian, at the Belvedere gardens and Casino of Pope Pius IV.36 Under these
mentors Dosio established himself as an avid student of both ancient and modern
Rome and developed an extensive network of relations with the leading anti
quarians and collectors in Rome and beyond. His contacts included the Florentine
antiquities collectors Niccolò Gaddi and Giovanni Niccolini.
Dosio’s association with Gaddi began in 1566 when he assisted in sculpting
the funerary monument of the antiquarian Annibale Caro.37 The two men’s
common interest in the architecture and material culture of Roman antiquity led
them both to assess the place of polychrome revetment in the decorative strate
gies of the ancients, and to realize Roman-inspired schemes of revetment in the
burial chapels of late sixteenth-century Florence. An exchange of letters marks
the association of Gaddi and Dosio in the 1570s, and in these letters the architect
expressed an interest in publishing an architectural treatise that would build
upon his drawings of ancient and modern monuments.38 He sent Gaddi drawings
of ancient monuments, including the Pantheon (plates 2, 3 and 4),39 with
commentary noting that with his drawings, ‘one can make a book as your
Excellency desires. One can see what the difference is between the things that
Serlio describes from the drawings that I send you.’40
In his letters Dosio described the drawings as ‘the Rotunda measured in an
orderly fashion and with diligence . . . [the building] being highly regulated
according to the rules of Vitruvius’.41 In these drawings we can clearly see Dosio’s
interest in deriving the precise proportions of the cornices and orders that
comprise the Pantheon and in emulating the presentation of the monument as it
107
2 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Studies of the Interior
of the Pantheon. Pen, traces of chalk on paper,
43.0 � 56.0 cm. Florence: Uffizi Gallery,
Gabinetto disegni e stampe, 2022/A. Photo:
Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Speciale per il
Polo Museale Fiorentino.
appeared in the treatise I sette libri
dell’architettura of the architect and
theorist Sebastiano Serlio (1475–
1554).42 There is more than an
interest in the proportions of
columns, capitals, cornices and pila
sters in the Pantheon: several of these
drawings illustrate how the units form
a comprehensive surface interior for
the monument. In two of the drawings
Dosio isolated the attic register of the
interior (plate 2) and a ground-level
tabernacle (plate 3). Over the taber
nacle he wrote the following:
Here below one of the tabernacles of the
interior of the Pantheon is represented
with its incrustations of marble and
mixed stones of various sorts as one still
can see [. . .]
43
In Dosio’s drawings the areas of poly
chrome revetment were part of the
integrated ancient Roman decorative
system as a whole (plate 4). The
articulation of polychromed inlay
panels within a pedimented taber
nacle framed by pilasters reappears –
and is elaborated upon – in later
preparatory studies for tombs.
In a later drawing (plate 6) – a
3 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Plan of the Pantheon,
preparatory study for the Niccolini
Detail of Tabernacle. Black and blue ink and chalk
Chapel (plates 7 and 8), which was
on paper, 42.5 � 56.5 cm. Florence: Uffizi
ultimately designed and executed
Gallery, Gabinetto disegni e stampe, 2021/A.
during Dosio’s years in Florence – the
Photo: Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Speciale
articulation of the chapel wall with
per il Polo Museale Fiorentino.
an ensemble of pilasters and poly
chrome panelling responds to the
decorative ensemble of the Pantheon (plate 5). The marble panelling that
surrounds the pedimented aedicule displays a remarkable resemblance to the
tabernacle ensemble of the Pantheon.
Modern monuments in Rome, such as the Chigi Chapel in the church of S.
Maria del Popolo (designed 1510–20), were also of interest to Dosio (plates 9, 10
and 11).44 While his drawings of the Chigi Chapel are not as comprehensive as his
survey of the Pantheon, Dosio presented the chapel in a similar fashion: a section
reveals the comprehensive articulation of the decorative ensemble, and the
details of the chapel walls below the cornice record the precise numerical
proportions of the niches, pilasters and pyramidal tombs. While the presence of
108
marble inlay is only perfunctorily
suggested in the larger section of the
chapel (plate 9), Dosio makes a note
about the inlay next to his plan (plate
10): ‘plan of the chapel of Agostino
Chigi in the church of the Popolo in
Rome – all of marbles and polychrome
inlay’.45
Dosio found the use of marble
inlay in this chapel to be significant,
and it was especially important for
the chapel’s designer Raphael. Even
with Bernini’s alterations to the 4 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Section of the Pantheon,
chapel taken into account,46 several Studies of the Cornice and Column. Pen and traces of
features of Raphael’s design that chalk on paper, 42.05 � 56.0 cm. Florence: Uffizi
evoke the architecture of antiquity Gallery, Gabinetto disegni e stampe, 2023/A.
are still discernible. The pyramidal Photo: Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Speciale
tombs on the lateral faces of the per il Polo Museale Fiorentino.
chapel recall the tomb of Cestius
and the presumed tomb of Romulus
that stood in the Borgo until 1499.47
Today it is still possible to appreciate
how the architectonic elements of
the wall surface were articulated
with white marble and how coloured
marbles filled the intervening
spaces (plates 12 and 13). The inlaid
marbles were an integral element
in producing the effect of richness in
the chapel. This effect was made
explicit in written correspondence
between Raphael and Pope Leo X. 5 Hadrian, Pantheon (interior). 118–125 CE.
Raphael noted that in order to Photo: Courtesy of the Fototeca Nazionale, Rome.
emulate the manner of the ancients,
architects needed to approximate both their forms and their use of precious
materials.48 He saw the use of coloured marbles in the Chigi chapels as both a
register of the patron’s wealth and a decorous imitation of the architecture of
antiquity.49 Dosio’s attention to the marble inlay of the Chigi Chapel and the
Pantheon in his drawings attests to his sensitivity to associations made earlier by
Raphael: the use of polychrome revetment imitated the decorative strategies of
ancient Rome and was seen as the decorous expression of the patron’s social
distinction.
From 1576 to 1590 Dosio worked in Florence where he nurtured his ties to
Niccolò Gaddi. While working with Dosio in Rome, Gaddi had expressed an
interest in publishing an illustrated architectural treatise that would incorporate
Dosio’s drawings of the Pantheon (like those illustrated in plates 2, 3 and 4);50 and
like his architect, the Florentine antiquarian recognized how polychrome marble
inlay was a critical element in the decorative system of the ancients. He helped
109
Dosio to realize his interest in marble
revetment in Gaddi’s own family
chapel in the church of Santa Maria
Novella.51 It is likely that the anti
quarian helped to procure a second
project: the family chapel of Giovanni
Niccolini in the church of Santa
Croce (plates 7 and 8).52 Like Gaddi,
Giovanni Niccolini was an avid art
and antiquities collector. While Dosio
was able to realize his drawings of
the Pantheon tabernacles in contem
6 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Elevation of two
porary funerary chapels, his patron’s
contiguous walls of the Niccolini Chapel, Florence. Black interest in marble inlay is equally
ink, blue ink, watercolor, and chalk on paper.
instructive. It appears that Gaddi
Florence: Uffizi Gallery, Gabinetto Disegni e
himself took a particularly active
Stampe, 3216/A. Photo: Courtesy of the Soprin
interest in the Niccolini Chapel. A
tendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino. contemporary chronicler noted that
Gaddi drafted a preliminary eleva
tion and plan of the chapel in
consultation with Dosio.53 Marble
inlay was of interest to Gaddi in both
ecclesiastic and domestic contexts. A
posthumous inventory of his palace
includes four tables of stone inlay
(pietre commesso) and one mostro of
multicoloured inlaid marble (marmo
mischio).54 Niccolò Gaddi saw poly
chrome marble inlay as an integral
item in an antiquities collection and
7 View of altar and tomb of Giovanni Niccolini in
as a suitable decorative strategy for a
Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Niccolini Chapel,
funerary chapel.
Church of Santa Croce, Florence. 1579–85.
Beyond providing his drawings,
Photo: r Alinari Archives, Florence.
with their isolation of critical
decorative features and their resem
blance to the Florentine chapels, Dosio may have assisted Gaddi and Niccolini
with the procurement of raw materials – both as spolia and as cut stone from
quarries in Carrara. Dosio worked as Gaddi’s purchasing agent for antiquities and
modern drawings while he was in Rome,55 and in 1585 he was documented as a
representative of a marble agent in Carrara.56 Dosio’s mercantile activities for his
Florentine patrons can also be seen as an act of emulation; they imitated the
ancient practice of procuring rare materials for the realization of magnificent
architecture.
Dosio’s chapels for Gaddi and Niccolini did not go unnoticed by his Florentine
contemporaries. In Il Riposo, Raffaele Borghini singled out for praise of its splen
dour and opulent appearance the inlaid marble work of the Niccolini Chapel in
Santa Croce. The sixteenth-century poet Antonfrancesco Grazzini, known as ‘Il
Lasca’, wrote the following poem about the Gaddi Chapel:
110
With great expense, but in more ways with his genius,
Gaddi had commissioned a chapel
That in all the world one cannot find
A work such as this that shall compare to it:
It makes everyone who sees it marvel,
How it is so graceful, bright, rich, and beautiful.
Rome and Venice, have patience,
For in this part you should cede to Florence.57
Il Lasca’s poem confirms the desired effect of the family chapel of Niccolò Gaddi
and epitomizes the ultimate purpose of the magnificent act. The chapel was
realized thanks to both the material means and the intellectual virtue of its
patron; its beauty instils awe in the beholder; and consequently its fame reso
nates to an importance beyond the Gaddi family to all of Florence.
FA S H I O N I N G A N A R C H I T E C T U R E O F P R E C I O U S M AT E R I A L S I N N A P L E S
Scholars generally approach Naples as an artistic centre either by stressing its
connection to artistic trends at work elsewhere on the Italian peninsula or by
emphasizing the city’s uniqueness and its autonomy from other Italian centres.58
Comparable identifications of similarity and difference between Dosio’s work in
Naples and his projects in Rome and Florence can be made, but the present
discussion aims to view these points
of comparison and contrast as two
aspects of a common social practice.
In this practice, Dosio and his Neapo
litan patrons adapted the rich claims
of the magnificent act to the specific
political, religious and demographic
conditions of late sixteenth-century
Naples. His work for two religious
orders in Naples, the Oratorians (the
congregation of secular priests led by
St Philip Neri in Rome, which received
papal institution in 1575) and the
Carthusians (the monastic order
founded by St Bruno of Cologne at the
monastery of La Grande Chartreuse
outside Grenoble in 1084), carried the
full richness of associative meanings
that have been demonstrated for
Rome and Florence. These projects
epitomize the emulation of antiquity,
the statements of political alliance,
and the resolution of moral conflict
by appeals to justified expenditures
that had also characterized the 8 Detail of tabernacle and tomb of Giovanni
expressions of magnificence in Flor Niccolini from Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Niccolini
ence and Rome. Both the Oratorians Chapel. Photo: r Alinari Archives, Florence.
111
9 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Section of the
Chigi Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria
del Popolo, Rome. Black and blue ink on
paper, 42.7 � 25.9 cm. Florence: Uffizi
Gallery, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe,
166/A. Photo: Courtesy of the Soprin
tendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale
Fiorentino.
and the Carthusians had ambitious architectural plans for their complexes, and
key personalities in each corporation appreciated the associations between
precious building materials and ancient architectural practice.
While Dosio’s patrons in Naples certainly used these interventions to express
the social virtue of magnificence, their positions within the social, political and
religious life of Naples distinguish their pretensions and claims from other Italian
centres. As one of the largest cities in Western Europe and the capital of a
kingdom that was perilously close to the infidel incursions of the Ottoman
Empire, Naples was a prime theatre for the implementation of the reforms of the
Council of Trent. Gérard Labrot mentions that, after the treaty of CateauCambrésis (1559), Spain used Naples and her kingdom as a bulwark against the
Ottoman incursion in the Mediterranean.59 Given these demographic, political
and geographical factors, Naples was a city that was eagerly colonized by the
religious orders of recent (sixteenth-century) foundation, including the Discalced
Carmelites, Jesuits, Theatines and Oratorians. It was also a city that accom
modated the renewal efforts of orders of much earlier foundation, including the
Benedictines, the Franciscans and the Carthusians.60
The construction of dignified churches and complexes were prime interests
of all these orders. The expenditure of large sums on a sacred building had been
an appropriate means to display magnificence since Aristotle,61 and Charles
Borromeo’s recommendations for church construction and remodelling in
the Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae (1577) outlined a modest
programme of magnificence (if magnificence can ever be considered modest) for
churches after the Council of Trent. Borromeo (1538–84), Cardinal of Romagna
112
10 (Left) Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Chigi Chapel, Studies of the Plan, Elevation, and Cornice. Red and
white chalk on paper, 45.6 � 34.0 cm. Florence: Uffizi Gallery, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, 3204/
A. Photo: Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino.
11 (Right) Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Chigi Chapel, Elevation of Tomb, Detail of Cupola. Red and white
chalk on paper, 45.6 � 34.0 cm. Florence: Uffizi Gallery, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, 3204/Av.
Photo: Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino.
and the March of Ancona, Archbishop of Milan and Counter-Reformation leader,
advocated that churches should be constructed with a dignity commensurate with
the Eucharist and holy relics contained within.62 His notion of appropriate dignity
meant privileging key locations within the church, such as the main chapel, the
high-altar tabernacle, and the tombs and reliquaries of saints. For these locations
(and especially the tabernacle) he specified the use of precious materials such as
gold, silver and valuable marbles.63 While the ambitions of the monastic patrons of
Naples would push Borromeo’s ideal of a dignified church interior to the limits of
reasonable interpretation, the Cardinal’s logic of demarcating the holy and the
sacred infused ecclesiastical decoration in the city.64
Dosio’s contact with the Oratorians began in 1580 when he served as an
advising architect during the construction of side chapels in Santa Maria in Valli
cella, the congregation’s seat in Rome, and it is likely that the prefect of the
building workshop at the Roman church, Father Antonio Talpa, who was trans
ferred to Naples in 1586, encouraged his participation at the Gerolamini, the
Neapolitan complex of the Oratorians.65 Father Talpa joined Philip Neri’s congre
gation in 1570, and was one of the eight senior clerics of the congregation (along
with Francesco Maria Tarugi and the historian Cesare Baronius) by 1583.66 In 1586
Talpa was one of the two priests sent down to Naples to establish a new branch of
the congregation; and even though Tarugi was the rector of the Neapolitan chapter,
he ceded the internal government of the community to Talpa.67 While in Rome,
Talpa had served as prefect of the library and the building workshop at Santa Maria
in Vallicella; and he was eager to build an Oratorian complex of commensurate
splendour in Naples.68
Talpa’s initiatives in constructing the church of the Gerolamini coincided with
a series of institutional changes in the Neapolitan branch of the Oratorians. The
two priests transformed what was a secular corporation in Rome into a more highly
regimented monastic institution in Naples. They instituted the communal housing
of members with rooms open to the visit of superiors, established that no member
113
12 View towards altar of Raphael, Chigi Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. 1516.
Photo: Courtesy of the Fototeca Nazionale, Rome.
114
13 View of west wall and tomb of Sigismondo Chigi from Raphael, Chigi Chapel. Photo: Courtesy
of the Fototeca Nazionale, Rome.
would exit the complex in Naples without a companion, and declared all personal
possessions, from furniture to books and clothing, to be common property.69
While Philip Neri disliked the aggressively communal and monastic tenden
cies of his congregation in Naples, the two branches of the order had to deal with
the same challenges facing a newly founded institution. Historians of the Oratory
have observed that while the group sought to maintain the humble character of
its founder, the institution was bolstered by papal recognition in 1583 and
received numerous requests for chapters throughout Italy, including the repeated
entreaties of Charles Borromeo for a chapter in Milan. The peninsula-wide
popularity of the order encouraged the founding members of the group to
envision an ambitious expansion; but ultimately this would require substantial
funding and external support to train large numbers of rectors and clerics and to
establish numerous chapters. The nascent Oratorians faced a moral dilemma:
poverty and humility were ideals to be emulated, but they were also impediments
to the survival and flourishing of the order.70
Talpa’s initiatives at the Gerolamini appear to have favoured the interests of
institutional survival over the ideal of humility to be practised by the individual
members of the congregation. Talpa’s aspirations for the Neapolitan chapter of St
Philip’s congregation were made explicit after he died in the second decade of the
seventeenth century.71 In a funeral eulogy for him, Father Maccione recalled:
He [Talpa] considered that the church – being the most dignified part of the universe, where
every day sacrifices are made to God, not the meat of rams or lambs as before, but the very Son
of God – deserves all those sorts of embellishments that can ever be summoned from the force
of human ingenuity with the assistance of all heaven [. . .]72
115
14 View of nave of Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Church of the Gerolamini,
Naples. 1593. Photo: r Alinari Archives, Florence.
As related by Maccione, Talpa’s justification for constructing the Neapolitan
church with all possible splendour recalls the associations that motivated the
construction of the Sistine Chapel in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. As the
place where the Son of God is sacrificed, the church was uniquely deserving of
every possible splendour.
In its spatial arrangement, its learned use of classical orders and its materials,
Dosio’s solution at the Gerolamini (plate 14) satisfied Talpa’s expectations for the
church. Using single rows of Corinthian columns to support an arcade and to
divide a broad, flat-roofed nave from lower aisles vaulted with a series of small
saucer domes (called cupolette or volte a vela) that covered each individual bay, the
architect imitated Filippo Brunelleschi’s spatial organization of the church of San
Lorenzo in Florence (1421–40).73 As a church that has been hailed by commen
tators since the fifteenth century as one of the first buildings constructed
116
according to the rules of perspective and harmonic proportion, San Lorenzo was a
ground-breaking structure in the history of renaissance architecture.74 Observers
of the Gerolamini have seen Dosio’s design as both an echo of the early Renais
sance master and, even more important for Talpa and the Oratorians, a return to
the early Christian basilica form.75
In his history of the Oratorians in Naples, Talpa praised the newly constructed
church of the Gerolamini and paid special attention to the Corinthian columns in
the nave – made from single shafts of granite. He wrote that the granite mono
liths were ‘quarried with the favour of Ferdinand the Grand Duke of Tuscany on
the island of Giglio, brought to Naples with universal admiration for being an
enterprise modelled after the ancient Romans’.76
Dosio’s design of the Gerolamini presents the architectural embodiment of
the Oratorians’ aspirations for the congregation in several ways. As mentioned
above, his adoption of the basilical form, while imitating Brunelleschi at San
Lorenzo, represented a return to the early Christian basilica form. The changes in
rules that were instituted by Talpa and Tarugi could also be seen as an effort to
make the Oratorians resemble the older contemplative orders of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. A venerated architectural model suited a respected paradigm
for monastic life. By noting that the congregation was able to obtain granite
columns from the island of Giglio in emulation of the ancients, Talpa was co
opting ancient practice into the mission of the Neapolitan congregation at the
turn of the seventeenth century. The Oratorians were to be a congregation that
revered the medieval ideals of the monastic life, but would look to the ancient,
pre-Christian past for expressions of grandeur. Referring to antiquity and the
more recent – but still time-honoured – era of early Christianity and medieval
monasticism, the followers of Philip Neri in Naples laid claim to an architectural
timelessness, substantiating the mission of the congregation.
Talpa and the congregation also enjoyed the support of the Carthusians at
San Martino, who made an important donation to the order in the late 1580s,
only a few years before Dosio’s arrival in the city.77 Severo Turboli was the prior at
San Martino at the time of this donation, and it was under his leadership that the
Carthusians began their own ambitious redecorating campaigns. While less is
known about Turboli than Talpa, the details of Turboli’s career suggest that he
appreciated the rich associations of Dosio’s work in marble revetment, and
wanted a decorative ensemble of comparable effect at San Martino. Coming from
a prominent family in Massa Lubrense (near Sorrento), Severo Turboli rose quickly
through the Carthusian ranks, becoming prior of San Martino in 1582, co-visitor
(a position of administrative oversight of Carthusian monasteries) in 1586, and
principal visitor of Lombardy in 1586.78 He was transferred to Pavia in 1597,
where he continued to serve as prior, and returned to the same post in Naples in
1606.79 In addition, in 1607 Turboli donated his collection of Greek codices to
Charles Borromeo’s library, the Ambrosiana, for which he received special thanks
from Borromeo.80
Upon his employment at the Certosa in 1591, Dosio assumed the role of
supervising architect over a group of Carrarese marble workers, who were hired to
procure, cut and install marbles in the monastery. The first documentary refer
ence to Dosio at the Certosa is in a contract between marble workers at San
Martino and Father don Iustino de Urso, the Carthusian procurator of the
117
building workshop. In the agreement, the master marble workers Raymo
Bregantino, Felice de Felice and Fabritio de Guido agreed to work in solidum, or in
partnership, in delivering, cutting, and installing marbles for the church of the
monastery to the approval of the prior and the monastery architect, Giovanni
Antonio Dosio.81 Thanks to the eighteenth-century installation of un-used
panelling from the late sixteenth century, the revetted work of Dosio’s generation
at the Certosa is still discernible in the pilasters of the triumphal archway over
the high altar (plate 1).
The documentary sources related to Dosio and his assistants at San Martino
attest that the importation of marble for decoration was a significant feature of
the Carthusian decorative campaigns. Three marble workers from Carrara had
procured marbles for San Martino under Dosio, and in future decades the
Carthusians would continue to purchase marbles (both the classic white Carrara
marble and different varieties of mischio) from this city.82 No documentation
survives indicating that the Carthusians viewed their purchase of materials as an
emulation of antique practice. However, it is likely that the monks appreciated
these potential associations.
While subsequent decoration at the Certosa leaves the modern viewer with
only the smallest glimpse of the late sixteenth-century revetment, Fanzago’s work
produces the effect that Dosio’s inlay originally sought to realize. In the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Carthusian monks not resident at San
Martino visited the monastery during scheduled chapter visits. Several of the
records of such visits, the Cartae de visita, record the visitors’ awe as they witnessed
the decorative ensemble of the church of the Certosa. These accounts refer to the
interior of San Martino as ‘that New Jerusalem descended from heaven’, and as
‘an ornamented bride appears to her husband’. The report of 1700 also described
‘the Divine Temple, which was by estimation set apart from all other chapels,
bulging as it was with precious stones, decorated with extraordinary pictures,
flowers, candelabras, and other ornaments of silver’.83
THEORIZING ARCHITECTURAL MAGNIFICENCE IN EARLY MODERN
NAPLES
Dosio’s work at the Gerolamini and the Certosa di San Martino involved the
importation of raw materials from Carrara and the island of Giglio, and designs
for a basilica-plan church and for revetted interiors. At the Gerolamini, Antonio
Talpa understood the association between importing valuable building materials
and ancient building practice. At the Certosa, Severo Turboli’s donation of Greek
codices to Charles Borromeo suggests that he appreciated the meanings embo
died in references to the antique as well and probably also the associations
inherent in revetted interiors and in importing valuable marbles from Carrara.
Both projects were motivated by a desire to communicate the spiritual wealth of
the church and the preciousness of the Eucharist. Dosio’s work in Naples
embraced the full range of associative meanings inherent in using polychrome
marbles and valuable materials in the construction of churches and revetted
interiors.
In terms of artistic centres and peripheries, Dosio’s collaboration with
patrons and antiquarians in all three cities demands that not only the movement
118
of artists be considered, but also the social geography of expressing magnificence,
the religious geography of the church after Trent, and the commercial geography
of assembling materials for a revetted interior. These overlapping geographies
allow for a reconsideration of Neapolitan architecture in the late sixteenth
century. When the position of Naples as a bulwark of imperial Spain in the
Mediterranean is kept in mind, Dosio’s work at the Gerolamini and San Martino
can be seen to evoke the pretensions of a new religious, political and commercial
empire of breathtaking geographic scope. Responding forcefully to the infidel
threat of the Ottoman empire to the east and celebrating Christian converts in
lands beyond the Atlantic, this empire extended from Naples to Madrid and
ultimately to Manila in the Philippines, far surpassing the geographic expanse of
ancient Rome.
Dosio’s collaboration with workshop assistants and patrons in Rome, Florence
and Naples was part of a complex interchange of technical expertise, mercantile
ties, and modes of expressing social prestige and religious piety. While his work
for the Oratorians and the Carthusians evoked a political and religious network of
global reach, Dosio’s legacy in Naples is equally significant. Future innovations in
marble inlay in Naples were not merely the adaptation and perfection of an
imported decorative tradition; they were also the expression of magnificence that
re-enacted ancient building practices and imitated the surviving decoration
schemes of antiquity.
Notes
A version of this chapter was presented at Import/Export: Painting, Sculpture and
Architecture in the Kingdom of Naples 1266–1568, sessions at the Renaissance Society of
America Annual Conference in San Francisco in 2006. I would like to thank the
session chairs Janis Elliott and Cordelia Warr for coordinating this session at the
RSA and for their patience and conscientiousness as co-editors of this volume.
I would also like to thank the anonymous reader of this chapter for providing
suggestions that have greatly improved its quality. Finally, I would like to thank
Leslie Melvin, Curator of Visual Resources in the Division of Art at Bard College,
for her kind assistance in digitizing illustrations.
1 Renato Ruotolo, ‘La Decorazione in Tarsia e
Commesso a Napoli nel Periodo Tardo Manierista’, Antichità Viva, 13, 1974, 48–58, 50.
2 Ruotolo, ‘La Decorazione in Tarsia’, argued that
Dosio, along with the marble workers Mario and
Costantino Marasi (from Carrara), and Francesco
Balsimelli and Giovanni Caccini (from Florence),
executed marble-revetted projects in Naples in
the final decades of the sixteenth century and
the opening decades of the seventeenth century.
See also Raffaele Tufari, La Certosa di San Martino
in Napoli, Naples, 1854; Vincenzo Spinazzola, ‘La
Certosa di San Martino’, Napoli Nobilissima, 11,
1902, 97–103, 116–21, 133–9, 161–70; Roberto
Pane, Architettura dell’età barocca in Napoli, Naples,
1939; Mario De Cunzo, ‘I documenti sull’opera di
Fanzago nella Certosa di San Martino’, Napoli
Nobilissima, ser. 3, 6, 1967, 98–107; Maria Ida
Catalano, ‘Per Giovanni Antonio Dosio a Napoli:
il puteale del chiostro grande nella Certosa di
San Martino’, Storia dell’arte, 50, 1984, 35–41;
Daniela del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di Giovanni
Antonio Dosio: Gli anni napoletani (1590–1610)’,
Bollettino d’Arte, 71, 1992, 15–66. These scholars
have recognized the cloister of the Certosa di San
Martino and the church of the Gerolamini (del
Pesco only) as influential projects for Neapolitan
architects of the seventeenth century.
3 Recent studies that have explored this theory
include Guido Guerzoni, ‘Liberalitas, Magnifi
centia, Splendor: The classic origins of Italian
renaissance lifestyles’, in Neil De Marchi and
Craufurd D. W. Goodwin, eds, Economic Engagements with Art, Durham, NC, and London, 1999,
119
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
332–78; Alison Cole, Virtue and Magnificence: Art of
the Italian Renaissance Courts, New York, 1995;
Louis Green, ‘Galvano Fiamma, Azzone Visconti
and the Revival of the Classical Theory of
Magnificence’, Journal of the Warburg and Cour
tauld Institutes, 53, 1990, 98–113; and A.D. Fraser
Jenkins, ‘Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of
Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence’,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 33,
1970, 162–70.
Galvano Fiamma’s chronicle of the Visconti in
Milan covers the family from 1319 to 1342.
Green, ‘Galvano Fiamma, Azzone Visconti’, 98,
n. 4.
Leon Battista Alberti’s Della Famiglia (1430s)
discussed the rules that may apply to the
reconstruction of churches. Giovanni Pontano’s
De Magnificentia (1486) discussed a variety of
building initiatives that are suited to the
magnificent ruler. Galvano Fiamma (1283–1344)
justified the architectural projects of Azzone
Visconti in the Opusculum de rebus gestis ab Azone,
Luchino et Johanne Vicecomitibus, which was the
fourth book of the Chronicon Maius, in turn part
of a series of work on the history of Milan. See
Fraser Jenkins, ‘Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage’,
163; Green, ‘Galvano Fiamma, Azzone Visconti’,
101.
Aristotle, ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, in Richard
McKeon, ed., The Basic Works of Aristotle, trans. W.
D. Ross, New York, 1941, 988–91, cited in Fraser
Jenkins, ‘Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage’, 166–7.
Aristotle, ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, 935–1126, esp.
989.
Aristotle, ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, 988, presented
an elegantly simple definition of magnificence:
‘For, as the name itself suggests, it is a fitting
expenditure involving largeness of scale.’
Aquinas defined magnificence in the following
way: ‘As for magnificence, its function is to make
good use of money in relation to a highly
specialized interest namely expenditure for the
accomplishment of some grand enterprise.’ Saint
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, vol. 41, trans.
T. C. O’Brien, London and New York, 1972, (2a2æ,
117, 3), 229.
Aristotle, ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, 989: ‘Magnifi
cence is an attribute of expenditures of the kind
which we call honourable, e.g. those connected
with the gods – votive offerings, buildings, and
sacrifices – and similarly with any form of reli
gious worship, and all those that are proper
objects of public-spirited ambition . . .’.
Reflecting on this phenomenon, Guido Guerzoni
observed that the practice of magnificent or
lavish spending, possible for anyone with mate
rial means, became a form of social distinction
that destabilized the hereditary social order.
Guerzoni argued that sumptuary laws and the
closure of noble ranks in Italian city-states
were a response of the hereditary nobility to
this upheaval. See Guerzoni, ‘Liberalitas’, 360–2.
Furthermore, some renaissance theorists of
120
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
magnificence, including the Dominican Galvano
Fiamma and Buonacorso da Montemagno (in his
De Nobilitate of 1429), argued that the magnifi
cent expenditure was suitable for the prince
and that wealth was a useful additional aspect
to nobility of blood. See Guerzoni, ‘Liberalitas’,
356–7.
Paolo Cortesio’s argument is paraphrased in
Guerzoni, ‘Liberalitas’, 360.
Giovanni Pontano, ‘La virtù della magnificenza’,
in I libri delle virtù sociali, trans. Francesco Tateo,
Rome, 1999, 165–219, esp. 200–3. Pontano
reported that Hadrian had sprinkled balsams
and saffron on the stairs of the theatre where the
funerary ceremonies were staged.
Galvano Fiamma’s description of Azzone
Visconti’s palace paid attention to these criteria.
Fiamma’s description is in Green, ‘Galvano
Fiamma, Azzone Visconti’, 102–3. Pontano noted
that ornament, grand scale, quality of construc
tion materials, and sound assembly would allow
the magnificent work to achieve sumptuousness
and make an imposing impression. Pontano, ‘La
virtù della magnificenza’, 179. While he does not
pay much attention to the physical qualities of
the magnificent act, Aristotle also affirmed that
magnificence, like a work of art, inspires
admiration upon contemplation. ‘Nicomachean
Ethics’, 989.
Pontano, ‘La virtù della magnificenza’, 167, 179.
Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scul
tori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, Florence,
1878–85 [1568], 7 vols.
George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the
History of Things, New Haven, CT, 1962, 9.
There has been much recent research into the
technological, political, religious and artistic
significance of sculpture and decoration in
multicoloured stone in early modern Florence
and Rome. This includes Suzanne Butters, The
Triumph of Vulcan: Sculptors’ Tools, Porphyry, and the
Prince in Ducal Florence, Florence, 1996; Andrew
Morrough, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’, in Gian
Carlo Garfagnini, ed., Giorgio Vasari tra decorazione
ambientale e storiografia artistica, Florence, 1985,
309–320; Steven F. Ostrow, ‘Marble Revetment in
Late Sixteenth-Century Roman Chapels’, in
Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, ed., IL60: Essays Honoring
Irving Lavin on his Sixtieth Birthday, New York, 1990,
253–76.
See Morrough, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’,
310–11.
Vasari (Milanesi), Le vite, vol. 1, 107–127.
Suzanne Butters summarized these observations
in The Triumph of Vulcan, 149–58. For contem
porary accounts see Vasari (Milanesi), Le vite, vol.
1, 111–12. Francesco Bocchi’s guidebook to Flor
ence (written in 1591) attributes the discovery to
Cosimo de’ Medici. Francesco Bocchi, Le Bellezze
della Città di Firenze, Bologna, 2004 [reprint of
Florence, 1677 edn], 193–4. Benvenuto Cellini’s
autobiography and treatises of 1569 credit
Francesco Ferrucci del Tadda, who worked under
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
the close supervision of Duke Cosimo. Cellini: La
Vita, I trattati, intro. P. Scarpellini, Rome, 1967,
552.
Morrough, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’, 312.
Geologically speaking, porphyry is an igneous
stone with comparatively large crystals
(frequently quartz or feldspar) in a distinctly
finer-grained ground mass. See Antony Wyatt,
ed., Challinor’s Dictionary of Geology, 6th edn,
Cardiff, 1986, 248.
Pliny, Natural History, ed. G. P. Goold, trans. D. E.
Eichholz, Cambridge, MA, 1962, vol. 10, bk. 36,
ch. 11, 44–5, ll. 56–8.
Raniero Gnoli, Marmora Romana, Rome, 1971, 98.
Gnoli, Marmora Romana, 98.
Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan, 164, 191–3.
Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan, 41.
Derek A. R. Moore, ‘Notes on the Use of spolia in
Roman Architecture from Bramante to Bernini’,
in Cecil L. Striker, ed., Architectural Studies in
Memory of Richard Krautheimer, Mainz, 1996, 119–
22, 120–1.
Morrough, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’, 313–14.
Morrough, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’, 315–16.
Vasari (Milanesi), Le vite, vol. 7, 712: ‘. . . come
chiaramente vedrassi in una terza sagrestia che
vuol fare [Duke Cosimo de’ Medici] a canto a San
Lorenzo, grande, e simile a quella che già vi fece
Michelangnolo, ma tutta di vari marmi mischi e
musaico, per dentro chiudervi in sepolcri onor
atissimi e degni della sua potenza e grandezza,
l’ossa de’suoi morti figliuoli, del padre, madre,
della magnanima duchessa Leonora, sua
consorte, e di sè. Di che ho io già fatto un
modello a suo gusto, e secondo che da lui mi e`
`
stato ordinato; il quale, mettendosi in opera, fara
questa essere un nuovo mausoleo magnifi
centissimo e veramente reale.’ Andrew Morrough
has called attention to this passage in ‘Vasari and
Coloured Stones’, 315–16. The Cappella dei Prin
cipi had a long period of gestation. While Vasari
envisioned its design as early as 1563, the
execution of the chapel did not begin until the
1590s. Morrough, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’,
315–17.
For an explanation of the metaphor of the
Heavenly Jerusalem, see Ostrow, ‘Marble Revet
ment’, 263, and Meyer Schapiro, ‘On the
Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque art’, in K.
Bharatha Iyer, ed., Art and Thought: Issued in
Honour of Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy on the
Occasion of his 70th Birthday, London, 1947, 130–50,
141–2.
Ostrow, ‘Marble Revetment’, 257, 266. Ostrow
also noted that early Christian churches
including the Lateran basilica, its adjacent
baptistery, the Oratory of the Holy Cross, the
Church of Santa Costanza, and the Church of SS.
Cosma and Damiano featured instances of polychromed revetment or opus sectile.
33 Agostinio del Riccio, Istoria delle Pietre, eds
Raniero Gnoli and Attilia Sironi, Turin, 1996
[1597], 89–111.
34 The use of spolia in polychrome revetted chapels
of the sixteenth century, including the Chigi
Chapel in Rome, and the Gaddi and Niccolini
Chapels in Florence, is discussed by Lex Bosman,
‘Spolia and Coloured Marble in Sepulchral
Monuments in Florence, Rome and Bosco
Marengo. Designs by Dosio and Vasari’, Mittei
lungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, 49,
2005, 353–76.
35 Several sources mention that Dosio began his
career as a goldsmith and engraver. See Christian
.
Hulsen,
Das Skizzenbuch des Giovannantonio Dosio
im Staatlichen Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin, Berlin,
1933, vol. 3. A complete biography of Dosio can
be found in Ludwig Wachler, ‘Giovannantonio
Dosio: Ein Architekt des Sp.aten Cinquecento’,
. Kunstgeschichte, 4, 1940,
Römisches Jahrbuch fur
143–251.
36 Franco Borsi, ‘Introduzione’, in Franco Borsi, ed.,
Giovanni Antonio Dosio: Roma Antica e i Disegni di
Architettura agli Uffizi, Rome, 1976, 10–11.
37 The Gaddi were once part of a group of Flor
entine bankers in Rome who had relinquished
their banking activities by the late sixteenth
century in favour of ecclesiastical careers and
positions in the ducal court of Florence. See
Carolyn Valone, ‘Giovanni Antonio Dosio and His
Patrons’, PhD diss., Northwestern University,
1972, 166–7.
38 Wachler, ‘Giovannantonio Dosio’, 228–9.
39 It is not known whether these drawings,
conserved at the Gabinetto disegni e stampe in
the Uffizi, are the ones Dosio sent to Gaddi, but
they are certainly comparable to those
mentioned in Dosio’s letters.
40 Dosio, ‘Letter to sig. Niccolò Gaddi, 8 maggio
1574’, in G. G. Bottari and S. Ticozzi, Raccolta di
lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura, 8 vols,
Hildesheim and New York, 1976 [reprint of 1822
edn, Milan], vol. 3, 301: ‘Partimenti, e altre simili
cose, ne ho assai [drawings of ancient and
modern monuments], dove che si potrà fare un
libro, come desidera V. S. Potrà vedere che
differenza è dalle cose che descrive il Serlio a
queste che le mando.’ While Pliny, Natural History,
vol. 10, bk. 36, ch. 6, 36–7, l. 47, mentioned
that the Palace of Mausolus at Halicarnassus
(fourth century BC) was one of the oldest exam
ples of polychrome revetment, and Lucan, Phar
salia/The Civil War, trans. J. D. Duff, Cambridge,
MA, 1928, bk. 10, 598–9, ll. 109–19, described
Cleopatra’s palace as decorated with polychrome
stone, the Pantheon was one of the few ancient
monuments with marble revetment that Dosio
could have seen in person.
41 Dosio, ‘Letter to Gaddi’ in Bottari and Ticozzi,
Raccolta di lettere, vol 3, 300–1: ‘In quattro ho
messo tutta la Ritonda ordinatamente, e
misurata con diligenza . . . So che ne resterà
121
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
soddisfatto, essendo molto regolata e secondo le
regole di Vitruvio.’
These observations were made by Cristina
Acidini, ‘Roma Antica’, in Borsi, Giovanni Antonio
Dosio, 109–110.
The original transcription is from Cristina
Acidini, ‘Roma Antica’, cat. no. 105, 112: ‘Questa
raprese[n]ta la pia[n]ta di sop[r]a della ritonda
ritirandosi jn dentro qua[n]to e il portico come si
vedrà nel suo profilo se dimostro ancor jn questo
medesimo disegnio la cupola jn piano p[er]
mettercj le sue misure di gradi et alter cose . . .
Qui di sotto s è rappresentato u[n] de’ tabernacoli
di dentro della Ritonda con[n] le sue jncrostature
di marmo e misti di varie sorte come ancora se
ne veggono e vestigi (. . .)’.
Julius II conceded the Mellini Chapel in the
church of S. Maria del Popolo in 1507, and scho
lars date Raphael’s design for the architecture
and decoration of the chapel between 1513 and
1520. See John Shearman, ‘The Chigi Chapel in S.
Maria del Popolo’, Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, 24, 1961, 129–60; Christoph
Luitpold Frommel, ‘Raffaello e la sua carriera
architettonica’, in C. L. Frommel, S. Ray, and M.
Tafuri, eds, Raffaello Architetto, Milan, 1984, 13–46,
23. The first documentary reference to Raphael
at the chapel, however, dates to 1519. See Enzo
Bentivoglio, ‘La cappella Chigi’, in Frommel, Ray
and Tafuri, Raffaello Architetto, 125–42, 125.
The transcription of the note written on the
drawing is from Cristina Acidini, ‘Roma del ‘‘500’’’,
in Borsi, Giovanni Antonio Dosio, 162: ‘. . . pianta della
cappella di Agostino Chigi nella chiesa del popolo
di Roma. Tutto di marmi e misti’.
See John Shearman, ‘Pentimenti in the Chigi
Chapel’, in Moshe Barasch and Lucy Freeman
Sandler, eds, Art the Ape of Nature. Studies in Honor
of H. W. Janson, New York, 1981, 219–22;
Shearman, ‘The Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del
Popolo’, 131–2; T. A. Marder, Bernini and the Art of
Architecture, New York, 1998, 283–8.
While the design of the pyramidal tombs is
attributed to Raphael, alterations to the cornices
that flank each tomb suggest that the pyramids
were not a part of the original conception for the
chapel. John Shearman, ‘Pentimenti in the Chigi
Chapel’, 219–22. The first explicit reference to
them in the documentary record does not
appear until 1552 when the Chigi and Lorenzetto
(Raphael’s assistant) arbitrated the payments for
the completion of the sculpture and revetment
of the chapel. Enzo Bentivoglio, ‘La cappella
Chigi’, 127. On the tomb of Romulus, see
Popolo’, 133–4.
Raphael’s passage appears in Vincenzo Golzio,
Raffaello: nei documenti, nelle testimonianze dei
contemporanei e nella letteratura del suo secolo,
Vatican City, 1936, 85. The passage was cited by
Popolo’, 154.
122
49 Shearman, ‘The Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del
Popolo’, 154.
50 Despite the mutual interest of Gaddi and Dosio,
the treatise was never published. The drawings
for this treatise were later considered by Nicola
.
Gaburri in 1720 and by Christian Hulsen,
Das
Skizzenbuch, in 1933. See Wachler, ‘Giovannan
tonio Dosio’, 228–32.
51 Wachler dated the Cappella Gaddi from 1575
(when Dosio wrote to Gaddi about the preli
minary plans) to 1577/1578, the years of the
consecration inscriptions on the sarcophagi. See
Wachler, ‘Giovannantonio Dosio’, 161.
52 Cristina Acidini Luchinat, ‘Niccolò Gaddi colle
zionista e dilettante del cinquecento’, Paragone,
31: 359-61, 1980, 141–75, esp. 148.
53 Acidini Luchinat, ‘Niccolò Gaddi’, 147–8, fig. 141.
The Niccolini Chapel was begun in 1579, and the
completion date is written in the chapel under
the pediment that crowns the entrance door,
1585. Wachler, ‘Giovannantonio Dosio’, 188–9.
54 Acidini Luchinat published this inventory,
conserved in the Archivio di Stato in Florence, in
‘Niccolò Gaddi’, 154, 157–8.
55 Carolyn Valone, ‘Giovanni Antonio Dosio and His
Patrons’, 168, cited five letters from Dosio to
Gaddi, dating from 1574 to 1579, that were
published in Bottari and Ticozzi, as evidence of
Dosio’s activities as a purchasing agent for Gaddi
in Rome. For the original letters, see Bottari and
Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere, vol. 3, 299–300, 304–5,
308–9, 310–11 (letter numbers CXXXIX, CXLII,
CXLIV, CXLV, CXLVI).
56 Dosio’s connection to Jacopo Strada is
mentioned by Ruth Olitsky Rubinstein, ‘Intro
duction’, in Emanuele Casamassima and Ruth
Rubinstein, eds, Antiquarian Drawings from Dosio’s
Roman Workshop, Milan, 1993, xii. For Dosio’s
activity as a representative of a marble agent, see
Giuseppe Campori, Memorie Biografiche degli Scul
tori, Architetti, Pittori, ecc. Nativi di Carrara,
Bologna, 1969 [reprint of Modena, 1873 edn], 309.
57 This poem has been published in Acidini
Luchinat, ‘Niccolò Gaddi’, 141, and Lex Bosman,
‘Spolia and Coloured Marble’, 353–76, 359. The
original Italian reads as follows:
Con grande spesa il Gaddi ha fatto fare,
ma vie più col suo ingegno, una cappella,
che in tutto il mondo non si può trovare
opera tal, che paragoni quella:
fa chi la vede ognun maravigliare,
tant’è leggiadra, allegra, ricca e bella.
Roma e Venezia, abbiate pacienza,
in questa parte cedete a Fiorenza.
58 Roberto Pane, Architettura del Rinascimento in
Napoli, Naples, 1937, 3–11. Pane recognized the
importance of Tuscan architects, including
Francesco and Luciano Laurana, Giuliano and
Benedetto da Majano, Francesco di Giorgio
Martini and Giuliano da Sangallo in Naples.
While he conceded that the surviving buildings
suggest that the Baroque found a distinctive
expression in Naples, the city’s renaissance
buildings appear to be imports in an alien land.
Pane noted, however, that this image has no
historical foundation: Naples, after all, boasted a
distinguished Greek and Roman past. Anthony
Blunt, Neapolitan Baroque & Rococo Architecture,
London, 1975, 5–34. Observing a similar situa
tion, Blunt contrasted the importation of archi
tects from Tuscany and Lombardy to Naples
during the Renaissance to the distinctive nature
of the Baroque in Naples. See also Daniela Del
Pesco, ‘Napoli: l’architettura’, in Claudia
Conforti and Richard J. Tuttle, eds., Storia
dell’architettura italiana: il secondo cinquecento,
Milan, 2001, 318–47. Del Pesco emphasized the
non-Neapolitan origins of the principal archi
tects in the city in the late sixteenth century,
318–21. An alternative to this approach can be
found in the introduction to Andreas Beyer’s
Parthenope: Neapel und der Su. den der Renaissance,
Munich and Berlin, 2000, 7–11. Paying attention
to the broader project of renaissance humanism
in Naples, Beyer argued that Homer’s image of
Naples as the home of the siren Parthenope
guided the philosophical, judicial and artistic
developments in fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury Naples.
59 Gérard Labrot, ‘Territorio, città e architettura nel
regno di Napoli’, in Conforti and Tuttle, eds,
Storia dell’architettura italiana, 288–317, 288. Also
Romeo De Maio, Pittura e Controriforma a Napoli,
Bari, 1983, 24–5; Franco Strazzullo, Edilizia e
Urbanistica a Napoli dal ’500 al ’700, 2nd edn,
Naples, 1995, 129. Strazzullo cites an anonymous
letter to the viceroy of Naples in which the threat
of landings by the Turkish fleet is mentioned.
With regards to population, a census (or numer
azione) from 1606 resulted in a figure of 270,848
people (10,916 of them were residents of
convents, conservatories, hospices or were
incarcerated). Strazzullo, Edilizia e Urbanistica,
132–3. An explosive growth in monastic institu
tions in the city accompanied the rise in popu
lation. Noting that the number of female
convents in the city rose from twenty-five in 1591
to thirty-seven by 1650, Helen Hills observed that
by the seventeenth century Naples was the
second most populous city after Paris. Helen
Hills, Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in
Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents, Oxford,
2004, 28. Hills also characterizes the increasing
number of convents in the city as ‘the aggressive
process of conventual urbanism’. Invisible City,
20–1.
60 While it is acknowledged that orders of older
foundations like the Dominicans and Francis
cans greatly increased their membership
between 1500 and 1700, and that orders like the
Benedictines and Cistercians sought to institute
stricter monastic observance, modern studies on
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
the Counter Reformation give more attention to
the Jesuits, Discalced Carmelites and Theatines.
See Robert Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism,
1450–1700: A Reassessment of the Counter Reforma
tion, London, 1999, 27.
See note 9 above.
Evelyn Carole Voelker, ‘Charles Borromeo’s
Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae,
1577. A translation with commentary and
analysis’, PhD diss., Syracuse University, 1977, 12–
13. Voelker notes that Borromeo’s instructions
were composed in response to the much more
vague prescriptions regarding church construc
tion that were formulated during the Council of
Trent.
Charles Borromeo, cited in Voelker, ‘Charles
Borromeo’s Instructiones’, 92, 124–5, 160, 207.
Monastic institutions in Naples benefited from
aristocratic membership, giving them the mate
rial means to decorate lavishly. Hills, Invisible City,
90–119.
Del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di Giovanni Antonio
Dosio’, 20, 26, 43. Antonio Talpa, from San
Severino in the Marches, joined the Oratory in
1570.
Louis Ponnelle and Louis Bordet, St. Philip Neri
and the Roman Society of his Times (1515–1595), trans.
R. F. Kerr, London, 1932, 378–9. Antonio Gallonio,
a disciple of Philip Neri, described him as ‘a
learned lawyer’. See Antonio Gallonio, The Life of
Saint Philip Neri, trans. Jerome Bertram, San
Francisco, 2005.
Ponnelle and Bordet, St. Philip Neri, 477. Tarugi
had been in Naples earlier in the decade trying
to arrange the foundation of the order in the
city. The full delegation sent down to Naples in
1586 included the priests Tarugi and Talpa, the
subdeacons Antonio Carli and Prati, the clerics
Francesco Bozio and Tommaso Galletti and two
lay brothers. Ponnelle and Bordet, St. Philip Neri,
455.
Del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di Giovanni Antonio
Dosio’, 18–34, presents information on Antonio
Talpa and his history with the Oratorians.
Ponnelle and Bordet, St. Philip Neri, 477–8.
Ponnelle and Bordet, St. Philip Neri, 381.
The date of Talpa’s death is unclear. One of the
final references to him is from 1616, in which the
priest, described as old, is called in to mediate a
dispute between two Oratorian priests from
Fermo. Antonio Cistellini, San Filippo Neri:
L’Oratorio e la congregazione oratoriana. Storia e
spiritualità, 3 vols, Brescia, 1989, vol. 3, 2074–5.
Funeral eulogy of Father Maccione, cited in Del
Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca dı̀ Giovanni Antonio Dosio’,
33: ‘Considerava che la Chiesa, essendo la parte
più degna dell’Universo, dove ogni dı̀ si sacrifi
cava a Dio, non già carne di arieti e d’agnelli, ma
il figlio stesso d’Iddio, con l’assistenza di tutto il
Paradiso, meritava tutte quelle sorte di abbelli
menti, che dalla forza dell’ingegno umano
potevansi giàmai ritrovare . . . .’
123
73 Dosio’s authorship of the Gerolamini design has
been debated. The first modern study to docu
ment Dosio as a designer of the Gerolamini was
published by Gaetano Filangieri, Indice degli
artefici delle arti maggiori e minori, Naples, 1891,
vol. 1, 173. Since then, the attribution to Dosio
has been supported by Roberto Pane, 299, 314f;
and by Daniela del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di
Giovanni Antonio Dosio’, 20, 55–6. In the 1960s
Mario Borrelli published documents that
recorded another Tuscan architect active at the
Gerolamini, Nencioni Dionisio di Bartolomeo, as
early as 1587 (at least three years before Dosio’s
arrival in Naples). See Mario Borrelli, L’architetto
Nencioni Dionisio di Bartolomeo 1559–1638, Naples
1967, 43f. This documentation has led other
scholars to attribute the Gerolamini design to
Nencioni Dionisio di Bartolomeo, including
Anthony Blunt, 36–7; and Gaetana Cantone,
‘L’architetttura’, in Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli,
Naples 1984, vol. 1, 55. Del Pesco has argued that
while both Nencioni Dionisio di Bartolomeo and
Dosio were present at the Gerolamini in the late
sixteenth century, Dosio, as the more senior
architect (he was born in 1533 while Dionisio di
Bartolomeo was born in 1559) must have been
the guiding designer for the church. I find del
Pesco’s argument to be convincing. See Daniela
del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di Giovanni Antonio
Dosio’, 20. Dosio’s work with the Oratorians in
Rome as early as 1580 also recommends his
authorship of the Gerolamini. The similarities
between the Gerolamini and San Lorenzo
(despite the differing attributions of authorship)
have been observed by Anthony Blunt, 36–7;
Gaetana Cantone, vol. 1, 55; and Daniela del
Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di Giovanni Antonio Dosio’,
33.
74 One of the first commentaries on San Lorenzo
was A. Manetti, Vita di Filippo di Ser Brunelleschi,
eds G. Tanturli and D. De Robertis, Florence, 1976
[c. 1490]. See also Eugenio Battisti, Filippo Brunel
leschi: the complete work, trans. Robert Erich Wolf,
New York, 1981; and Gabriele Morolli and Pietro
Ruschi, eds, San Lorenzo 393–1993: Celebrazione per
il seidecesimo centenario, Florence, 1993.
75 Del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di Giovanni Antonio
Dosio’, 33.
76 Antonio Talpa, Principio e progresso de la Congre
gazione de l’Oratorio di Napoli da l’anno 1586 fino a
l’anno 1615, n.d. This is an archival source from
the Archivio della Congregazione Oratoriana di
Napoli, vol. 20, 4. It has been published in M.
Borrelli, Le costituzioni dell’Oratorio napoletano,
Naples, 1968. This specific passage from Talpa’s
chronicle is cited in Del Pesco, ‘Alla ricerca di
Giovanni Antonio Dosio’, 34: ‘La Chiesa è fatto a
la forma antica (sic) con tre navi con colonne di
palmi (24) . . . d’un pezzo cavato col favor di
124
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
Ferdinando Gran Duca di Toscana ne l’Isola del
Giglio, condotto a Napoli con ammirazione
universale, per essere impresa intentata dopo gli
antichi romani . . . .’
An important donation from the Carthusians
was mentioned in a letter from Gigli to Tarugi in
1589. See Ponnelle and Bordet, St. Philip Neri, 483,
3ff.
This was the Carthusian administrative territory
called Lombardia Propinquiore. The review of
Severo Turboli’s career comes from the eight
eenth-century historian of the Carthusians,
Benedetto Tromby (a Carthusian himself). Bene
detto Tromby, Storia Critico-Cronologica Diplomatica
del Patriarca S. Brunone e del suo Ordine Cartusiano,
Salzburg, 1981 [1773–79], vol. 10, part 2, book
942.
Tromby, Storia Critico-Cronologica, vol. 10, part 2,
book 942.
Aemidiius Martini and Dominicus Bassi, Cata
logus codicum Graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae,
Hildesheim, 1978 [1906], vi–vii.
This document from 1591, a protocol of the
Notary Aniello Rosanova, was published by
Spinazzola, ‘La Certosa di San Martino’,
appendix I, 168. In turn, the Carthusians paid a
third party, the Milanese marble worker Cesare
Bascape, for marble he sold to Bregantino, de
Felice and de Guido.
The opening passage of the document tran
scribed by Spinazzola, ‘La Certosa di San
Martino’, appendix I, 168, reads as follows: ‘Die
septimo mensis Iunii 4.e ind.is 1591 Neap.
mastro Raymo Bregantino, Felice de Felice et
Fabritio de Guido de Carrara magistri marmorari
. . . in solidum . . . atque R. Padre don Iustino de
Urso de Neap. Promettono consignare dicto
monasterio Sancti Martini tutte le marmore
seranno nicessarie per la ecclesia di detto
monasterio . . .’. This document does not expli
citly say that Bregantino, de Felice and de Guido
brought marbles from Carrara, but given that
they were natives of Carrara and were respon
sible for procuring marbles, their export from
Carrara to Naples is likely. A document in the
Carthusian archives in the Archivio di Stato in
Naples (ASN) records the payment of 400 Neapo
litan ducats for marbles brought from Carrara by
patrone Francesco Botto and patrone Giovanni
Antonio Castagnola in 1643. ASN, Monasteri
Soppressi, fasc. 2143, 133.
ASN, Monasteri Soppressi, fasc. 2165; Carta Visita
tionis, 1674, 1692, 1700. These documents were
published in John Nicholas Napoli, ‘Fashioning
the Certosa di San Martino: Ornament, Illusion,
and Artistic Collaboration in Early-Modern
Naples’, PhD diss., Princeton University, 2003,
249–51.
7
‘THE FACE IS A MIRROR OF THE SOUL’:
FRONTISPIECES AND THE PRODUCTION OF
SANCTITY IN POST-TRIDENTINE NAPLES
HELEN HILLS
Maria Villani [aged six years] locked herself in her room and there, prostrate before a Crucifix,
bared her breast across her heart and again and again with an iron point punctured the flesh
that covered it, so that her blood seemed to be drawn up almost from the heart, as if she wanted
to dig out from it the blood with which she should write the deed that claimed to document her
giving herself to God.
Whenever I received Communion from the Lord, my soul would be infused with such light and
warmth of love, that for many years, each time that he communicated me, the sweetness and
tenderness in my heart was such that it dissolved in tears, which, without the slightest tumult
but with greatest sweetness, streamed from my eyes, and hollowed in the ground a little pool
large enough to hold my tears, where I used to prostrate myself after Holy Communion.1
Domenico Maria Marchese, 1674
These passages from Domenico Maria Marchese’s Vita della venerabile Serva di Dio
Suor Maria Villani dell’Ordine de’ Predicatori, first published in Naples in 1674, are
typical of the intense, intimate and sometimes violent language of Lives of wouldbe saints – particularly of women. Far less typical is the frontispiece portrait
which adorns the book (plate 1). Remarkably, Maria Villani, founder of the
convent of Divino Amore in Naples, who had died only four years earlier in 1670,
is portrayed as a writer and intellectual, pen poised, surrounded by works of
theology and religious devotion. But, for all its inherent interest, what is most
striking about this image is the curious disjuncture between its cool detachment,
its focus on Villani’s external world, and the heated language and emotive
figuration of spiritual experience which drives the accompanying text. To the
modern eye there is a sharp dissonance between the language of the text,
suffused at once with carnal imagery and with visions of the divine, and the stiff
austerity of the portrait, which conjures with neither heavenly glimpses nor
sensation. Image and text seem to be at odds. Nor is this an unusual disjuncture.
Similar discrepancies occur in almost all Vite of would-be saints adorned with
frontispiece portraits published in Naples.2 Why were lives of holy men and
women, whose saintly reputations depended on their eschewal of fleshly pleasure
and earthly recognition, given portrait frontispieces at all?
125
‘ T H E FA C E I S A M I R R O R O F T H E S O U L’
1 Frontispiece to Domenico Maria
Marchese, Vita della serva di Dio
Suor Maria Villani dell’Ordine
de’Predicatori Fondatrice di Santa
Maria del Divino Amore di Napoli,
Naples: Giacinto Passaro, 1674
(in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
Ascetic lives – whether of canonized saints, blesseds, or would-be saints –
might seem most appropriately clothed in books of the most austere form, but a
considerable number were graced with frontispiece images.3 This chapter
examines the development of the frontispiece image to Lives of both saints and
would-be saints published in Naples, an important hub in the generation of both
saints and saints’ Lives in Counter-Reformation Italy. It locates frontispiece images
of saints in relation to the wider generation of new faces for Catholic Reform. The
production of new faces of sanctity in frontispieces was a distinctive, and to date
unexamined, part of the production of Reform. Distinguishing between frontis
piece images of canonized saints and those of portraits of would-be saints, this
essay delineates their principal developments between c. 1589 and 1750. It
analyses the shift in the depiction of canonized saints from impersonal, remote
and hieratic to intercessional and human, apparently afflicted by an unpredict
able divine force. I argue that frontispiece images of saints operated less as passive
adornment of the Lives they accompany, than as re-routings of the authority of
sanctity in relation to specific interest groups within the city. Thus, they conjured
a new Naples as a pious city in special relation to their pious readers. I argue that
the city of Naples became an increasingly significant, though often ‘hidden’,
126
subject of these images. Indeed, the new faces of sanctity in Naples were part of a
new face for a new (holier) Naples. I then return to the portrait frontispieces of
would-be saints to suggest that they worked to reframe the transgression inherent
in their subjects’ lives, particularly those of female would-be saints, and that they
were a further aspect of the fashioning of a particular sort of pious reader for a
particular sort of pious city. In short, the production of frontispiece images of
saints and would-be saints was crucial to production of the new face/s of Catholic
Reform, faces which in Naples bore the features of that city.
T H E FA C E O F C AT H O L I C R E F O R M
The production of the saintly body was crucial to the Counter Reformation
(c. 1545 – c. 1720). During most of the sixteenth century (1523–1588) no canoni
zations occurred. Then, after this dead spell of sixty-five years, fifty-six new saints
blazed into glory between 1588 and 1769.4 This rebirth of saint-making has
rightly received much scholarly attention.5 While Reform in Rome, particularly
in the centralized machinery of the papacy, has, in recent years, absorbed many
scholars, it is important not to adopt a centrist viewpoint; nor to overlook devo
tional practices which treated hundreds of people as saints; nor to assume that
the Roman model applied elsewhere. Even correct canonization did not make a
saint. That depended on a cult, which, in turn, depended on effective visualiza
tion of the saint. While saints’ bodies were glorified through relics, a relic
betrayed nothing of what the saint looked like: it was the reliquary that was on
show (and that produced the relic inside).6 But what did a saint look like? Reform
meant desire not just for new forms of churches and monasteries, but for new
forms and faces – and new possibilities, therefore – of sanctity. Inventing saints
assumed many forms, including the finding and identifying of relics, building
churches and chapels dedicated to specific saints, and their depiction in sump
tuous altarpieces. Much has been made of the reinvention of ancient saints, the
significance of relics and the blood-soaked soil of Rome itself.7 Far less attention
has been paid either to the generation of new saints, especially those whose bids
for canonization simply drained into the sands, or to how sanctity was imagined
outside Rome.8 And no attention at all has been paid to their pictorial repre
sentation in frontispieces. Yet the constant generation of holy figures was one of
the most distinctive cultural features of this period and, in this, Rome had no
monopoly. In Naples there were one hundred and five cases of fama di santità
(reputed sanctity) between 1540 and 1750.9 It was not simply that the cult of
saints and their visual production (pictorial, sculptural and architectural) char
acterized the post-Tridentine Catholic Church.10 Increasingly, the Catholic
Church’s struggle for authority shifted its focus from history and past martyrs to
living and future saints. Indeed, the production of ‘living saints’ was one of the
most distinctive features of the Italian post-Reformation cultural landscape.11
Inventing new forms of sanctity also involved the publication of thousands of
Vite, or Lives, spiritual biographies of both canonized and would-be saints, which
recounted the exemplary life of the individual and his or her miracles and claims
to sanctity. These formed part of more or less concerted attempts to bolster
devotion and to achieve beatification and canonization for their subjects. During
the late sixteenth century, frontispiece images depicting their saintly subjects
began to appear in the holy Lives of living and would-be saints; by the mid-seven
127
teenth century engraved portrait frontispieces of would-be saints were not
uncommon.12 Moreover, because of their portable form, their modest appearance
and their intimate address, frontispieces became important sites for producing and
exploring new conceptions of sanctity in this period. Frontispiece portraits, parti
cularly those of female subjects, imagine a fusion of modern sanctity and quotidian
holiness. To imagine the faces and sufferings of saintly beings, past and present,
and to represent them as living humans, still present, fundamentally altered what
Catholic Reform could be, and at once expanded and curtailed the potential of
Catholic Reform. Frontispiece images, which conjured faces in a mode both inti
mate and portable, drew a particular connection between exemplary subject and
devout reader. In short, they mobilized Catholic Reform. Thus a sensitive exam
ination of frontispiece images published in Naples in this period may not only help
to dislodge the current Roman-centric analysis of Catholic Reform, but may also
help to identify a distinctively modern visual mode for the fashioning of pious
readers and pious place (Naples, as variously defined) in relation to each other.
Images of saints (affirmed at the Council of Trent) and their control rapidly
became intrinsic to Reformed Catholicism.13 Regulation of the processes of
beatification and canonization were closely followed by attempts to regulate the
depiction of non-canonized saints.14 In an important move Urban VIII tightened
papal control over the visual representation of ‘servants of God’ who were not
beatified or canonized, thereby treating the visual as more definitive than the
textual. In 1625 he prohibited the representation of servants of God with super
natural attributes, such as haloes or rays of heavenly light.15 After that, candi
dates for canonization had to be without public cult. The ruling appears to be
anti-popular in inspiration and intent (the visual, rightly or wrongly, equated
with the unlettered). If a halo signified sanctity, then only the Pope could be
allowed to bestow one. Intended to centralize control in the Papacy, to rein in
local cults, and to foreclose undue involvement of the poor, this ruling para
doxically resulted in the potentially revolutionary depiction of ‘living saints’ as
remarkably unremarkable, as will be seen below.
N E A P O L I TA N P R O D U C T I O N O F S A I N T S ’ L I V E S
The publication of Lives of canonized saints, blesseds and would-be saints in
Counter-Reformation Italy increased rapidly. Naples was no exception to this;
indeed it was exemplary.16 While before 1600 saints’ Lives represented fewer than
five per cent of books published in Naples, during the seventeenth century this
figure rose to between six and seven per cent (nearly a quarter of all religious
publications), reaching its height in the 1660s and 1670s. There then followed a
scaling down, back to turn-of-the-century numbers.17 To put these figures in
proportion, Jean-Michel Sallmann has suggested that between 1570 and 1750
southern Italy, with a literate population of no more than 300,000, absorbed
350,000 copies of saints’ lives produced in Naples, and even more than that if those
imported from Rome, which were fairly numerous in Neapolitan libraries, are
included.18 Many volumes were dedicated to the lives of protector saints (including
those elected as protectors from the 1620s), who were often of antique origin.
Religious orders vied with each other to promote their own heroes and to establish
their own spiritual prominence in the city. Thus, the Sagro diario domenicano, a
128
2 Frontispiece to Girolamo Maria
di S. Anna, Istoria della Vita, Virtù,
e Miracoli di S. Gennaro, Naples:
Stefano Abbate, 1733 (in 41).
Designed by Francesco Solimena
and engraved by Antonio Baldi.
Photo: Massimo Velo.
massive six-volume folio menology of the Dominicans by Domenico Maria
Marchese, himself a Dominican, was published in Naples between 1668 and 1681.19
A considerable number of these Vite, although fewer than half, boast portrait
images of their saintly and venerable subjects – usually as frontispieces, some
times fashioned as part of an elaborate title page, and occasionally bound deeper
inside the book. Images, if metal engravings, had to be printed separately from
the text, hence their insertion in books outside pagination. If printed in large
numbers, however, they could be sold separately, at bookshops, shrines or sanc
tuaries. They thus had existence beyond the book.20 Depictions of canonized
saints occurred in very few sixteenth-century Vite, but their number increased
steadily during the seventeenth century.21 Visually, the distinction between
canonized saint and would-be saint was not sharply drawn before 1625, but
portrait frontispieces of would-be saints appear only from the 1650s onwards. The
engravings cover a remarkable range: from the sophisticated images of St
Januarius designed by Francesco Solimena published in 1733 (plate 2) to crude
woodcuts or coarse engravings, such as the frontispiece portrait of Giuseppe
Imparato of Castellammare in his Vita of 1686 (plate 3); and from simply pro
duced small pamphlets to elaborately illustrated quarto volumes, such as Niccolò
Carminio Falcone’s L’Intera Istoria di San Gennaro (Naples: Felice Mosca, 1713, see
plate 12).22 What were the purposes of such images?
129
Unappealing though they often
may seem to modern eyes, these
images reward scrutiny. It would be
incorrect to dismiss them as aestheti
cally or technically limited or simply as
‘illustrations’ to (more important)
written texts, thereby reducing them
to the Lives they adorn. They constitute
new visual forms of imagining sanctity
in the Counter Reformation and, in the
case of portraits of would-be saints,
they produced a new form of image:
the portrait of the modern saint. These
portraits gave face to the search for
new saints which was central to
Counter-Reformation Italy. Thus they
formed part of the new pathology of
the saint’s body and interrogation of
the holy subject. Moreover, they
rendered the Vite more effective as
works of devotion, producing a new
3 Frontispiece to G. B. Pacichelli, Vita del Servo di
form of devotional reading, as frames
Dio P. Gioseppe Imparato, Naples: Camillo Cavallo &
for spiritual biographies, antiporte to
Michele Luigi Muzio, 1686 (in 241). Photo:
(the reading of) exemplary lives. Thus,
Massimo Velo.
these images paradoxically both
constituted an aspect of programmatic attempts to propel their extraordinary
subjects towards sanctification, and offered imitable models of holiness.23 In them
saintliness became both extraordinary and quotidian, elevated but familiar. The
portrait frontispieces pivot on these paradoxes.
The increase in production of saints’ Lives does not account for their illus
trations. Mortification of the flesh, the search for the divine, and the experience
of devotional rapture not only present considerable challenges in terms of
pictorial representation, but seem to repel the very idea. The paradox of the task
is that while saints’ virtues may be imitable, their special powers were seen as
signs of God’s presence on earth. Saints do not perform miracles; God performs
them through saints.24 A miracle is not an imitable event. Miracles suspend the
natural order of things, which only God should do. Thus a paradox is at work in
both text and image in the biography of a saint, depicting the features of sanctity
as if that which works through the individual is constituted by him or her.
Moreover, saints were remembered corporeally in relics; and relics seem to defy
the need for portraits. After all, the likeness of the individual through whom
miracles were performed is irrelevant to the miraculous.
If mystical union and rejection of worldly pleasure and beauty presented
challenges to pictorial representation, baroque art nevertheless put such subjects
at its heart, and used visuality both to stir viewer’s emotions and offer glimpses of
holiness. It was often suggested that painting makes the absent present.25 Thus
Luca Giordano’s altarpiece for the Solitaria church, The Madonna of the Rosary
(1657), transforms the viewer’s sense of the figuration of the world (plate 4). The
130
4 Luca Giordano, Madonna of the Rosary, 1657. Oil on canvas, 253 � 191 cm. Naples: Museo di
Capodimonte. Photo: Massimo Velo.
131
obscure location transports the observer to an unfamiliar viewpoint. The land
scape is almost featureless, the horizon low; the earth seems to have shrunk, as if
seen from a vast distance or from a divine point of view, while gigantic saints
tower, detached, in unspecifiable relation to it. While the book and lily at the
bottom left, and the scattered stone mouldings (on which Giordano has signed his
name), like antique ruins, are clearly earthbound, the saints are not. Discon
certingly, they occupy an ambiguous space between the heavenly realm of the
Virgin and the earthly region below; their habits float just above the ground,
except where they tumble over the cut stones. Even the putti, bearing St Cathe
rine’s flaming heart and lily, tread more securely than the saints on mundane
territory. Giordano’s saints occupy a world of endless ambivalence, somewhere
between heaven and earth, where time and space are abolished, where they
operate eternally as intercessors. Such altarpieces conjured a new sense of sanc
tity, in which glorious intercessors marginalized both the human and the divine.
But what of the humble frontispiece portraits to Vite? They dispense with the
sensuous colours and impressive size of altar paintings, and are stripped of visual
pleasure. Thus the question of why saints were imagined visually in the Vite goes
beyond issues of market and technical problems of representation. Frontispiece
portraits apparently work in counterpoint to the sensuous and emotional pitch of
both texts and altarpieces. Paradoxically, they mobilize, authorize, and curtail the
texts that they accompany.
Indeed, many Vite of both canonized saints and venerables were un-illu
strated, and this, at first glance, seems the obvious solution to the conundrum of
portraying an individual best known for their self-mortification and rejection of
the vanities and preoccupations of this world. A book like Domenico Maria
Marchese’s Vita del Servo di Dio Fra Marco da Marcianis, published in Naples by
Girolamo Fasulo in 1675, is a good example of austerity throughout. It is small, in
octavo, of 90 pages, crudely printed on poor-quality paper. Even though it is
dedicated to Giacomo Capece Galeota, knight of the Order of St James, king’s
counsellor in the Consiglio Collaterale, and Reggente of the Cancelleria Reale, it
has no images or embellishments. Likewise, many of the Vite of canonized saints
were un-illustrated or simply adorned with non-figurative cartouches.26 Such
books aptly evoke humility and self-denial in their very appearance.
To understand why saints’ lives were illustrated, I turn now to a closer
examination of frontispiece images, considering first canonized, and then wouldbe, saints.
IMAGES IN VITE OF CANONIZED SAINTS
Images in canonized saints’ Vite changed between the late sixteenth and early
eighteenth centuries from stark, hieratic and usually full-length depictions of
individual saints in non-specific settings (including multiple images grouped
around a central rectangular figure or title) to more emotive images of saints as
recognizably human intercessors, and to more ambitious, sometimes aestheti
cally sophisticated, narrative scenes closer to baroque altar paintings. Over this
period, too, the city of Naples became increasingly the real subject at issue.
During the sixteenth century saints and blesseds were usually represented in
distant and hieratic manner, as ahistorical, remote, disinterested and decontex
tualized figures. The depiction of Blessed Giacomo della Marca on the title page of
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5 Frontispiece to Paolo Regio, La Vita del B. Iacopo della Marcha, Naples:
Giuseppe Cacchii, 1589 (in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
his biography by Paolo Regio, Bishop of Vico Equense, published in Naples by
Giuseppe Cacchii in 1589, is typical in both its simplicity and in his emotional
remoteness (plate 5). Full-length in friar’s habit, standing within an arch (evoca
tive of a cloister or a church arcade), he holds simple attributes – an open book
and chalice – as if sanctity were a straightforward matter. Although at the time of
this publication, Giacomo della Marca, who died in 1476, had not yet been offi
cially beatified, the image, which pre-dates Urban VIII’s prohibition of 1625, figures
him as a saint. Holiness is explicitly marked by his aureole and by the IHS
emanating from his chalice. Deliberately impersonal though the representation
is, there is to be no mistake: his name is inscribed behind him. His identity is
marked not by facial features, even less by heroic actions, but by name and
133
standard attributes. He is a saint by virtue of his aureole: there is no attempt to
conjure up a narrative of heroism or martyrdom. Time and context are shown to
be irrelevant to sanctity: saints exist simply because they are chosen apodeicti
cally by God. Human reason and explanation are ruled out of account. The
implicit authority of such an image explains the Vatican’s wish to control the use
of signs of the supernatural as the most readily recognizable markers of sanctity.
The presentation of saints as tutelary and remote supernatural protectors
remained standard in frontispieces until Urban VIII’s reforms, but its early
austerity did not last long. Although the depiction of St Onuphrius in Paolo
Regio’s Vita di S. Honofrio Heremita (Naples: Giovanni Giacomo Carlino, 1601)
similarly suppresses history, with no narrative of heroism or martyrdom, he is
nevertheless firmly located in his remote eremitical desert, his rejected worldly
honours at his feet (plate 6).27 From about this date onwards sanctity was
increasingly evoked in relation to setting. It was given special place, not anchored
to the saint’s lifetime through place of martyrdom, but to the place which sought
the saint’s particular protection. Typical is Benoı̂t Thiboust’s engraving of St
Francis Borgia, published in Naples in 1671 (plate 7). As noted above, scholarship
to date has tended to adopt a Rome-centric perspective and to view post-Triden
tine sanctity in reactionary terms, as a search for authority based on ‘history’,
largely in response to Protestantism, and centred on the retrieval of ancient
saints’ relics from the catacombs. However, what is striking about frontispiece
images of saints published in Naples before the mid-seventeenth century is their
eschewal of historical narrative in claiming spiritual authority.
Even while individual saints continued to be depicted in hieratic, full-length,
non-narrative manner, a title page or frontispiece featuring multiple saints
allowed the construction of a narrative and, once this occurred, holy locus
emerged as key protagonist. The title page of the Vita, e Miracoli di S. Gregorio
Arcivescovo e Primate d’Armenia (Naples: Lazzaro Scorigio, Ettore Cicconio, 1655),
engraved by Nicolas Perrey, is a good example of this development (plate 8). It
assumes the authoritative, apparently objective, semi-architectural format of an
aedicular altar. At centre top a bust of St Gregory of Armenia blazes inside a
curling cartouche. However, in spite of initial appearances, the main player here
is less St Gregory of Armenia himself than the Neapolitan convent of San Gregorio
Armeno, canny possessor of his relics. On the pedestals below stand St Benedict
(representing the convent’s rule), St Blaise (whose head the convent treasured as a
relic), St John the Baptist (whose miraculously liquefying blood was also one of
the convent’s prized relics) and St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. The text around
which the images are orchestrated names St Gregory, the convent and the two
aristocratic abbesses who sponsored the publication. On the pedestal bases are
the arms of the prime movers here: Abbess Leonora Pignatelli (responsible for the
first edition, published in 1630) and Abbess Beatrice di Somma (patron of the 1655
edition). Thus the convent’s enclosed nuns harnessed this eloquent title page to
traverse the limits of their own enclosure, in order to promote the spiritual
authority of their own institution, coupling a celebration of St Gregory of
Armenia, its dedicatee, with that of their religious order, the convent’s valuable
relics, and the social standing and powerful familial connections of their
abbesses. Thus an illustrated title page to a celebrated saint’s life could be a useful
– deceptively modest – tool for an enclosed convent to propel to prominence its
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6 Frontispiece to Paolo Regio, Vita di S. Honofrio Heremita, Naples: Giovanni
Giacomo Carlino, 1601 (in 121). Photo: Massimo Velo.
claims to spiritual primacy in the city. Here sanctity is glimpsed as possession. The
frontispiece is (among other things) an apparently modest public advertisement
of that possession.
During the early decades of the seventeenth century, the old hieratic powerful
supernatural protectors steadily gave way to something more accessible and
emotive: to the saint as intercessor, clearly marked as human with individualized
features. Concomitantly, the hieratic figure of saint with attribute was trans
formed into an articulation of a privileged relationship with the divine. The
depiction of miraculous events in saints’ lives became increasingly common in
135
7 (Left) Frontispiece to S. Sgambati, Ragguaglio della Vita di S. Francesco Borgia, Naples: Novello de
Bonis, 1671 (in 81). Photo: Massimo Velo.
8 (Right) Domenico Gravina, Vita, e Miracoli di S. Gregorio Arcivescovo e Primate d’Armenia, Naples:
Lazzaro Scorigio, Ettore Cicconio, 1655 (in 41). Title page engraved by Nicolas Perrey. Photo:
Massimo Velo.
frontispieces through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus seven
teenth-century frontispieces regularly depict saints as between heaven and earth,
witnessing heavenly visions while borne aloft by angelic beings. Characteristic is
Thiboust’s frontispiece to Scipione Sgambata’s Ragguaglio della vita di S Francesco
Borgia (Naples, 1671, see plate 7). Title and dedication are carried aloft by two
winged putti while the saint himself floats on a cloud towards a flaming osten
sory inscribed with the Jesuits’ IHS device. Light radiates from the ostensory, as
from a gyroscope, cutting radially through the saint’s arm, suggesting simulta
neously presence and absence, suffusion of the human with the divine, an
admixture of sanctity and divinity. The saint is here not so much powerful
supernatural protector as intercessor interceded.
Yet while his airborne elevation renders St Francis Borgia distinct from
ordinary mortals, more divine than human, stretching earth up to heaven;
frontispieces also show saints bringing heaven down to earth. Increasingly, saints
were depicted as experiencing the divine while on earth. An unusually early
example of this appears at the end of a small Latin pamphlet Vita et Obitus Sanct
issimi Confessoris Guilielmi Vercellensis by Felice Renda (Naples: Giovanni Battista
Cappello, 1581) – a simple woodcut (plate 9). The saint, alone in a harsh landscape,
drops to his knees at a vision of the Trinity with Crucifixion. Unlike Giacomo della
Marca (see plate 5), it is St William’s earthly experience of the divine that renders
him a saint, animates the image and provides its excitement. Such depictions of
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visions of the divine and of saints as apodeictically addressed by God became
more common in the increasingly elaborate frontispieces of early eighteenthcentury Naples.28 A good example is the frontispiece to Giuseppe Giovanni
Gualtieri’s Vita del Glorioso S. Pasquale Baylon (Naples: Erede del Pittante, 1729),
which shows St Pasquale kneeling on earth, picked out by a ray of light from the
miraculous ostensory above him, surrounded by cherubim (plate 10). By this date,
sanctity is both more accessible and more affective; the divine is now figured less
as an attribute possessed by an inaccessibly remote saint than as an apodeictic
affliction of someone recognizably human.
While male saints were increasingly conceived as beneficiaries of miraculous
visions and of direct contact with the divine, female saints were more usually
depicted in prayer. A rare depiction of the divine afflicting a female saint is the
frontispiece to Antonio Barone’s Vita di Santa Domenica (Naples: De Bonis, 1690;
plate 11). Even here, however, St Domenica, virgin and martyr, protector saint of
Tropea, is shown, not performing a miracle or experiencing a heavenly vision, but
at the moment of her martyrdom, ravaged by wild dogs and lions, while angels
approach to bear her to heaven, and putti descend with symbols of martyrdom.
Artists and patrons apparently shrank in trepidation from depicting female saints
as working miracles in frontispiece engravings – a form that could enter any
reasonably well-to-do household.29
9 (Left) Endpiece to Felice Renda, Vita et Obitus Sanctissimi Confessoris Guilielmi Vercellensis, Naples:
Giovanni Battista Cappello, 1581 (in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
10 (Right) Frontispiece to Giuseppe Giovanni Gualtieri, Vita del Glorioso S. Pasquale Baylon, Naples:
Erede del Pittante, 1729 (in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
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11 Frontispiece to Antonio Barone, Vita di Santa Domenica, Naples: De Bonis,
1690 (in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
THE SOUL OF NAPLES
Early frontispiece depictions of canonized saints usually place them out of doors,
in a non-specific location, whether in the sky between heaven and earth, or, if on
earth, in the countryside and alone, with an abbey or church in the background
to suggest a holy community. During the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth
centuries location became increasingly specific. Sanctity was given special place,
not anchored to the locus of a saint’s life or death through the relic but to the place
blessed by a saint’s special protection. In particular, the city of Naples became the
principal, albeit half-hidden, protagonist of these images, and it is to these that
we now turn.
Naples, its teeming population second only to Paris, generated insecurities
and anxieties about social control, and an unequalled discourse of unruliness and
moral depravity. Just as the monasteries, convents, conservatories and other
religious institutions that came to dominate seventeenth-century Naples
138
attempted to reform the city fabric in terms of moral decorum and holiness, so
hagiographies and their illustrations imagined reformed spiritual and moral
behaviour amongst its inhabitants. Control over the city’s soul was always at
issue; and the ever-present threat of natural calamities, earthquake, plague and
volcanic eruption intensified the hunger for divine protectors. The wealth of
Naples as regards its religious institutions and spiritual publications was part of a
self-conscious spirituality that was deeply divided and rivalrous.30 Citizens of
Naples were both drawn together and divided by institutional adoption and
promotion of numerous protector saints. After St Thomas Aquinas was recognized
in 1600 as eighth patron saint of Naples – the first proclaimed in early modern
Naples – the number of protector saints quickly spiralled to fifteen within seventy
years.31 The elevated number of patron saints in Naples indicates not a homo
genous and close-knit city, but its obverse – a city in which holiness was a prin
cipal fissure for the contestation of relative authority.
Frontispieces to Vite formed part of the contestation of relationships between
place and holiness, city and saint. As with maps of the period, they imagine the
city from a divine point of view, in the distance, as a controllable entity.32
Consider the representation of St Januarius stemming the eruption of Vesuvius of
1631 (plate 12), one of a series of beautiful engravings representing episodes in the
life of St Januarius, principal patron saint of Naples, which adorns Niccolo
Carminio Falcone’s lavish L’Intera Storia di San Gennaro (Naples: Felice Mosca,
1713). Here the city of Naples, delineated in loving detail, is both source of
anxiety (under threat from Vesuvius) and subject of divine protection. The
ostensibly apolitical and disinterested viewpoint adopted for the image elevates
the viewer above its mean streets, halfway to heaven, slightly below the figure of
St Januarius himself, who surges upwards on momentous hierophanic clouds,
surrounded by winged putti, to intervene between heaven and earth, his hand
raised to protect the city by staunching the deadly lava flow. The saintly is all
elevation, movement and mediation in order to preserve the city in its orderly
immobility. Vesuvius’s effusions of flame and smoke echo, in threatening but
minor key, the saint’s triumphal soaring. Saintly intervention, volcanic eruption,
Naples’s natural topography, and the spires, towers and domes of her churches
and castles are bound together in a dramatic transcendental economy, based on
verticality and might. Drama is safely transposed from the earthly to the super
natural zone.
The distant view of Naples adopted in Falcone’s book is typical of the repre
sentation of the city in relation to sanctity. Naples is presented from without
(conceived externally): none of its inhabitants are figured; neat streets and
elegant buildings imply an orderly and uncontentious populace. In one unusual
and particularly sophisticated engraving, however, the artist swoops down to
earth to depict St Januarius in relation to readily identifiable buildings in Naples.
The frontispiece to Girolamo Maria di S. Anna’s Istoria della Vita, Virtù, e Miracoli di
S. Gennaro (Naples, 1733), designed by Francesco Solimena and engraved by
Antonio Baldi, shows the saint, not as human being or intercessor, but remark
ably in the form of reliquary bust (see plate 2).33 It is closely related to a painting
by the same artist made a couple of years earlier, Saint Januarius visited in prison by
Saints Proculus and Sossio, for which a preparatory drawing survives (plate 13), but
the transformation of the saint into reliquary bust and of Proculus and Sossio
139
12 ‘St Januarius stems the flow of lava during the eruption of Vesuvius in
1631’, from Niccolo Carmine Falconi’s L’Intera storia della famiglia, vita,
miracoli, traslazioni, e culto del glorioso martire San Gennaro, Naples: Felice
Mosca, 1713 (in folio). Image facing p. DXIV. Photo: by permission of the
British Library. Shelfmark 663.k.20.
into divine messenger angels transforms the subject from a miraculous historical
narrative into a perpetual divine celebration of the famous relics in Naples.34 The
frontispiece shows the saint as a portrait bust, which is treated with special
veneration. An angel, who has wrapped the cloak around the shoulders of the
bust and set the mitre on its head, presents it with a martyr’s palm. Another angel
holds the ampoules of St Januarius’s blood, while a winged putto struggles under
140
13 Francesco Solimena, Saint Januarius visited in prison by Saints Proculus and Sossio,
c. 1729. Black chalk on paper, 18.9 � 25 cm. (Preparatory drawing for the painting in
Rohrau-Graf Harrach’sche Familiensammlung [W.F.221], c. 1729–31. Oil on canvas.)
Photo: Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London.
the weight of the Gennaro family arms. The bust refers to the famous silver
´tienne Godefroyd, Guillaume de
reliquary bust of Saint Januarius, made by E
Verdelay, and Milet d’Auxerre, donated to the city of Naples by Charles II of Anjou
in 1305, and venerated in the Treasury Chapel dedicated to San Gennaro in Naples
Cathedral.35 When exposed to public veneration, the bust was dressed with mitre
and cloak for the occasion. Originally it was adorned with a precious mitre
‘entirely garnished with pearls’ and other gems, which was replaced in 1712–13 by
141
14 Duomo, Treasury Chapel looking east. Naples. Photo: Author, by permission of the Deputazione
della Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro, Naples.
a dazzlingly bejewelled mitre made by Matteo Tregli (studded with 3,694 precious
stones, including 3,328 diamonds).36 But the frontispiece is not a literal celebration
of these treasures. Rather, that the bust is adored and adorned lends it ambiguous
status, as both lifeless bust and living saint. Saint Januarius is honoured as simul
taneously alive and dead, his relics worthy of divine concern. Furthermore, the relic’s
miraculous capacity is now centre stage. The engraving evokes the moment of the
repeated miracle, when blood and skull are brought together, and the blood liquefies
and boils – which occurred three times a year: on the first Sunday in May (with the
procession the preceding Saturday), 19 September, and 16 December.37 More than
simply illustrational, in figuring the bust in relation to Naples, the engraving
responds to controversy over whether St Januarius or St Dominic was principal
patron saint of Naples, and whether the former properly belonged to Naples or to
Benevento.38 But it rises above these historical disputes to celebrate the miracleworking relics and the devotion to them at the heart of Neapolitan spiritual topo
graphy. Solimena depicts in the background not simply Francesco Grimaldi’s
Treasury Chapel, the dedicated resting place of San Gennaro’s blood, but the gable
and tower of Naples Cathedral in which the chapel stood. He thereby alludes to the
politically delicate situation in which the Treasury Chapel, although under the aegis
of the aristocratic Deputation of the Treasury and therefore independent of arch
bishop and cathedral canons both financially and administratively, was nevertheless
housed within the cathedral. By this date the chapel was one of the most venerated
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15 (Left) Giovanni Battista Manso, Vita et Miracoli di S. Patricia Vergine Sacra con il compendio delle reliquie, che si
conservano nella Chiesa del monasterio di detta santa in Napoli, Naples: Constantino Vitale, 1619 (in 41). Photo:
Massimo Velo.
16 (Right) Frontispiece to Paolo Regio, Vita di S Patricia Vergine Figlia dell’Imperator Costante e Protettrice della Città
e Regno di Napoli, expanded by Cleonte Torbizi at the instigation of the nuns of the convent of Santa Patrizia,
Naples: Francesco Savio, 1643 (in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
sanctuaries in the city, decorated to an unsurpassed degree, glittering with silver
reliquary busts of Naples’s panoply of patron saints, and adorned with frescoes and
paintings by famous artists, including Solimena himself (plate 14). In unequivocal
terms, the image fuses the reliquary and Januarius’s awesome, hieratic presence
imbued with the authority of antiquity, with the spiritual geography of contem
porary Naples.
The very mobility of frontispieces made them a particularly useful medium
for advancing claims to spiritual authority – claims which were always highly
politicized and particularized. For enclosed convents with spiritual ambition, the
frontispiece, which could vault over the walls of enclosure without violation, was
a particularly useful instrument, as has been seen in the case of San Gregorio
Armeno (see plate 8). In the case of the convent of Santa Patrizia, two slightly
different versions of a composite frontispiece to the Vita of St Patricia, whose
relics the convent housed, mark its leap from introverted to urbanized spiritual
ambition. The first of these appeared in Giovanni Battista Manso’s Vita et Miracoli
di S. Patricia Vergine Sacra con il compendio delle reliquie, che si conservano nella Chiesa del
143
monasterio di detta santa in Napoli, published in Naples by Constantino Vitale in
1619 (plate 15); the second was published in 1643, frontispiece to the Vita di S.
Patricia Vergine Figlia dell’Imperator Costante e Protettrice della Città e Regno di Napoli, by
Paolo Regio and expanded by Cleonte Torbizi at the instigation of the nuns of
Santa Patrizia (Naples: Francesco Savio; plate 16). Consisting of a central image of
St Patricia, surrounded by seven small medallions of scenes from her life, both
frontispieces weave saint, place and relic tightly together. They are identical,
apart from the background to the central scene, its inscription, and the verse
below. In both versions the central image shows St Patricia, kneeling, gazing up at
an image of the Madonna and Child, hand on heart, holding lilies and wearing
the relics of St Helena.39 In the version of 1619 she kneels before an altar on
which rest the convent’s prized ampoules of miraculous blood (plate 15).40 In
1643, however, the altar is substituted by a bird’s-eye view of the city of Naples
seen from the sea, on whose behalf St Patricia intercedes with the Virgin (plate
16). In this image, which Sallmann has described as ‘the first example of
contamination of ancient sanctity with the baroque aesthetic in Naples’, the saint
is not an unreachable being in a mythic past, but is rooted in Naples, on whose
behalf she intercedes.41 As the inscription records, St Patricia was elected as
patron saint in 1625. What prompted the publication, however, was the transla
tion of St Patricia’s reliquary bust to the Treasury Chapel of Saint Januarius in
Naples Cathedral in 1642, an event which allowed her to bask amongst the city’s
protector saints, but which risked reducing her to simply one of many (see plate
14).42 The central scene in the frontispiece of 1643, therefore, re-emphasizes St
Patricia’s privileged relationship with the city, as if she were its unique inter
cessor; and the city itself replaces the relics as object of the saint’s devout
attention. Thus a scene of the saint’s private devotion, which also celebrated the
convent’s relics (plate 15), was replaced by a claim to her civic significance,
advancing through the saint the convent’s growing urban ambitions for spiritual
authority (plate 16). Thus the convent exploited the mobility and malleability of
successive frontispiece images further to detach its claims to spiritual leadership
from the confines of enclosure.
Throughout the seventeenth century, frontispiece images of canonized saints
were used increasingly to strengthen links between saints and specific institu
tions and places, thereby re-drawing the geographies of holiness. A frequent
emphasis on Neapolitan topography, whether through the evocation of specific
buildings (see plate 2) or of the whole city (see plate 12), is an important aspect of
this development. Frontispieces bind saints increasingly to identifiable places: the
frontispiece images of Saint Januarius and St Patricia (see plates 15 and 16) are far
removed, for instance, from the detachment of Blessed Giacomo della Marca (see
plate 5). The city of Naples – and implicitly its people – ostensibly became the key
protagonist in the drama of sanctity.
FRONTISPIECE PORTRAITS OF WOULD-BE SAINTS
It is remarkable that, even as the city of Naples became the ‘secret’ subject in
frontispiece images of canonized saints, it did not figure in those of would-be
saints who had recently lived and died there and whose bids for sanctity would
depend on local support. Instead, these portraits tend to dispense with recog
nizable topographies, and pare back settings to present simple bust-length
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portraits of the venerable person,
with virtually no hints of immanence
or transcendence (see plate 1). Atten
tion is concentrated on the face and a
few religious trappings to represent
intense religious devotion as a private
and demanding undertaking. After
the visual excitement of presentations
of canonized saints, these are indeed
stark and austere.
Yet they were an important new
form of portrait: a portrait of the
mundane as divine, of the living saint
as self-effacing mortal, of the ‘saint’
who, though not yet officially recog
nized by the church, is nevertheless
capable of awakening holiness in the
reader. In other words, here we see
representations
of
saints-in-the
forging. This innovation in the visual
representation of holiness, especially
of female holiness, provides a useful 17 G. Silos, Vita del ven. Servo di Dio D. Francesco
counterpoint to claims emphasizing Olimpio dell’Ordine de’ Chierici Regolari, Messina:
the continuities in devotional life Paolo Bonacotta, and Naples: Salvatore Castaldo,
between the middle ages and the 1685 (in 41). Photo: Massimo Velo.
modern period.43 The recovery and
celebration of ancient saints and their relics was the best-known aspect of Catholic
Reform, but these spiritual examples depart from heavy reliance on historical
example, turning towards an emphasis on self-discipline and introspection. Thus
the role of both example and reader changed. There is a shift from past to present,
from evidence available only in texts to evidence visible in the everyday world.44
During the late sixteenth century, frontispiece images depicting their saintly
subjects began to appear in the holy Lives of living and would-be saints. After Urban
VIII’s decree of 1625, visual distinction between canonized saints and would-be saints
became sharp. Unlike canonized saints, venerables were usually shown, not fulllength with a halo, but in bust-portrait form, within a frame or medallion. By the
mid-seventeenth century engraved portrait frontispieces of would-be saints were not
uncommon. The portrait engraving, often also a frontispiece to the saint’s Vita,
became the usual mode for depicting venerable subjects, recently dead and
uncanonized, such as the Theatine Francesco Olimpio, who died in Naples in 1639,
or sister Maria Villani, who died in Naples in 1670 (see plates 1 and 17). The
frontispiece portraits indicate, particularly in the case of female subjects, a fusion
of modern sanctity and quotidian holiness.
These engravings drew on portraiture’s established traditions of celebrating
illustrious individuals, aristocrats and authors; on the well-developed relation
ship between portraits and biographies; and on the established tradition of
author-portrait frontispieces.45 Portraying holy men and women who had with
drawn from the world in order to deny its values – including those of vanity,
145
beauty and worldly success – posed problems that the celebration of the physical
appearance of authors or men of action did not. But in replacing the portrait of
the author with the portrait of the biographical subject, the Vite of venerables
implicitly elevated the latter to the role of author of their spiritual lives. Their
author-style frontispieces evoked them as self-conscious shapers of their holy
experience, rather than as arbitrarily afflicted by an imponderable deity from
without.
On opening these holy Lives, the reader immediately encountered the
portrait frontispiece. Such frontispieces worked as a ‘hinge’ or gateway, gesturing
towards the text, helping readers to enter the book and to interpret it ‘correctly’.
The portrait frontispiece functioned both independently of the text, and in
close relation to it, acting as a sober counterweight to the text’s rapturous
ecstasies, safely anchoring the life and reader in sturdy conventionality.
In their positioning, these images affected devotional reading practices. They
defined a holiness, especially in female religious engagement in Counter-Refor
mation Italy, that is often pain-filled, disciplined and demanding to the senses,
rather than the sort of blissful ecstasy fulfilling the senses that is often assumed. The
effects that accumulate in the spectator are repetitive, evoking stasis, isolation,
austerity and discipline, rather than ecstatic transport and union or theological
rigour. That spectator/reader would often have been a pious female.46 Portraits of
holy women functioned both to mediate between reader and text, and to serve
female readers as models for the appearance of modern female holiness. Their
emphasis on virtuous modes of behaviour are not simply the result of
Urban VIII’s prohibitions, but are ideal models to be imitated by any Christian as part
of her path to holiness. Good women were not saints; to become a female saint,
women had to transgress, if only to become visible. Too much has been made of the
supposed shift from a medieval sanctity demonstrated by the possession of super
natural powers to an early modern sanctity which emphasized moral and social
virtues. Early modern Vite continue to describe supernatural and socially trans
gressive acts, even if they represent them always as performed by God through the
saint.47 The spiritual biographies of would-be saints are not conventional accounts
of self-sacrifice and demure virtue. They demonstrate, instead, strong, independent
men and women whose activities ran counter to conventional behaviour in early
modern Italy. As Elizabeth Petroff has observed, female saints were doubly trans
gressors, both by their nature as saints, stretching the boundaries of human limits,
and by their nature as women, in breaking rules and flouting boundaries.48 The
texts skilfully mediate and even deny transgression in their subjects’ lives,
presenting independence and insubordination not as necessary for achievement by
ambitious nuns, but as obedience to God’s will, while repeatedly emphasizing the
subject’s humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authorities. Thus, while descrip
tions of abject humility and self-mortification play the major key, the counterpoint
sounds the discordant notes of self-assertion and political ambition. Just so, the
images work to weave their subjects back into realms of acceptable convention
ality.49 Thus the contradictory message of the narrative of saints’ transgressive lives
– imitate/don’t imitate these saints – is rendered by many of these frontispiece
portraits safe and unambiguous: this is the behaviour to imitate; this is the
appearance of true holiness – patience, submissiveness, chastity, strenuous piety,
and, above all, self-effacement.
146
CONCLUSION: REFRAMING TRANSGRESSION
‘The face is the mirror of the soul,’ insists the author of Francesco Olimpio’s
spiritual biography, and dedicates several pages to his beautiful appearance and
its relationship with his spiritual life.50 The engraved portrait of Olimpio,
however, opts in favour of piety and loss of self, rather than physical beauty (plate
17). The portrait format automatically carried with it resonances of respectability
and honour. This format, together with the emphasis on self-denial and austerity
drawn in the venerable’s face, served to re-frame the transgressions that his life
inevitably represented. Thus the frontispiece portrait acted as a point of entry
to the would-be saint’s life that also reframed it in terms of conventional
respectability.
Visual depictions of saints and would-be saints accompanying their biogra
phies were more than just a vital part of the production of the face of Catholic
Reform; they altered its course. De Certeau has demonstrated that the production
of a body played an essential role in mysticism, arguing that what appears to be a
rejection of ‘the body’ or of ‘the world’ – ascetic struggle, prophetic rupture – was
but the necessary and preliminary elucidation of an historical state of affairs.51 It
constituted the point of departure for the task of offering a body to the spirit, of
‘incarnating’ discourse, giving truth a space in which to make itself manifest:
‘contrary to appearances, the lack concerns not what breaks away (the text), but
the area of what makes itself flesh (the body).’52 I suggest that the delineation of
the spiritual and divinely gifted body in frontispieces to holy biographies was part
of Catholic Reform’s energetic production of the body and – more specifically, and
increasingly through the seventeenth century – of the face of holiness. The saintly
body was the intended goal of a journey that moved, like all pilgrimages, towards
the site of a disappearance. There was discourse (a logos, a theology, etc), but it
lacked a body, either social or individual. In reforming a church, founding a
community, constituting a (spiritual) ‘life’, and preparing (for oneself and others)
a body to be raised in glory, the production firstly of a body (relics, churches,
chapels), and then a face (altarpieces, frontispiece portraits) was fundamental to
the production of Counter-Reformation holiness.
The frontispiece portrait of the would-be saint attacks the tradition of
portraiture, subverting it from a secular celebration of life and achievement to a
spiritual suggestion of death. Simultaneously it converts the image of the
transgressive suffering saint to one of socially respectable hero/ine. While the
practice of combining biography and portrait to bestow fame was well estab
lished, and readily mobilized in relation to campaigns for canonization, the
Counter Reformation produced a new form of portrait – that of the venerable, the
would-be saint, in frontispiece form accompanying a Life and a devotional work, to
imagine the saint before sanctification. Thus the traditional humanist principle
of a close partnership between men of action and men of letters in a shared quest
for glory and fame became a close partnership between holy men and women and
their biographers in a quest for the recognition of (respectable) religious glory
and immortality. But, paradoxically, these portraits show ‘saints’ in everyday
form, not arbitrarily chosen for visions, miracles, or martyrdom by an external
God, but fashioned from within by a life of unflinching attention to the holy.
Although an increased aristocratic grace marks some eighteenth-century
portraits of female would-be saints, their abiding characteristics are the austerity
147
and self-denial of their faces and bodies, along with a concomitant absence of
both narrative and the miraculous. In this they contrast markedly with images
accompanying Vite of canonized saints, which, between the late-sixteenth and
mid-eighteenth centuries, turned from solitary, stiff, hieratic figures, devoid of
topographical or narrative context, to miracle-working figures, interceding
between earth and heaven, yet still recognizably human. These figures, freed from
the force of gravity, were nevertheless also increasingly rooted in Naples. Indeed,
their relationship to the city came to define them. To that extent, we can observe
that spiritual control over the city of Naples was centrally at issue. Between the
late-sixteenth century and the early-eighteenth frontispiece depictions of cano
nized saints became at once more miraculous and more locally rooted, even as
would-be saints, especially female would-be saints, usually stripped of their
miraculousness and of their locality, tended to adopt austere hieratic qualities,
combined with a social and political authority drawn from the tradition of
portraiture they adopted.
Frontispiece depictions of canonized and would-be saints sought to produce
not just a new face for a new and holier Naples, but a more socially disciplined
one, too. Between c.1580 and c. 1720 three principal developments occurred in
frontispiece images to saintly Vite. Firstly, canonized saints became less hieratic
and ever more involved in the city. Second, portraits of would-be saints began to
emerge and by c. 1650 were not uncommon. Third, as the city became (in fron
tispiece depictions) the privileged object of intervention by canonized saints, so
the holiness of would-be saints depended not on external intervention from God
(miracles, martyrdoms), but on disciplined dedication of the individual from
within. In both cases, the investment produced the body, not the other way about.
Notes
I am pleased to thank the British Academy for a Research Readership during
which this chapter was researched and written, and for a Small Research Grant
which supported research trips to Naples. I am grateful to my colleagues at York
for their insights and stimulating company. In its earliest stages this chapter
benefited in particular from Mark Hallett’s creative response. My thanks also to
Amanda Lillie and Alessandra Pompili for helpful Italian insights.
1 Vita della ven. Serva di Dio Suor Maria Villani
dell’Ordine de’ Predicatori. Fondatrice del Monastero di
S.M. del Divino Amore di Napoli, Naples, 1674, 15,
423. The book was republished in 1717 by Novello
de Bonis with additional information about
Villani’s posthumous miracles, and with a
slightly modified frontispiece portrait.
2 The distinction between ‘would-be saint’, ‘holy’
individual and ‘saint’ is that of sanctio, official
recognition by an auctoris, which sanctity
requires. See Anna Benvenuti, ‘Introduction’, in
H. C. Peyer, ed., Città e santi patroni nell’Italia
medievale, Florence, 1998, 9. The uncanonized
subjects of the seventeenth-century Vite are
148
usually referred to as ‘venerabile’ (or ‘venerable’),
or as ‘santo’ or ‘santa’ (‘holyman’ or ‘holywoman’,
or ‘saint’ in the non-canonical sense). I have
adopted here the term ‘would-be saint’ as best
encompassing the ambition of the Vite. Although
this chapter is concerned with frontispiece
portraits of would-be saints and the city of
Naples, portrait frontispieces were not restricted
to that city.
3 On frontispieces, see Margery Corbett and
Ronald W. Lightbown, The Comely Frontispiece: The
Emblematic Title-Page in England 1550–1660, London,
1979.
4 Diego d’Alcala, canonized in 1588, was the first
new saint since 1523. In addition, hundreds
achieved canonizatione equipollente and even more
enjoyed local fama sanctitatis. See Peter Burke’s
pioneering study, The Historical Anthropology of
Early Modern Italy, Cambridge, 1987, 48–62.
5 The literature on sanctity after Trent is vast and
is steadily relinquishing its erstwhile overconcentration on Rome. See Anna Benvenuti,
Sofia Boesch Gajano et al., eds, Storia della santità
nel cristianesimo occidentale, Rome, 2005. Peter
Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in
Latin Christianity, Chicago, 1981, remains funda
mental.
6 A bone without a reliquary was just another
bone. On the cult of relics, see especially P.
Dinzelbacher & D.R. Bauer, eds, Heiligen Verehrung
in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Ostfildern, 1990;
Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the
Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, New York,
1995; P. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle
Ages, Ithaca NY, 1994; E. Bozóky and A.-M. Helvé
tius, eds, Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles,
Turnhout, 1999; Hans Belting, Likeness and
Presence. A History of the Image before the Era of Art,
trans. Edmund Jephcott, Chicago and London,
1994, esp. xxi. On relics in baroque Naples, see
Helen Hills, ‘Nuns and Relics: Spiritual Authority
in Post-Tridentine Southern Italy’, in Cordula
van Wyhe, ed., Female Monasticism in Pre-Industrial
Europe, Aldershot, 2008.
7 See, for example, Simon Ditchfield, ‘Leggere e
vedere Roma come icona culturale’, in L. Fiorani
and A. Prosperi, eds, Roma, la città del papa (Storia
d’Italia, Annali XVI), Turin, 2000, 34–72.
8 The outstanding exception remains J.-M.
Sallmann, Santi barocchi: Modelli di santità, pratiche
devozionali e comportamenti religiosi nel regno di
Napoli dal 1540 al 1750, trans. C. Rabuffetti, Lecce,
1994, 190–303. See also G. Fiume, ed., Il santo
patrono e la città, Venice, 2000.
9 Sallmann, Santi barocchi, 158.
10 Protestant and Catholic churches produced
histories – such as John Foxe’s Actes and monu
ments of these later dayes, touching matters of the
Church, published in Latin by V. Rihelius in
Strasburg in 1554 and in English by John Day in
London in 1563; and Cesare Baronio’s Martyro
logium romanum, Rome, 1586 – architecture and
paintings to elevate their own martyrs and make
claims about contemporary spiritual authority.
11 For the term ‘living saints’, see Gabriella Zarri,
‘Le Sante Vive. Cultura e religiosità femminile
nella prima età moderna’, in Annali dell’Istituto
storico italo-germanico in Trento, vol. 6, Bologna,
1990, 371–445.
12 The anonymous reader has usefully observed
that the saintly ‘portrait type’ was found by the
1622 canonization of saints Teresa, Francis
Xavier and Ignatius Loyola and may be derived in
part from Loyola’s death mask. Of concern to me
here is their deployment as frontispieces to Vite.
Frontispiece portraits of would-be saints actually
constitute a new genre of portraiture, hitherto
ignored. I explore its development in greater
detail in my forthcoming book.
13 ‘Moreover, that the images of Christ, of the
Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints,
are to be had and retained particularly in
temples, and that due honour and veneration
are to be given them; not that any divinity, or
virtue, is believed to be in them, on account of
which they are to be worshipped; or that
anything is to be asked of them [. . .] but because
the honour which is shown them is referred to
the prototypes which those images represent.’
The canons and decrees of the sacred and oecumenical
Council of Trent, ed. and trans. J. Waterworth,
London, 1848, 233–4. On the Council of Trent, see
H. Jedin, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient, 4 vols,
Freiburg im Breisgau, 1958–75; John W. O’Malley,
Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the
Early Modern Era, Cambridge, MA, and London,
2000.
14 The establishment of the Congregation of Rites
in 1588 sought to clarify the procedures for, and
to centralize control over, the pressurized
production of new saints (while also recognizing
the local authority of the ordinary process),
while their representation (whether pictorial or
textual) was overseen by the Congregation of the
Index and, increasingly, by that of the Holy
Office. Meanwhile, the Council of Trent made
bishops responsible for overseeing the proper
veneration of saints in their diocese. See J.-M.
Sallmann, ‘Image et fonction du saint dans la
région de Naples à la fin du XVIIe et au début du
XVIIIe siècle’, in Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de
Rome, 1979, 827–74, 827–30. In spite of these
reforms, the first four canonizations processed
by the Congregation were dealt with according
to long-established procedure, essentially
unchanged since the Middle Ages. New after
Trent was the papal determination to distin
guish between the local nature of the ordinary
trial and the universal authority of the apostolic
trial; and to ensure that the former did not
either constitute official recognition of sanctity,
or determine the outcome of the second stage.
M. Gotor, ‘La fabbrica dei santi: la riforma
urbana e il modello tridentino’, in Fiorani
and Prosperi, Roma, la città del papa, 677–727,
696–708.
15 G. Papa, Le cause di canonizzazione nel primo periodo
della Congregazione dei Riti (1588–1634), Rome, 2001,
319–21; F. Veraja, La Beatificazione: storia, problemi,
prospettive, Rome, 1983, 122–8. The process had
started earlier. In a despatch or avviso of 2
June 1601, Clement VIII was reported to have
ordered the seizure of all the impressions and
original plates of the engraving made the
previous year by Francesco Villamena of Ignatius
Loyola, with aureole, surrounded by his miracles,
inscribed ‘BEATUS IGNATIUS SOCIETATIS IESU FUNDATOR’, on
the grounds that Ignatius had not been
canonized. Nor had Ignatius been officially
beatified at this point (this did not occur
149
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
until 1609); nor had any of his miracles been
formally acknowledged by the relevant autho
rities. Michael Bury, The Print in Italy 1550–1620,
London, 2001, 131.
Naples was the third most important publishing
centre in seventeenth-century Italy – nowhere
near Venice, but close to Florence, and far above
Milan and Bologna. Sallmann, Santi barocchi, 27.
Between 1501 and 1550 only three saints’ lives
were published (in one edition each), while
between 1601 and 1700 as many as 250 editions
of 189 hagiographies were issued. Paolo Regio’s
output marks the start of the increase in
production of saints’ lives. Regio, the most
significant late-sixteenth-century hagiographer,
published no fewer than twenty-one volumes
between 1573 and 1612 in collaboration with the
most famous printers of the time, including
Orazio Salviani, Giovanni Battista Cappelli and
Giuseppe Cacchii. Sallmann, Santi barocchi, 28–
31. The publication of saints’ lives was driven in
part by increased literacy, perhaps especially
amongst women. The surge in production in the
1660s and 1670s was probably spurred by fear,
following the devastation of the plague of 1656,
which killed at least a third of the inhabitants of
Naples.
Sallmann, Santi barocchi, 29.
Domenico Maria Marchese, Sagro diario domeni
cano, 6 vols, Naples, 1668–81.
Sallmann, Santi barocchi, 54. While woodblocks
could be printed using the same presses as for
letterpress, copperplates could not. Michael
Bury, The Print in Italy, 13–120.
Good research on the (undoubtedly huge) market
for engraved images of saints is yet to be done.
L’Intera Istoria di San Gennaro della Famiglia, Vita,
Miracoli, Traslazioni, e Culto del Glorioso Martire di S.
Gennaro Vescovo di Benevento, Cittadino e Principal
Protettore di Napoli, Naples, 1713. The lavishness of
the book is striking. Three hundred and fifty
large-format pages, it boasts a full-page frontis
piece image, and seven full-page images,
including the saint giving alms to the poor, the
saint unharmed in the furnace, his decapitation
and halting the eruption of Vesuvius. It was
dedicated to Niccolò Maria di Gennaro, Prince of
San Martino, Duke of Cantalupo and Belforte,
Marquis of San Massimo, and descendant of
Saint Januarius (the Gennaro family).
Such devotion is sometimes termed ‘para
liturgical’, as enacted alongside the liturgy, in
tandem with Mass or Divine Office. Jeffrey F.
Hamburger, Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a
Medieval Convent, Berkeley and London, 1997, 51–
2. Though helpful in some ways, the term tends
to an under-individuation of the non-liturgical.
Thomas Aquinas regarded saints as ‘temples and
organs of the Holy Spirit which lived in them
and which worked in them’. He argued that no
form of veneration should be paid to dead saints,
but that they should be accorded religious
honour. ‘Quae fuerunt templa et organa Spiritus
150
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Sancti in eis habitantis et operantis’. St Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theologicae 3a, 25, art. 6, ed. &
trans. C. E. O’Neill, London, 1965, 202–203. See
also J.A. Hardon, ‘The Concept of Miracle from
Augustine to Modern Apologetics’, in Theological
Studies, 15, 1954, 229–57. I am grateful to Cordelia
Warr for this reference.
See, for instance, Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso intorno
alle immagini sacre e profane (1582), eds S. Della Torre
& G.F. Freguglia, Vatican City, 2002, 125.
Publications with minor generic adornments
were common, such as the Neapolitan Theatine
Sebastiano Paoli’s Della Vita e Virtù della Serva del
Signore Elisabetta Albano, Naples, 1715, the title
page of which is enlivened with a small cartouche
decorated with dragonflies and flowers.
This is the only Neapolitan woodcut frontispiece
to be signed. The initials ‘P.F.’ may refer to Felice
Padovano (‘Padovano fecit’). Sallmann, Santi
barocchi, 54–5.
In part, this resulted from a technical shift:
engraving on metal, especially copper, allowed
greater precision and subtlety than wood.
However, to a greater extent the growing
sophistication of these images was driven by
increasingly ambitious aims in terms of
depicting sanctity. On technical aspects of print
production, see Bury, The Print in Italy, 13–120.
On the cost of prints, see Bury, The Print in Italy,
44–6. Bury, however, focuses on high-quality
prints. It is clear from Neapolitan seventeenthcentury sources that cheap prints of saints were
routinely readily distributed – during Jesuit
missions, for example. See Antonio Barone, Della
Vita del Padre Francesco Pavone della Compagnia di
Giesù, Naples, 1700.
For the discourse of moral depravity, see Jennifer
D. Selwyn, A Paradise Inhabited by Devils: The Jesuits’
Civilizing Mission in Early Modern Naples, Aldershot,
2004. On the building of religious institutions,
particularly female convents, and institutional
rivalries in baroque Naples, see Helen Hills,
Invisible City. The Architecture of Devotion in Seven
teenth-Century Neapolitan Convents, Oxford, 2004,
120–38.
Naples was not only a focus of spiritual anxiety,
but also a holy locus. Sallmann has pointed out
that two thirds of all southern Italian saints died
in Naples, and their reputation for sanctity was
forged in and through the city. Sallmann, Santi
barocchi, 192. In its ability to produce local sanc
tity, Naples remained remarkable. This was
largely because of the politics of the Seggi and of
the great families that dominated them. For this
and the holy protectorship of St Thomas
Aquinas, see Giuseppe Galasso, Napoli capitale.
Identità politica e identità cittadina. Studi e ricerche
1266–1860, Naples, 1998, 144–64.
See Helen Hills, ‘Mapping the Early Modern City’,
Urban History, 23, 1996, 145–70.
Girolamo Maria di S. Anna, Istoria della Vita, Virtù,
e Miracoli di S. Gennaro, Naples, 1733. Thanks to
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Rodney Palmer for pointing out that this fron
tispiece is rare, even amongst the 1733 editions.
The painting is oil on canvas, Rohrau-Graf
Harrach’sche
Familiensammlung
(W.F.221),
c.1729–1731.
Emile Bertaux, ‘Les Artistes Français au Service
des Rois Angevins de Naples’, Gazette des BeauxArts, 33, 1905, 265–81; Elio Catello and Corrado
Catello, Scultura in Argento nel Sei e Settecento a
The contract of 1712 between the deputies and
Matteo Tregli is in the Archivio del Tesoro di San
Gennaro (ATSG), 12/2, 194; the mitre is described
on 21 January 1665 (ATSG, AB/11-1602, f.49r) as
‘tutta guarnita di perle’. The deputies occasion
ally sold valuables to buy new jewellery for St
Januarius, as on 18 October 1679, when they sold
jewellery to pay for a new necklace (ATSG, AB/12,
f.79v). For the original mitre, see A. Lipinsky,
‘L’arte orafa napoletana sotto gli Angiò’ in Atti del
II Congresso nazionale di Studi danteschi, Florence,
1966, 169–176. See also the not always reliable
Vincenzo Cerino, San Gennaro: Un Santo, un Voto e
una Cappella, Naples, 2005, 123–4.
Respectively, these dates were the date of St
Januarius’s translation to Naples, his martyrdom
and his intervention after the eruption of Vesu
vius in 1631. Girolamo Maria di S. Anna, Istoria,
288–9, 377.
On this controversy, see O. Liguoro, La vanità
trionfata di Mons. Sarnelli . . . per la vera gloriosissimo
San Gennaro protettore della città di Napoli, Genoa,
1717.
St Patricia herself had worn on her arm four
precious real relics of impeccable genealogy
(‘probably inherited from St Helena’). These
relics prompted both Patricia and the nuns to a
more virtuous life. Regio and Torbizi, Vita di
S. Patricia, 41–3.
The depiction is compositionally similar to the
successful image of Blessed Filippo Neri
published in Antonio Gallonio’s Vita Beati R.
Philippi Nerii, Rome, 1600; or Mattheus Greuter’s
engraving of 1606. See La Regola e la Fama: San
Filippo Neri e l’arte, exhib. cat., Milan, 1995, 39.
Sallmann, Santi Barocchi, 60.
For the anxieties of the convent of Santa Patrizia
in this regard, see Hills, ‘Nuns and Relics’.
See E. Ann Matter, ‘Interior Maps of an Eternal
External: The Spiritual Rhetoric of Maria Domi
tilla Galluzzi d’Acqui’, in U. Wiethaus, ed., Maps
of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval
Women Mystics, Syracuse, 1993, 60–73, 60.
An analogous shift occurred in early modern
writing, which undermined the figure that tied
the past to the future through the present as an
example. From Machiavelli to Lafayette there is an
increasing doubt that what has happened before
will necessarily happen again, a doubt given a
peculiar twist by Descartes and Pascal. See John D.
Lyons, Exemplum: The Rhetoric of Example in Early
Modern France and Italy, Princeton, 1989.
45 See Peter Burke, ‘Reflections on the Frontispiece
Portrait in the Renaissance’, in Andrea Köstler &
Ernst Seidl, eds, Bildnis und Image: Das Portrait
zwischen Intention und Rezeption, Cologne and
Vienna, 1998, 150–62; G. Zappella, Il ritratto nel libro
italiano del Cinquecento, 2 vols, Milan, 1988, 13–23.
46 Saints’ lives were perhaps especially important
to women, as the most accessible form of spiri
tual literature available to lay women and nuns
who could not readily read Latin: the increased
publication of saints’ lives was driven in part by
increased literacy, especially amongst women.
Evidence in the texts of saints’ lives supports this
suggestion. For instance, Sister Rosaria Celestina
Alias di Gesù (1668–1716) often read ‘books
of perfection’, especially lives of the saints
of her own (Dominican) order. Domenico Maria
Marchese, Vita [di] ... Suoro Teresa Benedetta,
Palermo, 1744. See also Laura Antonucci, ‘Scri
vere la santità. ‘‘Vite esemplari’’ di donne nella
Roma barocca’, in Fiorani and Prosperi, Roma, la
città del papa, 651–76.
47 For the alternative view, see Gabriella Zarri,
‘‘‘Vera’’ santità, ‘‘simulata’’ santità, ipotesi e
riscontri’ in G. Zarri, ed., Finzione e santità tra
Medioevo ed età moderna, Turin, 1991, 12–15. For a
useful discussion of transgression in medieval
Lives of Italian women saints, see Elizabeth
Petroff, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women
and Mysticism, Oxford, 1994, esp. 161–77.
48 Petroff, Body and Soul, 161–3.
49 For instance, women’s key role as founders of
religious institutions is not indicated in their
portraits. An exceptional instance is the portrait
of sister Chiara Maria (Vittoria Colonna,
daughter of Filippo Colonna, Gran Conestabile of
Naples, and niece of St Charles Borromeo), who is
shown in the frontispiece to Biagio della Purifi
catione, Vita della Ven. Madre Suor Chiara Maria
della Passione, Rome, 1681, in front of the church
of the Regina Coeli convent she founded in
Rome. Yet it was reputedly a portrait of Blessed
Maria de’ Fornari Strata (1562–1617), founder of
the Annunziata in Genoa, which convinced
Camilla Orsini to found an order in Rome.
Camilla Orsini had a painting of this foundress
brought from Genoa, and placed in her oratory,
where she often contemplated it. The image
seemed to reprove her with the slowness of the
execution of her own plans, ‘as if the Blessed
were saying ‘‘when will you build a convent for
me?’’ ’. F. Dumortier, Compendio della Vita della
beata Maria Vittoria de’ Fornari Strata, Genoa, 1690,
89.
50 ‘Specchio dell’animo è il volto’, Giuseppe Silos,
Vita del Venerabile Servo di Dio D. Francesco Olimpio
dell’Ordine de’ Cherici Regolari, Messina: Paolo
Bonocotta, 1664, Naples: Salvatore Castaldo,
1685, 40.
51 Michel De Certeau, The Mystic Fable, Vol. I. The
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Chicago, 1992, 7.
52 De Certeau, The Mystic Fable, 80.
151
8
PATRONAGE, STANDARDS AND TRANSFERT
CULTUREL: NAPLES BETWEEN ART HISTORY
AND SOCIAL SCIENCE THEORY
NICOLAS BOCK
As the only kingdom on Italian soil, Naples ought to have occupied a more
prominent place in history and art history. This is not the case and unfortunately
Naples has never really found its place in ‘official’ art history. The reason for this
is simple: Naples is different. Dealing with Neapolitan art in relation to Italian art
in general is often problematic because the most important Neapolitan artists of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries came from elsewhere – their works thus
belong to non-Neapolitan traditions. On the other hand, local traditions do not
seem to have exerted much influence on important places of artistic production
like Florence or Rome. Is Naples therefore to be classified as peripheral to Italian
mainstream art?
In order to determine the position of Naples as a centre or periphery it is
important first to consider the demand for artistic models used in- and outside
the city. The use of imported foreign artistic ideas should be seen in relation to
local traditions. Cultural importation can be interpreted as a proof of modernity
and innovation, fruitful for the local artistic scene. However, it can also be seen as
provincial behaviour typical of smaller, less powerful centres. Important centres
establish their own traditions and export them. If one wants to know why foreign
artists and their works were brought to Naples, one must ask why local artists and
local artistic traditions were only strong enough to withstand foreign imports for
a limited period of time. How does the Neapolitan importation of art relate to
other centres, such as Florence, Milan, or Rome?
Two moments in the history of Naples seem to be especially suitable for this
type of analysis. The first is the period c. 1300, when Naples had become the
capital of the Angevin empire, a large city and an international metropolis. The
French invaders had established themselves in their new lands for nearly two
generations and had become an integral part of the social structure of the
kingdom. Naples was the centre of administration and the residence of the royal
family, and artistic commissions had a high social prestige. The second stage,
nearly a hundred years later, was the period of transition from the Neapolitan
Anjou to the Spanish Aragonese, with the short intermezzo of the French King
René d’Anjou between 1435 and 1442. During this second period, the interests of
some of the most important states of the Mediterranean focused on Naples.
152
PAT R O N A G E , S TA N D A R D S A N D T R A N S F E R T C U L T U R E L
C E N T R E A N D P E R I P H E R Y: F R O M C A S T E L N U O V O A N D G I N Z B U R G T O D A C O S TA K A U F M A N N The interrelationship of cultural centres is of great importance for the creation of
revolutionary new art and its spread to the inferior periphery. This has been
discussed by several prominent art historians: Kenneth Clark (1962), Enrico
Castelnuovo with Carlo Ginsburg (1979) and Thomas da Costa Kaufmann (1995).
Kenneth Clark described the history of art as a chronological sequence of
metropolitan centres in which styles and artistic ideas were created and from
whence they diffused into the periphery. Enrico Castelnuovo and Carlo Ginsburg
refused to accept the definition of artistic evolution as an untroubled sequence of
phases, and proposed instead a process of conflict. Their aim was to integrate the
results of stylistic criticism into a broader narrative approach, including histor
ical as well as geographical aspects.1 Both authors argued convincingly that the
problem is much more complex than had been envisioned by Clark and should
include geographical, political, economical, religious and artistic issues.2
However, they concentrated mostly on towns of northern and central Italy in the
early modern period, scarcely touching the middle ages or internationally
oriented court societies such as Naples. Thomas da Costa Kaufmann underlined
the essential role of ‘court, cloister and city’ for art production, consumption and
cultural diffusion.3 However, he bases his arguments mainly on examples from
early modern central Europe, and it is questionable whether his approach can
also be applied to Italy during the late middle ages. A re-examination of this
question is therefore necessary in order to assess the importance of Naples as a
prominent example of an artistic centre and to understand its relationship to
other centres, such as Florence or Rome. I propose that, in order to do so, models
of centrality developed in the social sciences must be taken into account. The
World System Theory developed by Immanuel Wallerstein in the late 1970s offers
an especially interesting approach to the evaluation of exchanges in a polycentric
system.4 The methodological discussion of this theory by Hannerz and Sassen in
the 1990s allows for the inclusion of cultural phenomena and for the adaptation
of this theory to art-historical questions.5
Castelnuovo’s and Ginzburg’s definition of a centre reflected debates of the
1970s. They criticized the rather simplistic point of view expressed by Kenneth
Clark and developed a more complex model of the relationship between centre
and periphery in art history.6 In their view, a place with a great density of artists,
artefacts and clients does not necessarily define an artistic centre, which must
also be a centre of artistic innovation. In contrast, the periphery can be char
acterized by a certain delay (scarto) in artistic development as well as by the
presence of self-perpetuating dynasties of artists or foreign artists, who are not
competitive outside their own town or region.7 The authors emphasized the
competitive element found in the relationship between artists and patrons as
well as between different centres. In contrast to earlier monocentric theories,
common since Vasari, they underlined the fact that Italy was characterized by
polycentricity. They compared this situation to a ‘club’ where one has to be
admitted and where the competition between the different members has to
follow certain rules.8 In short, they emphasized the social dimension, discussing
centrality in terms of competition between patrons and artists for the most
innovative artworks.
153
A more recent discussion of this issue is offered by Thomas DaCosta Kauf
mann.9 Basing himself mainly on the writings of George Kubler and Fernand
Braudel,10 Kaufmann underlined the importance of geographical factors as a
category that should be given equal importance to chronology in any art-histor
ical assessment. He therefore proposed a ‘Geography of Art’ that is both opposi
tional and complementary to the traditional ‘History of Art’.11 Kaufmann traced
the origins of geographical concepts in art history back to antiquity. However, he
gave particular attention to two more recent schools of thought: firstly, the
German tradition of Kunstgeographie, with its very problematical political and
nomothetical methodological implications; and secondly, the more ideographical
French concept of géographie humaine, as inspired by the works of Henri Focillon
and Lucien Febvre.12
For a definition of centrality, Kaufmann based his explications on a flexible
model with the centre at its core, surrounded by a region called a periphery at the
outer edges of the region.13 In order to define further the characteristics of a
centre, he referred to Arnold Toynbee’s definition: ‘metropolises are great in the
sense that they have made a mark on the subsequent history of civilization.’ Thus,
Kaufmann underlined the importance of culture in defining a centre, as opposed
to a concentration of political functions and economic success. He foregrounded
the double cultural role of a centre as a magnet for a wider common cultural
entity (koiné) and as a radiating point for the dissemination of cultural values
into the surrounding regions. Centres, for Kaufmann, have a civilizing function.
But how is it possible to measure culture? Kaufmann implicitly equated art with
culture when he traced the production and export of art in different regions of
Central Europe. This multifaceted method promises interesting results when
applied to Neapolitan art.
I M P O R T A N D E X P O R T I N N E A P O L I TA N A R T I N T H E F O U R T E E N T H A N D FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
The history of Naples is packed with an impressive number of events involving
murder, love and betrayal. However, there were also significant periods of political
stability and cultural flowering, such as the long reigns of Robert the Wise (1309–
43) and Alfonso the Magnanimous (1442–58). The most interesting moments for
this discussion, though, are the preceding periods of transition. They allow the
opportunity to analyse the origins of artistic currents before they become firmly
established. Two periods will be briefly presented and analysed here: the time
around 1300, when the Angevin rulers began to invest more broadly in cultural
life; and that around 1400, when Naples saw the rapid succession of three
dynasties to the throne, each asserting its rule by different artistic means.
Charles I’s (1266–1285) main sphere of interest was architecture.14 He parti
cipated directly in several building campaigns and probably had personal contact
with the architects.15 Several of them acquired important positions like provisor
or prepositus operum (they were also in charge of castles and defensive architecture)
and became members of the royal familia with the status of a vallectus (valet). The
French clergyman Petrus de Chaulis, who had been the supervisor of the royal
workshop since c. 1270, was responsible for all questions concerning archi
tecture.16 Written sources as well as the style of the buildings provide informa
154
tion about the attempt to import not only French masons and workmen but also
the French style in architecture, and to pass French technical know-how to local
craftsmen.17 The local architectural tradition of the regno was not up-to-date
enough for the demands of the new Angevin rulers, who were accustomed to the
high standards and gothic innovations of their home country. For this reason,
they chose not to continue the previous Hohenstaufen style with its many
references to the antique.
The situation changed rapidly under Charles II (1285–1309).18 Demand for
luxury goods, together with expenditure, was increasing rapidly. Under Charles I,
the production of illuminated manuscripts had fallen far below the Hohen
staufen level both in quality and in quantity.19 But under Charles II, manuscript
production, especially French romances, increased. The twenty-three manuscripts
of this period still extant today form the largest surviving group of Italian
medieval illuminated manuscripts.20 Both the royal family and Neapolitan court
society helped to establish Naples as a centre of manuscript illumination and this
type of widespread patronage remained characteristic of Naples under Robert of
Anjou (1309–1343). After Robert’s return from Avignon in 1324 production
increased. Later, manuscript illumination reached a new peak in the 1350s and
1360s under the rule of Joanna I of Naples (1343–82).21 Naples became an
autonomous centre of manuscript illumination of international importance. But
no real export seems to have taken place. There was no impact outside the city,
and no periphery existed. The importance of Naples is, however, defined by
international competition, for instance, with the distant French court.22
The rule of Charles II was equally important for panel painting. Painters did
not play any major role under Charles I, but his successor invited to Naples artists
like Montano d’Arezzo and Cavallini (c. 1250–1330), from Arezzo and Rome
respectively, and gave them positions as court artists.23 Not only were foreign
artists integrated into Neapolitan court society, there was also a shift in respon
sibilities in court administration relating to artistic projects. Under Charles I,
Petrus de Chaulis had occupied a position shaped specifically for him. However, by
the time of Charles II’s reign his role had been institutionalized by the creation of
the office of the cambellanus (chamberlain). The cambellanus was not only the
keeper of the king’s jewels and responsible for all the king’s public appearances,
but also the prefect of all royal castles, strongholds and constructions.24 With the
establishment of this institution, art and artist had found their place at court and
were an integral part of courtly representation. This kind of development
required wide acceptance and it indicates how much the formerly foreign French
nobility had established itself in the kingdom and mingled with the old local
families.
The Church also rapidly developed large-scale artistic aspirations. A good
example is provided by the construction of Naples Cathedral, begun in 1294.
Under the guidance of the bishops of Naples, it became a major centre for the selfrepresentation and promotion of the Neapolitan nobility and clergy.25 As in other
Neapolitan church projects of the same period, construction included a large
number of private chapels. The chapels in the most privileged positions to either
side of the main apse were dedicated to the two apostles Peter and Paul, while the
adjacent chapels to either side proclaimed episcopal tradition and the power of
the bishops as well as that of the nobility. In contrast, the Angevin royal family
155
was confined to an architecturally independent chapel with some less prestigious
funeral monuments because their principal burial ground was still in Provence.
The culmination of the building project was reached, as Serena Romano has
shown, by archbishop Umbert d’Ormont (d. 1320) who created a sophisticated
chapel program, which stressed the long tradition of Naples as an episcopal see
going back to early Christian times.26 This development led to the archbishop’s
own funeral monument being decorated with a portrait, presumed to be the first
one since antiquity. In this way art production was highlighted through the
revival of a local tradition that could be seen in the catacombs of Naples.
Beginning with the monument to Catherine of Austria in 1323, the Angevins
looked for international models for their funerary monuments.27 For political
reasons, they referred to developments in other centres of power, namely to the
imperial monuments in Pisa (Henry VII, d. 1313) and Genoa (Margaret of Brabant,
d. 1311), which Robert the Wise had seen en route from Avignon.28 Another
model for the royal monuments was offered by the sarcophagi of saints, which
were elevated on columns. To construct the new monuments of the royal family,
artists like Tino di Camaino from Tuscany were hired to come to Naples. It is not
too speculative to draw the conclusion that the tradition of episcopal monuments
with their reference to antiquity and local Neapolitan tradition was abruptly
contrasted with the new type of royal funeral monuments, this Angevin model
then setting the new standard for the nobility, varying only according to financial
and political power. The local non-royal model, though equally innovative, was no
longer appreciated.29
The situation c. 1300 can thus be summarized as follows: court and church
both invited artists from outside Naples. The city does not appear to have offered
either a strong enough local tradition or enough skilled artists to be able to meet
demand by carrying out works to a high standard and translating the required
representational needs into new forms.30 Patrons were able to choose between
different iconographical and representative traditions such as those embodied in
episcopal and royal or imperial monuments. The royal family chose models that
could compete on an international stage – with the curia in Avignon, with the
imperial funeral monuments in Pisa and Genoa, and with the French court –
whilst the episcopal tradition referred to Rome and, internally, to Naples.
However, patrons in Naples had little choice among local artists and workshops.
Artists were mostly hired from outside the city, and there does not appear to have
been very much competition between different artists at the Neapolitan court.
Strong royal rule and the tight bonds between the Angevins and the nobility were
probably the reasons that royal monuments became the main models for the
nobility, eclipsing local and episcopal alternatives.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Naples changed its status: having
been an important locality in the European periphery it became a centre which
exerted influence on other regions. Despite this, the importation of art works and
luxury goods still exceeded exportation and there was no real local periphery
around the city. Because of the political organization of the kingdom with the
Neapolitan court as a centre of a supra-regional area, the nobility did not invest
much in the surrounding regions or in their places of origin.31 Within the city,
though, the nobility played an important role in the increasing competition to
reinforce social status through artistic representation. Naples thus became a
156
.
regional artistic centre with a kind of ‘Speckgurtel’
(region of economic strength
around a city) around it.32
As artistic production increased, Naples underwent a process of standardi
zation and selection. This is clearly shown in the evolution of funeral monu
ments. Imported Angevin taste and the models brought in from Tuscany, the
north of Italy and France rejected references to the antique in the local tradition.
It is possible to understand this process as one of ‘modernization’ in the form of
the introduction of gothic art. It can therefore be interpreted as an international
form of artistic innovation. The royal family aimed at an international level of
acknowledgement (Anspruchsniveau) and at recognition within the ‘club’, as
Castelnuovo and Ginzburg would have expressed it.33 In turn, the nobility
imitated royal models and played an important role by enlarging supply and
demand in the art market.
This situation changed when, a hundred years later, the Angevins (now
represented by the Anjou-Durazzo branch of the family) survived one of the most
difficult periods in their history. Having repelled a series of French invasions, the
Angevins were able to return to the once-rebellious city of Naples.34 Within the
next few years, the situation improved rapidly. The young king, Ladislas of Anjou–
Durazzo (d. 1414), extended the northern border of his kingdom as far as Perugia,
and even tried to re-establish his former claim to the Hungarian crown.35 This
political consolidation was accompanied by a new cultural flowering in Naples.
After the long years of civil war, palaces, funeral monuments and churches were
once again built and richly decorated, this time in the international gothic style.
The most important artist at this time, Antonio Baboccio (1351–post-1421), came
from outside Naples.36 Only a very few traces remain of other sculptors, and their
works are not of the same artistic quality.37
Artistic interest in Naples began to shift more and more towards antiquity
without, however, abandoning the elegance of international gothic. Initially, it
manifested itself in the insertion of single motifs, but it soon became program
matic and integral. This important step can first be observed in 1415 in the bell
tower of the Pappacoda Chapel where several antique marble gravestones were
inserted, enhanced by a black stone frame (plate 1). This museum-like display
publicly demonstrated the ancient origins – the vetustas – of the family, which,
ironically, had been en-nobled only shortly before by King Ladislas. The existence
of humanist circles in Naples, which were in direct contact with artists and
patrons, is proved by inscriptions at a very early date. Antique capital letters
appear in Naples as early as 1406 in the founding inscription of the Palazzo Penna
(plate 2), whereas they are used only much later in Florence in the works of
Donatello and Ghiberti.38 This Neapolitan humanist tradition reached its peak in
the 1420s and led to a classicizing style in sculpture. The frame of the doorway of
San Giovanni a Carbonara (plate 3) and the funeral monument to Ser Gianni
Caracciolo in the same church are the most revealing examples (plate 5–7).
Reference to the antique is not a phenomenon unique to Naples – similar orna
mentation to that on the doorway of San Giovanni Carbonara can be seen in the
slightly earlier Fonte Gaia by Jacopo della Quercia in Siena (1414–19; plate 4) – but
it is representative of international taste and learning in aristocratic society.
The monument to Ser Gianni Caracciolo shows the close association between
international gothic and humanist circles. One need only compare the telamones
157
1 Antique gravestone, framed and inserted into the bell tower of San
Giovanni dei Pappacoda, framed in 1415. Naples: San Giovanni dei
Pappacoda. Photo: Author.
2 Inscription recording the foundation of the Palazzo Penna, 1406. Naples: Palazzo Penna. Photo: Author.
158
3 (Left) Detail of church portal, after 1441. Naples: San Giovanni a Carbonara. Photo: Author.
4 (Right) Detail of Jacopo della Quercia, Fonte Gaia, 1414–19. Siena. Photo: Section d’histoire de l’art, UNIL, Lausanne. 5 Funeral monument of Ser Gianni Caracciolo, before 1432. Naples: San
Giovanni a Carbonara. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
159
with the copies of figures from the
destroyed cycle of the uomini famosi
painted by Masolino, an artist closely
association with the international
gothic, for Cardinal Orsini in Monte
Giordano in 1432 (plate 8). On the
other hand, the substitution of the
traditional caryatids or telamones in
the form of virtues by profane histor
ical figures referring to a private
family mythology is a typical renais
sance choice.
The patrons of these works were
mostly members of the Neapolitan
6 Detail of the sarcophagus from funeral
nobility and of the court, not of the
monument of Ser Gianni Caracciolo, before
1432. Naples: San Giovanni a Carbonara. Photo: royal family. The nobility demanded
innovative works of art. Royal fune
Author.
rary monuments no longer set the
standard for nobility as they had in the
trecento. The monuments to the royal
private secretary Antonio Penna (c.
1410/12; plate 9), to the admiral Ludo
vico Aldomoresco (1421; plate 10), and
to the chancellor Ser Gianni Carac
ciolo show a surprisingly great variety
of styles, types and programs which
cannot be explained by a simple de
velopmental model. They bear witness
to a conscious search for different
types of stylistic, programmatic and
representative expression.
Within the sphere of influence of
the Kingdom of Naples, two kinds of
peripheries existed. In the north – that
is in the provinces of Latium, Umbria
and the Abruzzi – local centres of
power acted in a more international
field, contrary to those in the south
like Calabria and Basilicata. This
‘better’ northern periphery was served
by a series of minor artists. Among
them, Paolo Romano is the most
eminent.39 He maintained particu
larly close contacts with the work
shops in Naples and used the same
ornaments as Antonio Baboccio.
7 Detail showing a telamones from funeral
monument of Ser Gianni Caracciolo, before 1432. Neapolitan models were varied and
Naples: San Giovanni a Carbonara. Photo: Author. adapted to the needs and require
160
ments of local nobility as far away as Todi
(Umbria). By the fifteenth century, therefore,
Naples was a centre with a widespread artistic
radiation surpassing its political borders.
After Antonio Baboccio left Naples for Messina
around 1421, no local artist was able to attain a
similar dominant position in the art production of
the city. The workshop active in San Giovanni a
Carbonara found itself facing rivalry from newly
imported artists and trends from Tuscany. Once
again foreign artists brought new ideas and inno
vations not congruent with local artistic tradi
tions. In 1428, Queen Joanna II of Anjou-Durazzo
sought out Tuscan sculptors to make the funerary
monument for her brother and predecessor Ladi
slas of Anjou-Durazzo in San Giovanni a Carbonara
(plate 11).40 Surprisingly, she did not hire the
workshop with humanist and antiquarian 8 Leonardo da Besozzo, copy of
tendencies working at the same time and in the Masolino da Panicale, King Nius,
same church on the doorway and on the monu- c. 1430. Rome: Palazzo Orsini (now
ment of Ser Gianni Caracciolo. She sent instead for destroyed). From the Crespi
foreign masons from Tuscany.41 These second-rank Chronicle, fol. 1v. Milan:
Tuscan artists sculpted and constructed a huge Crespi-Morbio Collection. Photo:
monument which, following her wishes and Author.
financial resources, took as a model the monu
ment made for Robert the Wise (d. 1343) in Santa Chiara (plate 12). As a royal
monument it promised more prestige than the humanist antiquarian Neapolitan
current of sculpture. Once again the royal ‘apparatus’ became a model for
subsequent commissions by the nobility despite its artistic weaknesses. This can
be seen, for example, by a comparison of the caryatids from the tomb of King
Ladislas of Anjou-Durazzo (plate 13) with those of the Miroballo monument by
Jacopo della Pila e Tommaso Malvito in San Giovanni a Carbonara (plate 14), or
those of the monument to Antonio Carafa in San Domenico Maggiore (plate 15).
Another important commission was the funerary monument to Cardinal
Brancaccio (d. 1427) sculpted by the Donatello – Michelozzo workshop in Pisa and
assembled in the cardinal’s private family church, San Michele Arcangelo, which
he had founded around twenty years before (plate 16).42 This monument is one of
the most eminent examples of Florentine taste in Naples and had a great impact
on local art production as shown, for example, by comparison with the funerary
monument to Antonio Carafa (d. 1438) by Jacopo della Pila in San Domenico
Maggiore. The cardinal, a learned man who travelled extensively during his life,
had originally indicated in his testament two works by Antonio Baboccio as
models for his church and funerary monument.43 For him, the Neapolitan
version of international gothic evidently stood for good taste and represented
Naples as a modern cultural centre and international city. The decision to have
the monument produced by Donatello and Michelozzo was made by the Flor
entine Medici bank, which was responsible for its realization, and for which they
commissioned local Florentine artisans.
161
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, therefore, Naples was a supraregional centre. The artistic models developed in the capital and the interna
tional gothic style were adopted far beyond the surrounding periphery of the city
as shown, for instance, by the works of Paolo Romano. At the same time, a
humanist culture had developed rapidly within the nobility of the royal court and
expressed itself in antiquarian tendencies in art. Within this artistic current, the
patronage of the royal family did not have great relevance. The leading artists
active in this period in Naples either came from outside the kingdom or had
previously worked there. There is no sign of any competition between different
9 (Above) Antonio Baboccio, sarcophagus of Antonio Penna (d. 1409/10), 1410–12. Naples. Santa
Chiara. Photo: Author.
10 (Below) Antonio Baboccio, sarcophagus of Ludovico Aldomoresco, 1421. Naples: San Lorenzo
Maggiore. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/Archivio dell’Arte.
162
11 Marco and
Andrea da
Firenze, funeral
monument of
King Ladislas of
Anjou-Durazzo
(d. 1414), 1428.
Naples: San
Giovanni a Carbo
nara. Photo: r
Luciano Pedicini/
artists and their workshops. Rather, the market seems to have been dominated by
a few court artists.
However, royal commissions did become influential again. This development
manifests itself still most clearly during the reigns of René of Anjou (1435/8–41)
and Alfonso of Aragon (1442–58). René of Anjou brought with him some of the
first Netherlandish artists to work on Italian soil, such as Barthélemy d’Eyck and
Pierre de Billant.44 Alfonso of Aragon began a hispanization of Naples though his
transfert culturel was not as radical as the French ‘cultural imperialism’ of the
first Angevins.45 He brought with him new artists and a new taste. He ensured
that his fier familier and pintor de camera, Jacomart, was always present at court
and appointed him two years later (1443) ‘pintor parra todas las terras e señorios
del monarca’.46 The king also adapted himself to the new international frame
work of his rule by calling upon the most renowned Italian international gothic
artists.47 In order to have an equestrian statue like the one he could see every day
on the funerary monument of Ladislas of Anjou-Durazzo, and like several
condottieri of the regno had had made for themselves, Alfonso attempted to make
163
12 Pacio and Giovanni Bertini, funeral monument of King Robert the Wise
(d. 1343), 1343–45. Naples: Santa Chiara. Photo: r Alinari Archives, Florence.
Pisanello and Donatello come to Naples, albeit without success. With the help
of Cosimo de’ Medici, in 1456 he was successful in hiring some of Donatello’s
pupils to work, if not on the equestrian statue, at least on the triumphal arch
which formed the monumental entrance to the king’s residence in Castel Nuovo
(plate 17).48
The ‘Florentinization’ of Neapolitan sculpture in the following years is
well known. One of Cosimo de’ Medici’s great diplomatic successes had been
the introduction of the Florentine style into Naples. The commission of the
funeral monument for Cardinal Brancaccio and the diplomatic correspondence
between Florence and Naples about Fra Filippo Lippi’s painting, which the
Medici had sent to Naples, bears witness to the importance given to these
messengers of Florentine gusto (plate 18).49 In both commissions, the artists
adapted themselves to the exigencies of courtly taste. Indeed, Lippi’s retable was
164
characterized by Oertel as exception
ally lavish and ‘gothic’ in taste. This
kind of artistic dialogue was to
become a pattern in Florentine diplo
macy.50 Cosimo de’ Medici did not
hesitate systematically to supply Flor
entine artists to other Italian courts in
a way that might be termed conscious
cultural politics.51 The propagation of
Florentine art was one of the most
secure means of assuming cultural
supremacy and of dominating the
competition amongst other courts.
T H E O R I E S O F C E N T R A L I T Y: CULTURE AND ECONOMY
How do these Neapolitan develop
ments fit into modern theories of
centrality? Florence was a centre,
fulfilling all the requirements listed by
Castelnuovo and Ginsburg. The 13 Detail showing the Caryatid of Magnanimity
production and export of art works from Marco and Andrea da Firenze, funeral
occupied an important place in Flor monument to King Ladislas of Anjou-Durazzo
entine economics.52 Important artists (d. 1414), 1428. Naples: San Giovanni a Carbo
from the surrounding areas moved nara. Photo: The Conway Library, Courtauld
into Florence while major Florentine Institute of Art, London.
artists were ‘lent’ to other cities. Most
importantly, there was stiff competition between the artists themselves as well as
between the patrons. On the contrary the most important criteria of centralism –
concentration and competition of artists as well as exportation of art works – are
not met in the case of Naples where a few artists appear to have dominated
available patronage without significant competition between workshops. Both
Castelnuovo and Ginsburg, however, operate with categories of different levels.
There were ‘typical’ cities, such as Florence, Siena or Venice, which had their own
strong artistic traditions and which produced art destined for export. There were
also less typical cities, such as Genoa, to which Castelnuovo and Ginzburg
attributed the role of a centre-relais due to the massive presence of foreign
artists.53 While the economic approach of Castelnuovo and Ginzburg provides a
convincing explanation for the pre-capitalistic nature of art production in some
middle Italian communities, it offers no explanation of its ‘failure’ in other
places. One reason is that although both authors were well aware of the different
territorial organization of the polycentric north in comparison to the oligocentric
south of Italy, they did not differentiate between city-states and court society.54 In
addition, they did not pay enough attention to the fundamental differences
between various ‘members of the club’. In what way, for instance, did fifteenthcentury contemporaries differentiate between Naples and Florence? Was the
importing of art an acknowledgement of cultural inferiority?
165
14 (Left) Detail of the Caryatid of Temperance from Jacopo della Pila and Tommaso Malvito,
funeral monument of the Miroballo family. Naples: San Giovanni a Carbonara. Photo: The
Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London.
15 (Right) Detail of the Caryatid of Temperance from Jacopo della Pila, funeral monument of
Antonio Carafa (d. 1438), 1440s/1480s. Naples: San Domenico Maggiore. Photo: The Conway
Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London.
The same problem is apparent in the model proposed by DaCosta Kaufmann.
As he measures the strength of cultural emanation in terms of artistic produc
tion, his definition of centrality relies mainly on economic criteria. Economies
with lesser art production are judged to be of inferior artistic importance.
According to these criteria, Naples would have to be seen as a centre which
dominated the regno and its adjacent regions, that is, those spheres under its
political influence, with its artistic production. On a more international
(although still Italian) level, Naples would occupy only a peripheral position when
compared to artistic evolution elsewhere. This model does not contribute
anything to a deeper insight into the historical situation.
But what are the theoretical grounds on which these models are based? Are
there any new approaches in sociology which could help resolve the difficulties
encountered? Historically, research on problems of centrality has gained impor
tance since the 1930s.55 Definitions and hierarchies of centres became one of the
main interests within the academic disciplines of geography and history.56 In
1933 Walter Christaller developed the ‘central-places-theory’ as a systematic
166
16 Donatello and Michelozzo,
tomb of Rinaldo Brancaccio,
1426–33. Naples: Sant’Angelo a
Nido. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/
approach to the relationship between cities and their surrounding areas, using
the dialectic terms of centre/periphery for the first time to characterize different
regional structures.57 This systematic approach became more and more impor
tant in the following years, eventually replacing the older, purely descriptive
approach to geography which focused on physical phenomena.58 The creation of
a hierarchy of centres was first accomplished by the so-called ‘telephone-method’
where the number of telephones in each place served as a quantifiable indicator
for its ranking. In the 1970s it was replaced by better-differentiated methods.59
New factors were introduced, in order better to understand the different
processes of centralization and peripheralization. Economic interests do not give
sufficient explanation either for general developments or specific historical
events either in the modern period or in relation to Neapolitan court society of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Socio-cultural and socio-economic aspects,
as well as those relating to communication and interpretation, gained in
importance. It is therefore not surprising that new theories of centrality arose
primarily in the fields of economic geography,60 political economy,61 sociology62
and history,63 concentrating mainly on administrative functions. Art history also
used this approach, privileging the idea of the ‘Kunstlandschaft’ as a stylistically
recognizable area.64
Physical space was considered more and more as a purely fictive quality.
Distance was now to be mirrored in personal structures, and social aspects, as
167
17 Pietro da Milano, Domenico Gagini and Francesco Laurana, Triumphal
Arch, 1440s–1470s. Naples: Castel Nuovo. Photo: r Luciano Pedicini/
well as those relating to communication and interpretation, became relevant
factors of new theories.65 Centres were consequently defined as entities
containing social and political ruling classes. The highly communicative elites
pass their ideas on to the periphery, that is, to other groups of people more and
more distant and excluded from the inner communication circles. This theory of
transfer touched upon an important point of sociological research: the definition
of elites.
Under the growing influence of anthropology, cultural aspects came to be
considered more and more important.66 More subjective factors thus replaced
‘objective’ measurable economic parameters. The development of regional
discrepancies was linked to the invention and modification of standards by a
centre.67 Centres were now seen as developing norms of interpretation and
possessing interpretative power. These norms are reflected in visible hierarchies,
168
18 Reconstruction of the altarpiece by Filippo Lippi sent to Alfonso I of
Aragon, 1456–58. Photo: Author.
that is, in the status of the people involved. This approach therefore focuses on
the dynamics of the relationship between centre and periphery.68
Recently, this dynamic has resulted in research on urbanism in various
disciplines. Cities are no longer regarded as being contained solely in a national
framework. They are now seen as nodal points in an international network of
‘world cities’,69 relating thus to the Marxist-orientated World System Theory.70
However, economic and cultural analyses and theories, such as those of Sassen
and Hannerz respectively, are contradictory within this context.71 Cultural
theories, which are of more relevance here, differentiate between cities with a
strong orthogenetic cultural tradition and those with a heterogeneous, and in
many respects, imported culture.72 The strongest characteristic of these ‘world
cities’ is their cultural leadership as they ‘offer a variety of dernier cri’.73 As
Hannerz points out, there are a number of reasons for this.74 Firstly, there is the
inherent tendency of the market framework towards diversification based on
competition and innovation. However, competition and innovation are not the
result of economic obligations but are consciously sought after. They rely on
intention and willpower to produce new cultural values.75 Furthermore, there is
a concentration of ability. As Hannerz argues: ‘The world cities draw, surely not
all, but presumably a greater than average proportion of, ‘‘the best and the
brightest’’ ’.76 Residing in one of these cities increases the market value of
everyone concerned with cultural production. Finally, their cultural diversity
makes these cities into a destination of choice. The international relationships
found in these cities operate on different social layers. They can be created by a
mixing of populations of different origin as well as by internationally active
managers and by their networks.
169
N A P L E S A G A I N – A N D S O M E Q U E S T I O N S A B O U T PAT R O N A G E
The criteria described above provide the key for a definition of Naples as a ‘world
city’ in its time. They discard the narrow view of artistic production functioning
independently within a national framework of pure economics, and propose
instead an analysis of the city within an international cultural web. The impor
tance of sociological discussions for the discipline of art history lies, furthermore,
in the differentiation between the economics of production and the establish
ment of cultural standards. It is not the production of art which is important but
its consumption. This assumption permits the inclusion of the role of court
societies into the discussion of centrality. The importation of foreign artists and
works of art is therefore not primarily a sign of cultural weakness but a sign of an
intentional cultural enrichment and an essential foundation for freedom of
choice, which is one of the criteria defining a centre. Naples and Assisi, for
instance, are the only places in Italy where the works of Simone Martini (c. 1280/
85–1344) and Giotto (c. 1266–1337) exist side by side.
This model of cultural diversity leads us to a new evaluation of Naples as a
centre of art. The importation of foreign artists to Naples demonstrates the
patrons’ search for what can be defined as the dernier cri or most up-to-date
fashion. The diffusion of artistic production should not be used as the only
criteria for centrality, as proposed by Castelnuovo and Ginzburg. Strong artistic
traditions could radiate into the periphery but they might still seem rather
provincial.77 The criteria Hannerz set forth for a cultural definition of a world city
can be applied as convincingly to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Naples as to
modern cities. The incongruities between the culturally and economically based
theories on today’s world cities also provide an explanation as to why the purely
economically orientated centre – periphery model of Castelnuovo and Ginzburg is
unable to explain either the artistic situation in Naples or its importance.
These contemporary theories open a different view on the diffusion of
‘models’, ‘taste’ or, sociologically speaking, ‘standards’. The export of Florentine
art and artists to Naples and other aristocratic courts was not a one-sided affair. It
was balanced by the ‘import’ of ideals and standards from the aristocratic courts
of Italy and Avignon to Florence and its rulers. This is shown by two examples of
Florentine art and patronage. When Florence temporarily became the pope’s
residence at the beginning of the fifteenth century a wave of internationally
renowned artists arrived, attracted by the opportunity to compete for new and
highly prestigious commissions.78 These migrant artists adhered to the interna
tional gothic style and represented courtly refinement and luxury. They did not
remain long in Florence but soon departed elsewhere. Their artistic impact,
though, was to be felt for a long time. The second example is characterized by
Giovanni Previtali as a return to feudalism (svolta neofeudale) and concerns direct
Medici patronage.79 Cosimo de’ Medici was clearly more interested in those
artists who had already gained international recognition than in artists who
could only be defined as Florentine. Members of the Medici family chose to give
their patronage to Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi and Benozzo Gozzoli rather than
Paolo Uccello or Andrea del Castagno.80 Artists with a refined and aristocratic
taste were clearly preferred to those with a more radical style.81
The dynamics of patronage needs to be studied with more attention to
sociological methods.82 This applies both to the presence of knightly, aristocratic
170
and royal ideals and standards in Florentine83 and Neapolitan patronage. It is
especially important for Naples, where this type of research still lags behind.84
Art-historical research has always stressed the important role of the king as arbiter
elegantiarum and royal commissions have therefore been seen as the driving force
of artistic development in Naples. Patrons from other social ranks, from the
nobility or the clergy, have not received their due attention – neither those of the
first half of the fourteenth nor those of the beginning of the fifteenth century.
How did political relations between specific groups of patrons influence the
decision for or against an artist, a style or a model? The complex dynamics of
patronage are, one may conclude, a question of polycentricity, not only geogra
phically but also socially.85
Notes
I would like to thank Hanno Scholz for helpful suggestions regarding sociological
problems. Digby Thomas and Lynne Peuker helped me with the English version of
this text. Thanks are extended to Luciano Pedicini (http://www.pedicinimages.
com) for the provision of images. Earlier versions of this chapter were delivered
at the conference ‘Napoli è tutto il mondo. Arte Napoletana e Cultura Europea dall’U
manesimo all’Illuminismo’, held in the American Academy in Rome in 2003, and in
the sessions, Import/Export: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the Kingdom of
Naples 1266–1568, at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference in San
Francisco in 2006. Special thanks go to the editors, Janis Elliott and Cordelia Warr,
for their encouraging support.
1 Enrico Castelnuovo and Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Centro
e periferia’, in Storia dell’arte italiana. vol. 1. Questioni e metodi, Turin, 1979, 283–352, 285, n. 3. for
the citation of Kenneth Clark, ‘Provincialism’,
The English Association Presidential Address, London,
1962.
2 Martin Wackernagel, Der Lebensraum des K.unstlers
in der florentinischen Renaissance, Leipzig, 1938.
More recently, Werner Jacobsen, Die Maler von
Florenz zu Beginn der Renaissance, Munich and
Berlin, 2001.
3 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister and
City. The art and culture of Central Europe, 1450–1800,
Chicago, 1995.
4 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System. I.
Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the Euroean
World-Economy in the sixteenth Century. II. Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World
Economy, 1600–1750. III. The Second Great Expansion of
the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730–1840s, New York,
San Francisco and London, 1974, 1980, 1982.
5 See, for example, Saskia Sassen, The Global City.
New York, London, Tokyo, 2 vols, Princeton, 1991/
2001; Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy,
Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi, 1994; Ulf
Hannerz, Cultural Complexity. Studies in the Social
Organization of Meaning, New York, 1992; Ulf
Hannerz, ‘The Cultural Role of World Cities’, in
Anthony P. Cohen and Katsuyoshi Fukui, eds,
Humanising the City? Social Contexts of Urban Life at
the Turn of the Millennium, Edinburgh, 1993, 67–84.
6 Castelnuovo and Ginzburg, ‘Centro e periferia’,
286, n. 4, explicitly underline the opposition
between their ‘conflictual model’ and the
consensual model proposed by Edward Shil,
Center and Periphery. Essays in Macrosociology,
Chicago, 1975. N. McKenzie, ‘Centre and
Periphery: The Marriage of Two Minds’, Acta
Sociologica, 20: 1, 1977, 55–74. For the discussion
of the succession of economic periods they refer
to Daniel Chirot, Social Change in a Peripheral
Society. The Creation of a Balkan Economy, New York,
1976. Also Daniel Chirot, Social Change in the
Twentieth Century, New York, 1977.
305ff., 320–5. The choice of the expression scarto,
which signifies a sudden lateral displacement
from a given trajectory, aims at avoiding a
negative connotation of anything outside the
artistic mainstream developments, that is, the
current artistic language.
298 ff. The view of Federico Zeri is slightly more
simplistic. He argues against a current ‘discri
171
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
mination’ in art history between a number of
interdependent minor and major centres
(regardless of how different they might be) and
the rest of Italy as peripheral. Consequently, he
argues that it will be necessary to overcome all
these differentiations in order to arrive at an allembracing and all-Italian art history. Federico
Zeri, ed., Inchieste su centri minori, Turin, 1980, XLV.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, ‘Das Problem der
.
Kunstmetropolen im fruhneuzeitlichen
Ostmit
teleuropa’, Evamaria Engel, Karen Lambrecht
and Hanna Nogossek, eds, Metropolen im Wandel.
. in Ostmitteleuropa an der Wende vom
Zentralitat
Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, Berlin, 1995, 33–46.
Georges Kubler, The Shape of Time, London, 1962;
Fernand Braudel, The Perspective of the World, vol.
3, Civilization and Capitalism, New York, 1984;
Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean in the Age of
Philip II, New York, 1972.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Towards a Geography
of Art, Chicago and London, 2004.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, ‘Introduction’, in
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Elizabeth
Pilliod, eds, Time and Place. The Geohistory of Art,
Burlington, VT, 2005, 1–9, 8–9.
Kaufmann, Geography of Art, 155.
Caroline Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, New
Haven and London, 2004. Caroline Bruzelius, ‘Ad
modum Franciae: Charles of Anjou and Gothic
Architecture in the Kingdom of Sicily’, Journal of
the Society of Architectural Historians, 50, 1991,
402–420.
Especially important are the stonemason Petrus
de Angicuria and the carpenter Johannes de
Tullo. Ernst Pitz, ‘Das Aufkommen der Berufe des
Architekten und Bauingenieurs’, Quellen und
Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Biblio
theken, 66, 1986, 40–74; Lorenz Enderlein, ‘Der
.
Kunstler
und der Hof im angevinischen Neapel’,
in Tanja Michalsky, ed., Medien der Macht. Kunst
zur Zeit der Anjous in Italien, Berlin, 2001, 61–77,
here 62.
On Petrus de Chaulis (Pierre de Chaules), see
Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples, 31, 201, 204.
Christian Freigang, ‘Kathedralen als Mendi
kantenkirchen. Zur politischen Ikonographie der
Sakralarchitektur unter Karl I., Karl II. und
Robert dem Weisen’, in Michalsky, Medien der
Macht, 33–60, 38.
In architecture, Freigang, ‘Kathedralen’, 39 f., 47,
49, speaks of a ‘Paradigmenwechsel in der
Architekturikonographie’. According to him, the
churches built under Charles II of Anjou are to
be seen as an intentional continuation of southItalian building traditions and as a concious
refusal of innovation.
Charles I of Anjou bought a version of the Roman
de Godefroi de Bouillon and ordered two other
books of uncertain content to be written. No
more is known of his library. Alessandra Perri
cioli Saggese, I romanzi cavallereschi miniati a
172
20 Andreas Br.am, ‘Illuminierte Breviere. Zur
Rezeption der Anjou-Monumentalkunst in der
Buchmalerei’, in Michalsky, Medien der Macht,
295–317.
21 Andreas Br.am, ‘Neapolitanische Bilderbibeln des
Trecento. Ein Beitrag zur Anjou-Buchmalerei’,
Ms. Habil., Freiburg im Breisgau, 1999.
22 The role of the court as a model is made explicit
by the reference to a ‘missale secundum
consuetudine regiae curiae’ in the missal now in
the Bibliotheca Nazionale in Naples (ms. I.B.22)
dated about 1282/3. Perricioli Saggese, I romanzi
cavallereschi, 71.
23 Serena Romano and Nicolas Bock, eds, Le chiese di
San Lorenzo Maggiore et San Domenico Maggiore: gli
ordini mendicanti a Napoli, Naples, 2004, especially
Pierluigi Leone de Castris, ‘Montano d’Arezzo a
San Lorenzo’, 97–125; and Alessandro Tomei,
‘Qualche riflessione sull’attività napoletana di
Pietro Cavallini: nuovi dati sulla cappella Bran
caccio in San Domenico Maggiore’, 126–43.
24 Leon Cadier, Essai sur l’administration du royaume
de Sicile sous Charles I et Charles II d’Anjou, Paris,
1891, 213–28. Camillo Minieri-Riccio, Cenni storici
intorno i grandi uffizi del regno di Sicilia dal 1265–al
1285, Naples, 1872, 159–61. Beginning with the
reign of Charles I of Anjou, members of the
middle class could more easily obtain the status
.
of a familiaris. Enderlein, ‘Der Kunstler’,
71, n. 24.
25 Serena Romano and Nicolas Bock, eds, Il Duomo di
Napoli dal paleocristiano all’età angioina, Naples,
2002, especially Serena Romano, ‘La cattedrale di
Napoli, i vescovi e l’immagine. Una storia di
lunga durata’, 7–20; Caroline Bruzelius, ‘Ipotesi
e proposte sulla costruzione del Duomo di
Napoli’, 119–31; and Nicolas Bock, ‘I re, i vescovi e
la cattedrale: sepolture e costruzione architetto
nica’, 132–47.
26 Serena Romano, ‘Die Bischöfe von Neapel als
Auftraggeber. Zum Bild des Humbert d’Ormont’,
in Michalsky, Medien der Macht, 191–224.
27 Lorenz Enderlein, Die Grablegen des Hauses Anjou in
Unteritalien. Totenkult und Monumente 1266–1343,
Worms, 1997; Tanja Michalsky, Memoria und
.
Reprasentation.
Die Grabm.aler des Ko¨nigshauses
Anjou in Italien, Göttingen, 2000; Nicolas Bock,
Kunst am Hofe der Anjou-Durazzo. Der Bildhauer
Antonio Baboccio (1351–um 1423), Berlin and
Munich, 2001.
28 On Tino da Camaino’s tomb of Henry VII, see
Gert Kreytenberg, ‘Das Grabmal von Kaiser
Heinrich VII. in Pisa’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistor
ischen Instituts in Florenz, 28, 1984, 33–64. On
Giovanni Pisano’s tomb of Margaret of Brabant,
see Max Seidel, ‘Studien su Giovanni di
Balduccio und Tino de Camaino’, St.adel Jahrbuch,
n.s. 5, 1975, 37–84. Max Seidel, ed., Giovanni Pisano
a Genova, Genoa, 1987.
29 This situation can be compared with England
where, for the building of Westminster Abbey, a
French architect was chosen. This represents a
consciously sought break with the local English
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
tradition from the beginning of the thirteenth
century, as exemplified by Lincoln and Canter
bury. Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plan
tagenets. Kingship and the Representation of Power
1200–1400, New Haven and London, 1995, 49.
I refer here to the medieval idea of repraesentatio,
which can relate to different forms of action as
well as to certain dimensions of the perception
of reality. It is, therefore, much more than a
sumptuous mise en scène of rule and political
power and includes visual reference to abstract
concepts. See Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel,
eds, Höfische Repr.asentation. Das Zeremoniell und die
.
Zeichen, Tubingen,
1990.
There are exceptions in the case of a few noble
families with important political positions, such
as the Sanseverino in Mercato Sanseverino and
Teggiano, the Sangineto in Altomonte, and the
Del Balzo-Orsini in Galatina.
See, for instance, the funeral monuments in
Nola (Orsini), Mercato Sanseverino (Sanseverino),
or Caserta Vecchia (de la Rath).
The international orientation of courtly
patronage is one of the standards or ideal para
meters within art theory: Filarete sought the
best craftsmen in every field from all Europe for
the realization of Sforzinda. Antonio Averlino
detto il Filarete, Trattato di architettura, eds Anna
Maria Finoli and Liliana Grassi, 2 vols, Milan,
1972, vol. 2, 249, 251. Martin Warnke, Hofku. nstler.
Zur Vorgeschichte des modernen K.unstlers, Cologne,
1985, 118.
For the history of Naples, see Benedetto Croce,
History of the Kingdom of Naples, trans. F. Frenaye,
Chicago, 1970.
The claim is based on the succession of the
Angevins to the Hungarian throne, first de jure by
the marriage of Charles II of Anjou to Mary of
Hungary in 1269 and then de facto since 1308 by
the rule of Charles II’s grandson Charles Robert
(Charles I of Hungary, d. 1342).
Bock, Kunst am Hofe, passim.
For works by other artists in Naples at the
beginning of the fifteenth century see Bock,
Kunst am Hofe, cat. nos 16–20.
A further development in the revival of antique
lettering is found in 1410/12 on the funerary
monument of the owner of Palazzo Penna, the
royal secretary Antonius de Penna. For Florence,
it seems that it was first Ghiberti (on the north
doors of the Baptistery, 1424), then Donatello (on
the funeral monument to Giovanni Pecci in
Siena cathedral), who introduced antique capital
letters into sculpture. See Bock, Kunst am Hofe,
190–7, 204–7 with further reading. Among the
painters who used renaissance capital letters
Gentile da Fabriano (Adoration of the Magi, 1423)
and Masaccio (Cascia Triptych, 1422) should be
specially noted. See Anna-Silvia Göing, Masaccio?
Die Zuschreibung des Triptychons von San Giovenale,
.
Hildesheim, Zurich
and New York, 1996, 33;
Dario Alessandro Covi, ‘Lettering in Fifteenth-
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
Century Florentine Painting’, Art Bulletin, 45,
1963, 1–17.
Cristina Pasqualetti, ‘Paolo da Gualdo Cattaneo:
uno scultore umbro a Roma e nel Lazio agli inizi
del Quattrocento’, Paragone, 103/104, 2001, 12–46.
Francesco Abbate, ‘Il monumento a Ladislao di
Durazzo’, in Le vie del marmo. Aspetti della produ
zione e della diffusione dei manufatti marmorei tra
Quattrocento e Cinquecento, Florence, 1994, 17–22.
For the history of the commission, see Roberto
Paolo Ciardi, ‘ ‘‘Ars marmoris’’. Aspetti dell’or
ganizzazione del lavoro nella Toscana occi
dentale durante il Quattrocento’, in Niveo de
marmore, exhib. cat., Sarzana, 1992, 341–9.
Nicolas Bock, ‘Antiken- und Florenzrezeption in
Neapel. 1400–1450’, in Klaus Bergdolt and
Giorgio Bonsanti, eds, Opere e giorni. Studi su mille
anni di arte europea dedicati a Max Seidel, Venice,
2001, 241–52.
Ronald W. Lightbown, Donatello and Michelozzo. An
Artistic Partnership and its Patrons in the Early
Renaissance, 2 vols, London, 1980, vol. 1, 83–127.
Lightbown, Donatello, II, Appendix B, 294 for the
funeral and 296 on the decoration.
They were preceded by Jan van Eyck who passed
through Naples in 1426 on his way to Jerusalem.
For a good overview, see Till Holger Bochert,
‘Mobile Maler. Aspekte des Kulturtransferts
.
zwischen Sp.atmittelalter und Fruhneuzeit’,
in
Till Holger Borchert, ed., Jan van Eyck und seine Zeit.
Fl.amische Maler und der S.uden, 1430–1530, exhib. cat.
(Bruges, 2002), Stuttgart, 2002, 33–45, esp. 43–5.
The term transfert culturel is borrowed here from
anthropology. It has been applied to antiquity as
well as to German–French relations in the
eighteenth century by Michel Espagne and
Michael Werner. See Marc-Adélard Tremblay, ‘Le
transfert culturel: Fondement et extension dans
le processus d’acculturation’, in Anthropologica 4,
2, 1962, 293–320; Laurier Turgeo, Denys Delâge
and Réal Quellet, Transferts culturels et métissages
Amérique/Europe, XVI–XXe siècle, Paris 1996;
L’horizon anthropologique des transferts culturels,
Revue Germanique Internationale, 21, 2004.
‘Painter of all the lands and dominions of the
king’. Most recently on pictorial culture in
Naples between René d’Anjou and Alfonso, see
Quattrocento aragonese. La pittura a Napoli al tempo
di Alfonso e Ferrante d’Aragona, exhib. cat., Naples,
1997.
For instance, Leonardo da Besozzo from Milan,
who was named his familiaris and pictor camere
domusque nostre.
George L. Hersey, The Aragonese Arch at Naples, 1443–
1475, New Haven, 1973; Hanno-Walter Kruft and
Magne Malmanger, ‘Der Triumphbogen Alfonsos
in Neapel: das Monument und seine politische
Bedeutung’, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium
historiam pertinentia, 6, 1975, 213–305, here 283.
The painting was begun after 12 May 1456 and
completed before 27 May 1458. The two wings
with SS. Anthony Abbot and Michael are in the
173
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
Cleveland Museum of Art, (nos. 64.150 and
64.151), the drawing showing the Adoration of the
Christ Child is by an anonymous Florentine
(London, British Museum no. 1860-6-16-4) and
presumably reflects the centrepiece. The sketch
of the frame is drawn by Lippi in a letter written
to Giovanni de’ Medici 20 July 1457 (Florence,
Archivio di Stato, MAP, f. VI c. 255). Jeffrey Ruda,
Fra Filippo Lippi. Life and Work with a Complete
Catalogue, London, 1993, 194–9, pls 113, 114, cat.
no. 49, 442–4. Megan Holmes, Fra Filippo Lippi. The
Carmelite Painter, New Haven and London, 1999,
155–6.
It was a pattern followed by his successors.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, for instance, sent Filippino
Lippi to Rome, Antonio Pollaiuolo to Milan and
Giuliano da Sangallo to the Duke of Calabria.
That Naples offered a promising market for
Florentine art is shown by the tax declaration
(catasto) of the painter Piero di Massaio in 1458
which indicates that he sent ‘4 Nostre Donne
picholine’ to Naples to be sold there on commis
sion. Jacobsen, Maler, 152, 624. See also Gino
Corti and Frederick Hartt, ‘New Documents
Concerning Donatello, Luco and Andrea della
Robbia, Desiderio, Mino, Uccello, Pollaiuolo,
Filippo Lippi, Baldovinetti and Others’, Art
Bulletin, 44, 1962, 155–67, about the art merchant
Bartolomeo di Paolo Serragli trading with
Naples.
.
Warnke, Hofkunstler,
65. See already Johann
Wolfgang Goethe, Leben des Benventuo Cellini, eds
Hans-Georg Drewitz and Wolfgang ProX, Frank
furt, 1998, 492.
Jacobsen, Maler, 65, states that the number of
painters amounted to two thirds of bakers or
butchers, in any case, many more than smiths or
innkeepers.
The word centre-relais could be translated as a
‘centre and stopover for travellers’ and was
chosen to account for the position of Genoa
between France and Italy. Castelnuovo and
Ginzburg, ‘Centro e periferia’, 344.
Castelnuovo and Ginzburg, ‘Centro e periferia’,
303.
Ulf Hannerz, ‘Center–Periphery Relationships’,
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Beha
vioral Sciences, Amsterdam, 2001, vol. 3, 1610–13.
The theories of centrality used by modern
historical science are difficult to apply to
medieval art history because of their specializa
tion on administrative and political functions.
Helmut J.ager, ‘Zentraler Ort, Zentralit.at’, Lexikon
des Mittelalters, 9 vols, Stuttgart and Weimar,
1999, vol. 9, 541–3 with bibliography.
Walter Christaller, Die zentralen Orte in
.
Suddeutschland.
Eine
¨konomisch-geographische
o
.
die Gesetzm.
Untersuchung uber
aX igkeit der Verbrei
tung und Entwicklung der Siedlungen mit st.
adtischen
Funktionen, Jena, 1933, re-edn Darmstadt, 1986;
Walter Christaller, Das Grundger.ust der r.aumlichen
Ordnung in Europa. Die Systeme der europ.aischen
zentralen Orte, Frankfurt, 1950. His theory was to
174
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
have a significant resonance especially in poli
tical aspects in regards to democratic legitima
tion. Keith S.O. Beavon, Central Place Theory: A
Reinterpretation, London and New York, 1977.
Ernst Neef, ‘Die zentralen Orte als Glied der
Kulturlandschaft’, in Tagungsbericht Deutscher
Geographentag 1951, Remagen, 1952, 149–53; Peter
Weber, ed., Periphere R.aume.
Strukturen und
Entwicklungen in europ.aischen
Problemgebieten,
.
Munster,
1979, esp. the introduction, 5–8.
.
Eugen Wirth, ‘Zum Problem der Nord-Sud
Gegens.atze in Europa’, in Jahrbuch f.ur fr.ankische
Landesforschung (Festschrift f.ur Otto Berninger) 23,
1963, 138–54, who intergrated political and
historical as well as climatic-physiographic
factors in his analysis. Eugen Wirth, Theoretische
Geographie. Grundzu. ge einer theoretischen Kulturgeo
graphie, Stuttgart, 1979; Peter Schöller, ed.,
Zentralit.atsforschung, Darmstadt, 1972.
Ludwig Sch.atzl, Wirtschaftsgeographie 1. Theorie,
.
Paderborn, Munich, Vienna and Zurich,
[1981]
1992, 141–7; G. Schmidt-Renner, Elementare
Theorie der ¨konomischen
o
Geographie, Gotha and
Leipzig, 1966; Stein Rokkan et al., eds, Centre–
Periphery Structures in Europe. An ISSC Workbook in
Comparative Analysis, Frankfurt and New York,
1987; Karl Stiglbauer, ‘Die Entwicklung
hochrangiger Zentren als Problem der ZentraleOrte-Forschung’, Zum System und zur Dynamik
hochrangiger Zentren im nationalen und inter
nationalen MaX stab, Frankfurt 1989, 9–32.
Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Under
development in Latin America, New York, 1967.
Wallerstein, The Modern World-System.
Emil Meynen, ed., Zentralit.at als Problem der
mittelalterlichen Stadtgeschichtsforschung, Cologne
and Vienna, 1979; Neithard Bulst, Jochen Hoock
and Franz Irsigler, eds, Bevölkerung, Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft. Stadt-Land-Beziehungen in Deutschland
und Frankreich 14.–19. Jahrhundert, Trier, 1983;
Peter Johannek, ed., Vortr.age und Forschungen zur
Residenzbildung, Sigmaringen, 1990; Hans Hein
rich Nolte, ed., Internal Peripheries in European
History, Göttingen, 1991.
Especially the much older question about the
role of geography and Kunstlandschaft in art
history, discussed mainly in German art-histor
ical reserarch. Castelnuovo and Ginzburg,
‘Centro e periferia’, 285, n. 2, with a small
bibliography. For further indications, see
‘Kunstgeographie’, Lexikon der Kunst, 7 vols,
Leipzig, 1992, vol. 4, 126 ff., Wolfgang Schmid,
‘Kunstlandschaft, Absatzgebiet, Zentralraum.
Zur Brauchbarkeit unterschiedlicher Raumkon
zepote in der kunstgeographischen Forschung’,
in Uwe Albrecht and Jan von Bonsdorff, eds, Figur
und Raum, Berlin, 1994, 21–34.
Edward Shils, The Intellectuals and the Powers,
Chicago, 1972; Edward Shils, Center and Periphery,
Chicago, 1975; Brian Goodall, ‘Peripherality’, in
The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography,
Harmondsworth, 1987, 350.
66 Bernard Cohn, An Anthropologist among the
Historians and other Essays, Delhi, 1987, 78; R.
Redfield and M. Singer, ‘The Cultural Role of
Cities’, Economic Development and Cultural Change,
3, 1954, 53–73.
67 Thomas Schwarze, Die Entstehung peripherer R.aume
in Deutschland. Regionale Images in der Sp.atphase des
.
Alten Reiches und Untergang ‘uberlebter’
Territor
.
ialstrukturen um 1800, Munster,
1995, 7
68 For the resistance and adaptation of cultural
models pertaining to centre or periphery, see
Nikos
Hadjinicolaou,
‘Kunstzentren
und
periphere Kunst’, kritische berichte, 11: 4, 1983, 36–
56; Liah Greenfeld and Michel Martin, eds, Center.
Ideas and Institutions, Chicago and London, 1988.
69 Ulf Hannerz, Exploring the City, Chicago, 1980;
Hannerz, ‘The Cultural Role of World Cities’; Ulf
Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People,
Places, London, 1996; G. Dematteis, ed., Urban
Networks, Bologna, 1995; Walter Prigge, ed.,
Peripherie ist u. berall, Frankfurt am Mainz and New
York, 1998.
70 Daniel Chirot, Social Change in the Twentieth
Century, New York 1977; Daniel Chirot, ‘World
Systems Theory’, International Encyclopedia of the
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2001, 16609–13;
David Snyder and Edward L. Kick, ‘Structural
Positions in the World System and Economic
Growth, 1955–1970: A Multiple-Network Analysis
of Transnational Interactions’, American Journal of
Sociology, 84: 5, 1979, 1096–1126. The beginnings
of the World System are seen in the sixteenth
century by Wallerstein, Modern World System.
71 Sassen, The Global City; Sassen, Cities in a World
Economy. For the anthropological, culturalist
point of view, see primarily Hannerz, Cultural
Complexity; Hannerz, ‘The Cultural Role of World
Cities’. See also Anthony D. King, ‘Re-presenting
World Cities: Cultural Theory/Social Practice’, in
Paul L. Knox and Peter J. Taylor, eds, World Cities in
a World System, Cambridge, 1995, 215–31.
72 Robert Redfield and Milton Singer, ‘The Cultural
Role of Cities’, Economic Development and Cultural
Change, 3, 1954, 53–73; Hannerz, ‘The Cultural
Role of World Cities’, 66 ff; Marina Dmitrieva
and Karen Lambrecht, eds, Krakau, Prag und Wien.
Funktionen von Metropolen im fru. hmodernen Staat,
Stuttgart, 2000, especially the article by Matthias
Middel, 15–51.
73 Hannerz, ‘The Cultural Role of World Cities’, 77.
The expression dernier cri designates the ultimate
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
developments and is normally applied to ques
tions of fashion.
Hannerz, ‘The Cultural Role of World Cities’,
69–73.
See Liah Greenfeld, Different Worlds. A Sociological
Study of Taste, Choice and Success in Art, Cambridge,
New York and Melbourne, 1989.
Hannerz, ‘The Cultural Role of World Cities’, 77.
One has only to think of the funeral monuments
of the nobility in the second half of the four
teenth century built in the areas surrounding
Naples. See above nn. 29, 30.
Jacobsen, Die Maler, 67 ff., 198 ff., 239 ff.
Giovanni Previtali, ‘La periodizzazione della
storia dell’arte italiana’, in La storia dell’arte
italiana, I. Questioni e metodi, Turin, 1979, 3–95, 40.
Jacobsen, Die Maler, 313, argues that Donatello
had to go to Padua in 1443 to work at the church
of Sant’Antonio because the Medici did not give
him any patronge.
Ernst H. Gombrich, ‘Die Medici als Kunstm.azene.
.
.
Ein Uberblick
uber
die Zeugnisse des 15. Jahr
hunderts’, Die Kunst der italienischen Renaissance, 3
vols, vol I. Norm und Form, Stuttgart, 1985, 51–78.
.
Warnke, Hofkunstler,
67, speaks of a stylistical
mood suitable also to courtly taste.
Everett M. Rogers and F. Floyd Shoemaker,
Communication of Innovations. A Cross Cultural
Approach, New York and London, [1962] 1971;
Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, New York,
[1962] 1995.
.
Max Seidel, ‘Die Kanzel als Buhne’,
in Bewgeg
nungen. Festschrift f.ur Perter Anselm Riedl zum 60.
Geburtstag, Worms, 1993, 28–34; Lorenz Böninger,
Die Ritterw.urde in Mittelitalien zwischen Mittelalter
.
und Fruher
Neuzeit, Berlin, 1995; Stephen J.
Campbell and Stephen J. Milner, eds, Artistic
Exchange and Cultural Translation in the Italian
Renaissance City, Cambridge, 2004, esp. the article
by Bruce Edelstein, 187–220.
But see, for instance, the research of Rosalba di
Meglio, Il convento francescano di San Lorenzo di
Napoli, Salerno, 2003.
Peter Burke, ‘Decentering the Renaissance. The
Challenge of Postmodernism’, Stephen J. Milner,
ed., At the Margins. Minority Groups in Pre-Modern
Italy, Minneapolis, 2005; Peter Burke, The
European Renaissance: Centers and Peripheries,
Oxford, 1998.
175
INDEX
Note: page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Abbate, Francesco 76
all’antica architecture 83, 84–96
see also Palazzo Carafa
Alagno, Mariano d’, tomb of 77, 77
Albert of Hapsburg 51–2
Alberti, Leon Battista 87, 102
De re aedificatoria 92–3, 94–5
Aldomoresco, Ludovico, sarcophagus of 160,
162
Alfonso I of Aragon 7, 8–9, 75, 76, 95,
163–4
Triumphal Arch 17, 66, 66–7
Alfonso II of Aragon 16
Alfonso V of Aragon 6, 7, 7–8
Alvarez de Toledo, Pedro 9, 10
tomb of 11, 16
and Vasari 28, 30, 31
Ammanati, Bartolommeo 20
Andrea del Castagno 170
Angelico, Fra 170
Angevin dynasty 1, 2–3, 11, 51–4
and
and
and
and
all’antica architecture 85
art history 152, 154–65
Cavallini 38, 39, 40, 44–5, 49, 53
Giotto 38, 39, 40, 45, 48–9, 53
and the papacy 51–2, 54
tomb monuments 62–5, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70, 76
Antonella da Messina 8
Aquinas, Thomas 77, 139
Summa Theologica 102
Aragonese rule in Naples 1, 6–9, 11, 85, 152
Aristotle 112
Nicomachean Ethics 102
176
art history and Naples 152, 153–4
Auxerre, Milet d’ 141
Baboccio, Antonio 157, 160, 161
Baldi, Antonio 139
Barbaro, Zaccaria 85, 89
Barolsky, Paul 18
Barone, Antonio, Vita di Santa Domenica 137,
138
Baxandall, Michael 62
Bellini, Giovanni 20
Belverte, Pietro 72
Besozzo, Leonardo da, King Nius 161
Beyer, Andreas 92
Billant, Pierre de 163
Blois, Treaty of (1504–05) 9
Boccaccio, Giovanni 4
Bock, Nicolas 6, 84
Bologna, San Michele in Bosco 22
Bologna, Ferdinando 18, 45
I Pittori alla Corte Angiona di Napoli 4, 18
Book of Psalms 102
Borghini, Raffaele, Il Riposo 110
Borromeo, Charles 117
Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesias
ticae 112–13, 115
Boschetto, Luca 93
Bourdichon, Jean, Madonna and Saints 9
Bracamonte, Gaspar de 10
Brancaccio, Julia 72
Brancaccio, Rinaldo, tomb of 65, 65–6, 72, 75,
161, 164, 167
Brancaccio, Tommaso, tomb of 71, 72, 73, 74
Braudel, Fernand 154
INDEX
Bretantino, Raymo 118
Brunelleschi, Filippo 20
church of San Lorenzo, Florence 116–17
Bruno of Cologne, St 111
Bruzelius, Caroline 49, 50, 53
The Stones of Naples 3
Caccini, Michelangelo 104
Calavarese, Marco (Cardisco) 21
Cambi, Tommaso 16
Campbell, Stephen 4, 39, 40, 46, 48–9
Capasso, Bartolommeo 19, 84
Capua, gateway of Frederick II 67, 91, 92,
96
Caracciolo, Cesare d’Engenio 10
Caracciolo, Ser Gianni, funeral monument of
157, 159, 160, 160, 161
Carafa, Antonio (Malizia), tomb of 72–4,
73, 75–6, 161, 166
Carafa, Diomede 1, 8, 16, 75, 85
tomb of 73, 76–7, 77
see also Palazzo Carafa
Carafa, Francesco 86–7
Carafa, Oliviero 17
Cardisco, Marco 16
Caro, Annibale 107
Carthusian religious order 111–12, 117–18,
119
Castelnuovo, Enrico 153, 157, 165, 170
Castel Nuovo 28
Capella Palatina 92
Giotto’s projects 45–6, 47
Triumphal Arch 17, 66, 66–7, 168
Castris, Pierluigi Leone de 45
Catalan influences 8
Cateau-Cambrésis, treaty of (1559) 112
Catherine of Austria, tomb of 4, 62–3, 63, 156 Catholic Church see Counter-Reformation
Italy
Cavallini, Pietro 3, 4–6, 23, 41–5, 49–51
and the Angevin dynasty 38, 39, 40, 44–5,
49, 53
Annunciation 41, 42, 42 Birth of John the Baptist and the Annunciation
44, 45
Christ Enthroned 40, 41–2
Last Judgement 40, 41–2
Noli me tangere 42, 43
St Thomas and a Prophet 42, 43, 45 Ceci, Giuseppe 19
Celano, Carlo 90
Centen, Dirck Hendricksz 9, 17
central-places-theory 166–9
Certosa di San Martino 28, 101, 102, 103, 117– 18
Charles of Calabria 63
tomb of 4
Charles I of Anjou 2, 39, 51, 53, 154–5
Charles II of Anjou 2, 3, 44, 49, 51, 53, 54, 63,
141, 155
Charles II, king of Spain 9
Charles of Maine 9
Christaller, Walter 166–7
Clark, Kenneth 153
classical antiquity, and all’antica architecture
84–5
Claudius, Emperor 105
Clement IV, Pope 51
Cornaro, Giovanni 20
Cortesio, Paolo 102
Corvino, Alessandro 29
Counter-Reformation Italy
church construction and remodelling 106,
112–13
frontispiece images of saints 125–48
Croce, Benedetto 19
cultural theories 168–9
Curia, Francesco 16
Daniello, Bernardino 29
Dante, Divina Commedia 45
del Riccio, Agostinio 107
Diocletian, Emperor 105
Domenica, St 137, 138
Dominici, Bernardo de 90
Donatello 6, 21, 23, 157, 164
Eucharistic Tabernacle door 92
tomb of Rinaldo Brancaccio 65–6, 72, 161,
167
Dosio, Giovanni Antonio 10–11, 101–2, 104
Certosa di San Martino 117–18
Chigi Chapel 107, 108–9, 112, 113, 114, 115
177
INDEX
church of the Gerolamini 113–16, 116, 117, 118, 119
Gaddi chapel 107, 109–10
and marble inlay 106–11
Niccolini chapel 107, 108, 110
Pantheon 107–8, 108, 109, 109 Elenora of Toledo 10, 30
Este, Leonello d’ 8
Eyck, Barthélemy d’ 163
Fabritio de Guido 118
Falcone, Niccolò, L’Intera Istoria di San Gennaro
129, 139, 140
familiaris title for artists 4, 7
and Cavallini 44–5
and Giotto 48
Fanzago, Cosimo, revetment, Certosa di San
Martino 101, 102, 103, 118 Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro 20
Febvre, Lucien 154
Felice, Felice de 118
Ferdinand of Aragon 102
Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany 117
Ferrante I of Aragon 9, 85, 95
Ferrara 8
Ferrucci del Tadda, Francesco 105
Fiamma, Galvano 102, 103
Filarete, Antonio 84, 89–90
Flemish artists 9, 17, 163
Florence 1, 4, 6, 11, 27
art and patronage 170
culture of inlaid marble 105–6
Gaddi chapel 107, 109–10
Medici Palace 89, 94
and Neapolitan architecture 83
and Neapolitan art 152, 165
and Neapolitan sculpture 164–5
Niccolini chapel 107, 108, 110, 110–11, 111
Palazzo Rucellai 87, 89, 93
Rucellai Chapel 93
San Lorenzo church 105, 106, 116–17
San Miniato al Monte church 67
Focillon, Henri 154
Frederick II, Emperor
178
gateway in Capua 67, 91, 92, 96 Liber Augustalis 96
Frederick IV of Aragon 9
Freedberg, Sydney, Painting in Italy 19
French rule in Naples 1
frontispiece images of saints 125–48
canonized saints in Vite 132–7
Neapolitan production of saints’ Lives 128–
32
Gaddi, Niccolò 104, 107
Gagini, Domenico 66–7, 76
Galateo, Antonio 7
Galeota, Giacomo Capece 132
Genoa 156, 165
Gentileschi, Artemisia 9
Gerolamini, church of the 113–16, 116, 117, 118, 119
Ghiberti, Lorenzo 157
Commentaries 38, 41
Giacomo della Marca, Blessed 132–4, 133, 144 Gianmatteo d’Aversa, Don 22
Giannone, Pietro 10
Ginzburg, Carlo 153, 165, 170
Giordano, Luca 9, 10
The Madonna of the Rosary 130–2, 131
Giordano, Onofrio di 17
Giorgione 20
Giotto 3, 4–6, 21, 23, 24, 45–55, 170
and the Angevin dynasty 38, 39, 40, 45,
48–9, 49, 53
Bust figure in a medallion 46, 46 Castel Nuovo audience hall 46, 47
familiaris status 48
Mourning figures 46, 47
uomini famosi cycle 46–8
Vasari on 38
Giovanni Barrile, Maestro di 4
Girolamo Maria di S. Anna, Istoria della Vita,
Virtù, e Miracoli di S. Gennaro 129, 139 ´tienne 141
Godefroyd, E
Gonzaga, Ludovico 85, 91
Gonzaga, Margherita 8
Gozzoli, Benozzo 170
Grazzini, Antonfrancesco (Il Lasca) 110–11
Gregory of Armenia, St 134–5, 136, 143 INDEX
Grimaldi, Francesco 142
Gualtieri, Giuseppe Giovanni, Vita del Glorioso
S. Pasquale Baylon 137, 137
Hartt, Frederick, History of Italian Renaissance
Art 19
Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor 51–2
Heydenreich, Ludwig 83
Holladay, Joan 50
humanism 157, 162
ionic portals 92–4
Palazzo Carafa 87, 88, 92, 93–4, 95, 96
illuminated manuscripts 155
Imparato, Giuseppe 129, 130
Ippolito of Milan, Don 22, 31
Jacopo della Pila
tomb of Diomede Carafa 73, 76–7, 77
tomb of the Miroballo family 166
tomb of Tommaso Brancaccio 71, 72, 73
Jacopo della Quercia 157
Januarius, St 129, 129, 139, 139–43, 140, 141,
144
Jews 11
Joan, Pere 17
Joanna I of Naples 4, 46, 155
Joanna II of Naples 6, 64, 75, 85, 161
Kaufmann, Thomas da Costa 153, 154, 166
Kelly, Samantha 39
Kohl, Benjamin 52
Kubler, George 104, 154
Labrot, Gérard 112
Ladislas of Anjou 157
tomb of 64, 64–5, 66, 85, 161, 162, 163, 165
Lama, Giovan Bernardo 16
Laurana, Francesco 8–9, 17, 66–7
Leo X, Pope 109
Lepanto, Battle of (1571) 11
Ligorio, Pirro 107
Lindquist, Sherry 49
Lippi, Filippo 164–5, 169, 170 Louis of Toulouse, Saint 3–4
Maccione, Father 115–16
magnificence 102–4
Maiano, Benedetto da 21, 72
Maiano, Giuliano da 16, 96
Malvito, Giovanni Tommaso 9, 16–17, 72, 76
tomb of Mariano D’Alagno and Caterinella
Ursina 77, 77 tomb of the Miroballo family 166
Manso, Giovanni Battista, Vita et Miracoli di S.
Patricia Vergine... 143, 143–4
Mantua 91
portal of San Sebastiano 92
manuscript illumination 155
marble inlay
cultures of 105–6
and Dosio 106–11
Marchese, Domenico Maria
Vita del Servo di Dio Fra Marco da Marcianis
132
Vita della venerabile Serva di Dio Suor Maria
Villani dell’Ordine de’ Predicatori 125, 126,
128–9
Maria of Aragon 8
Maria of Valois 4
Martini, Simone 170
Saint Louis of Toulouse panel 3–4
Mary of Antioch 39
Mary of Aragon, tomb of 72–4, 74
Mary of Hungary 2, 4
tomb of 63, 63 Medici, Duke Cosimo I de’ 10, 26–7, 30, 31, 85,
89
and marble inlay 105, 106
and Neapolitan sculpture 164, 165
and patronage 170
and Vasari 26–7, 30, 31
Medici, Lorenzo de’ 89
Medici, Pietro de’, studiolo in the Medici
Palace 89, 94
Michalsky, Tanja 6
Michelangelo 101, 107
Vasari’s biography of 24–6
Michelozzo 6
tomb of Rinaldo Brancaccio 65, 65–6, 72,
161, 167
Milan, and Neapolitan art 152
Miroballo family, tomb of 166
Montelupo, Raffaello 107
179
INDEX
Naples
Cappella Piccolomini church (S. Anna dei
Lombardi) 67, 68
as a cultural centre 2, 19
Duomo (Cathedral) 3, 42, 141–2, 142, 155–6
reasons for neglect of 1–2
rulers of 1, 2–12
San Domenico Maggiore 3, 24, 42
Cappella del Crocifisso 67–70, 68
tomb monuments 71, 72, 76–7, 78
San Francesco church 50
San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli church 10,
16
San Giovanni a Carbonara church 64–5,
70, 92, 157, 159, 161 San Lorenzo Maggiore church 3, 63
Santa Chiara church 46
Santa
Santa
Santa
Santa
Maria del Pianto church 10
Maria di Monteoliveto church 72, 74
Maria Donna Regina church 3, 63
Maria Incoronata church 4
Sant’Angelo a Nido church (also known as
Sant’Angelo a Nilo) 75, 92
Sant’Anna dei Lombardi church 17, 21, 22–
3, 23
Sant’Aspreno Chapel (Duomo) 3
View of Naples (Tavola Strozzi) 16, 17
as a world city 12, 24
Napoli, John Nicolas 10
Napoli Nobilissima 19
Neapolitan historiography 19
and the ‘southern question’ 84
Niccolini, Giovanni 107, 110
Nola, Giovanni da 16
tomb of Pedro Alvarez de Toledo and his
first wife Maria Ossovio Pimental 11
northern Italian artists 16–17
Oderisi, Roberto (also known as Roberto
d’Oderisio) 48
Man of Sorrows 4, 5
Olimpio, Francesco 145, 145, 147
Oratorian religious order 111–12, 113–15, 117,
119
Ordóñez, Bartolomé 17
180
Origlia, Gurello 21
Orsini, Cardinal 160
Ottoman Empire 11, 112, 119
Palazzo Bonifacio 92
Palazzo Carafa 17, 83, 86–96
barrel vault in the vestibule 88, 90
classicizing cornice 87, 90
column from spolia in the courtyard 91, 94
corbels 87, 89, 96 door-post mouldings 95
façade 85
ionic portal 87, 88, 92, 95, 96
loggia in the courtyard 88, 90
opus isodomum 87, 87, 89–91
piano nobile windows 87, 89, 91 properties incorporated in 86, 86–7
tower 87
Palazzo Gravina 17
Palazzo Penna 90, 91, 91 founding inscription 157, 158
panel painting 155
Paoletti, John, and Gary Radke, Art in Renais
sance Italy 19
papacy, and the Angevin kings 51–2, 54
Pappacoda Chapel 90–1, 93, 157, 158
Pasquale, St 137, 137 Patricia, St 143–4
patronage 170–1
Paul II, Pope 89
Pelta, Maureen 20
Penna, Antonio, sarcophagus of 160, 162
Perino del Vaga 28
Perrey, Nicolas 134
Perugino, Assumption of the Virgin with St
Januarius and Cardinal Oliviero Carafa 24, 26
Petrarch 4, 24, 29
Petroff, Elizabeth 146
Petrus de Chaulis 154, 155
Philip IV, king of Spain 10
Philip Neri, St 111, 115, 117
Pietro da Milano 8, 17, 72
Triumphal Arch at Castel Nuovo 66, 66–7, 168
Pimental, Maria Ossovio, tomb of 11, 16 Pino, Marco 9, 16
Pinturicchio 21
Pisa 156
INDEX
Pisanello 8, 164
medals of Alfonso V of Aragon 7, 7–8
Pitti, Don Miniato 22, 23, 31
Pius IV, Pope 107
Pliny, Natural History 102, 105
Poderico, Margherita 77
Poggio Reale (royal palace) 16
Polidoro da Caravaggio 21, 28–9
The Carrying of Christ 29, 30
Pontano, Giovanni 95, 102, 103, 104
porphyry 105–6
Porta Capuana 16
Previtali, Giovanni 18
Primario, Gagliardo 4, 63
Primo, Masucio 90
Pula, Roman arch in 67
Radke, Gary, and John Paoletti, Art in
Renaissance Italy 19
Ramón de Cardona, Viceroy 10
Raphael 28
Chigi Chapel 107, 108–9, 112, 113, 114, 115
Madonna del Pesce 24, 27
Regio, Paolo
La Vita del B. Jacopo della Marcha 132–4, 133
Vita di S. Honofrio Heremita 134, 135
Vita di S. Patricia Vergine 143, 144 religious foundations 17
religious orthodoxy 10–11
Renda, Felice, Vita et Obitus Sanctissimi
Confessoris Guilielmi 136–7, 137
René of Anjou 6, 8, 9, 152, 163
Ribera, Jusepe de 9
Robert of Anjou 2, 24, 39, 46, 54, 156
and Cavallini 44–5, 49, 50
and Giotto 48, 52
as Senator of Rome 52
tomb of 1, 85, 161, 164
Romano, Giulio 28
Romano, Paolo 162
Romano, Serena 53, 156
Rome 1, 4, 6, 10, 53, 54
Chigi Chapel 107, 108–9, 112, 113, 114, 115
culture of inlaid marble 105–6
and Neapolitan art 152
Palazzo della Cancelleria 20, 89
Sacrestia dei Beneficiati (the Vatican) 92
St Peter’s Basilica 92
San Pietro in Montorio, Del Monte Chapel
20
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere frescoes 40,
41–2
Santa Maria in Trastevere 41, 42
sewage systems of ancient 104
Sistine Chapel 106, 116
Vasari on 21
Rosa, Salvator 9
Rossellino, Antonio 21, 72
Rota, Bernardino 17, 28
Rucellai, Giovanni 85, 89
Ruotolo, Renato 101
Sabatini, Andrea 16
saints
canonizations of 127, 128
female 125, 126, 137, 138, 146, 147–8
frontispiece images of 125–48
Lives of 127, 128–32, 130, 146, 147
and Naples 138–44
would-be 144–7, 148
Sallmann, Jean-Michel 128, 144
Sancia, queen of Naples 46
Sangro, Nicolao de 68–9
Sangro, Placido 68
Sansovino, Jacopo 20
Sansverino, Roberto 17
San Salvatore Piccolo a Capua, Maestro di 4
Santa Maria di Monteoliveto (Sant’Anna dei
Lombardi) 21, 22, 22–3
Santacroce, Girolamo 16
Sarnelli, Pompeo 65
Schipa, Michelangelo 19
Second World War, damage to Neapolitan
archives 1
seggi, and Neapolitan renaissance tombs
70–2
Seggio di Capuana 70
Seggio di Nido 70
Serlio, Sebastiano, I sette libri dell’architettura
108
Sesto, Cesare da 17
181
INDEX
Sgambata, Scipione, Ragguaglio della vita di S
Francesco BoBorgia 136, 136 Siena 165
Silos, G., Vita del ven. Servo di Dio D. Francesco
Olimpio dell’Ordine de’ Chierici Reglari 145
Sistine Chapel 106, 116
Sixtus V, Pope 106
Smet, Cornelius de 9, 17
Società Napoletana di Storia Patria 19
Solimena, Francesco
images of St Januarius 129, 129, 139
Saint Januarius visited in prison by Saints
Proculus and Sossio 139–43, 141
southern question, and Neapolitan historio
graphy 84
Spanish Habsburg period 9–12, 11, 19, 24,
26–7
spolia, and marble inlay 105–6, 107
Stasio, Coluza di 17
Stefano, Pietro de 10
Strozzi, Filippo 89, 93–4
Talpa, Antonio 104, 113, 115–16, 117, 118
Tavola Strozzi (View of Naples) 16, 17
Thiboust, Benoı̂t 136 engraving of St Francis Borgia 134, 136
Tino di Camaino 4, 23, 62–3, 75, 156
Titian 20, 32
tomb monuments 4, 8, 11, 62–78, 156, 157
Antonio Carafa (Malizia) 72–4, 73, 75–6,
161, 166
Antonio Penna 160, 162
Catherine of Austria 4, 62–3, 63, 156 Diomede Carafa 73, 76–7, 77
and hybridity 78
Ladislas of Anjou 64, 64–5, 66, 85, 161, 162,
163, 165
Ludovico Aldomoresco 160, 162
Mariano d’Alagno and Caterinella Ursina
77, 77 Mary of Aragon 72–4, 74
Mary of Hungary 63, 63 Miroballo family 166
Rinaldo Brancaccio 65, 65–6, 75, 161, 164, 167
Robert of Anjou 1, 85, 161, 164
182
Sangro family chapel and tomb 67–70, 68, 69
and the seggi 70–2
Ser Gianni Caracciolo 157, 159, 160, 161 Tommaso Brancaccio 71, 72, 73, 74
Torbizi, Cleonte 144
Toynbee, Arnold 154
Tregli, Matteo 142
Trent, Council of see Counter-Reformation
Italy
Turboli, Severo 117, 118
Tuscan artists 6, 21, 23
tomb monuments 62–6
Uccello, Paolo 170
Umbert d’Ormont 156
Urban VIII, Pope 145
Urbino 91
Ursina, Caterinella, tomb of 77, 77 Vaccaro, Andrea 9, 10
Vargas, Luis 9, 17
on Naples 31–2
Vasari, Giorgio 8, 9, 17–32, 153
biography of Michelangelo 24–6
on Giotto and Cavallini 38, 41, 54
Lives of the Artists 1, 4, 17, 18, 18–23, 27–32,
52, 104, 105, 106
The Presentation in the Temple 23, 25
Ricordanze 22–3
Venice 165
Vasari on 20–1, 32
Verdelay, Guillaume de 141
Villani, Maria 125, 126, 145 Visceglia, Maria Antonietta 70
Visconti, Azzone 102, 103, 104
Vitale, Giuliana 70
Vitruvius, De architectura 87
Wallerstein, Immanuel 153
Warnke, Martin, The Court Artist 39–40, 49–
50, 54
William, St 136–7, 137
World System Theory 153, 169
Zanardi, Bruno 38

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