Architecture and Memory of Ancient Times: Renewal, Re-Use, Restoration in Seventeenth Century...

ALLA MODERNAAntiche chiese e rifacimenti barocchi: una prospettiva europea

Old Churches and Baroque Renovations: a European Perspective

a cura di Augusto Roca De Amicis e Claudio Varagnoli

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ISBN 978-88-7575-220-0

Euro 30,00

Curatori: Augusto ROCA DE AMICIS, ordinario di Storia dell’Architettura pressoSapienza Università di Roma; Claudio VARAGNOLI, ordinario di Restauro architettonico presso l’Università degliStudi “Gabriele d’Annunzio” di Chieti e Pescara.

Testi di: Irene GIUSTINA, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Dipartimento diIngegneria Civile, Architettura, Territorio, Ambiente e di Matematica; Augusto ROCADE AMICIS, Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Storia, Disegno eRestauro dell’Architettura; Valentina RUSSO, Università degli Studi di Napoli“Federico II”, Dipartimento di Architettura; Marco Rosario NOBILE, Università degliStudi di Palermo, Dipartimento di Architettura; Jörg GARMS, Universität Wien;Meinrad von ENGELBERG, Technische Universität Darmstadt, FachbereichArchitektur; Ulrich FÜRST, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Institut fürKunstgeschichte; Pavel KALINA, České Vysoké Učení Technickév Praze, FakultaArchitektury; Javier RIVERA BLANCO, Universidad de Alcalá, Escuela TécnicaSuperior de Arquitectura; Claudio VARAGNOLI, Università degli Studi “Gabrieled’Annunzio” di Chieti e Pescara, Dipartimento di Architettura; Alessandra MARINO,Soprintendenza Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Firenze, Pistoia e Prato

Le nuove istanze devozionali promosse dallaControriforma hanno dato luogo, tra il XVII e il XVIIIsecolo, a numerosi interventi di rinnovamento rivoltia importanti monumenti sacri: dalle basiliche romanealle chiese abbaziali e alle cattedrali gotiche di tuttaEuropa. Il forte potenziale simbolico di questi edifici e la volontà di mantenere una continuità - ideale e materiale - con l’esistente hanno dato luogo a unsingolare connubio tra il nuovo linguaggio barocco,con la sua forza unificante, e un’antichità non accettatanelle concezioni artistiche dell’epoca, ma di fattoaccolta e reinterpretata. Esigenze liturgiche, politiche odi statica dell’edificio hanno dato luogo a un’ampiacasistica di relazioni tra spazi, elementi strutturali e decorativi; un fenomeno per lungo temposottovalutato o letto attraverso le categorie del restauromoderno. Da quali valutazioni scaturivano le finalitàconservative in un orizzonte lontano dallo storicismo?Le motivazioni simboliche, pratiche, ideologiche di tali interventi hanno radici comuni o sono più forti le specificità delle singole realtà geoculturali? Rispetto a tali interrogativi questo libro, che raccoglietesti dei maggiori specialisti europei sull’argomento,offre un terreno comune di confronto, assieme a unariflessione sui rapporti tra progetto e preesistenza inun momento in cui la contemporaneità si interroga sulruolo da affidare al patrimonio architettonico e in cui si indebolisce la fiducia di un effettivo, profondorapporto con il nostro passato.

The new devotional instances between the Seventeenthand Eighteenth centuries, promoted by the Counter-Reformation, led to various interventions aimed atrenewing important sacred monuments: from theRoman basilicas to the abbey churches and Gothiccathedrals throughout Europe. The strong symbolicpotential of these buildings and the desire to maintaina continuity - both ideal and material - with the existingstructures gave rise to a unique marriage. The newBaroque language and its unifying nature, meet theChristian antiquity, rejected in artistic conceptions ofthe time, but actually accepted and reinterpreted.Liturgical and political requirements, or consolidationinstances, have resulted in a series of relationshipsbetween spaces, structural and decorative elements.This is a phenomenon which has long been underratedor understood only through the categories of modernrestoration. What were the evaluations that shaped theconservation purposes in a time far away fromhistoricism? Do the symbolic, practical, ideologicalreasons of such interventions have common roots ordoes the specificity of geo-cultural realities prevail?This book, which collects the texts of the majorEuropean specialists on the subject, provides acommon ground for comparison, together with areflection on the relationship between design andexisting architecture, in a time when the contemporarythought questions the role to be given to thearchitectural heritage, and when the confidence in areal, deep relationship with our past becomes weak.

cop Alla Moderna_2_corretta:cop Alla Moderna_2 19-03-2015 11:11 Pagina 1

alla moderna

roma 2015

alla modernaAntiche chiese e rinnovAmenti bArocchi:

unA prospettivA europeA / old churches And bAroque renovAtions: A europeAn perspective

a cura di / edited by

Augusto rocA de Amicis, clAudio vArAgnoli

© Copyright 2015editoriale artemide s.r.l.

Via angelo Bargoni, 8 - 00153 romaTel. 06.45493446 - Tel./Fax 06.45441995

[email protected]

Segreteria di redazioneantonella Iolandi

Impaginazionemonica Savelli

Copertinalucio Barbazza

In copertinaVienna, Chiesa dell’ordine Teutonico, facciata / Teutonic order Church, façade (S. Kleiner, 1733)

A pag. 2Sezze romano (lT), Cattedrale, l’abside medievale trasformata in facciata (sec. XVI-XVII) /

Cathedral, the medievale apse transformed into main façade

ISBn 978-88-7575-220-0

dipartimento di Storia, disegno e restauro dell’architettura, Sapienza Università di romadipartimento di architettura, Università “Gabriele d’annunzio” di Chieti e Pescara

università degli studi “g. d’Annunzio”

IndICe

Premessa 7Francesco Moschini

Introduzione - Introduction 9Augusto Roca De Amicis, Claudio Varagnoli

“riparare e restaurare”: confronto con la storia e interventi nelle chiese medievali a milano nel primo Seicento 19Irene Giustina

rinnovare le basiliche romane, prima e dopo San Giovanni in laterano 45Augusto Roca De Amicis

architecture and memory of ancient Times: renewal, re-Use, restoration in Seventeenth Century neapolitan Churches 69Valentina Russo

le cattedrali in Sicilia tra XVI e XVII secolo 99Marco Rosario Nobile

arredi liturgici e interventi architettonici nella Francia del Settecento 119Jörg Garms

Renovatio Ecclesiae Germanicae Nationis. The Baroque renovation of medieval Churches in the Holy roman empire 137Meinrad von Engelberg

Continuity and Innovation - modes of renewal in mediæval danubian Churches during the Baroque 159Ulrich Fürst

Space and Time: Some remarks on restorations of medieval Churches in 17th and 18th-Century Bohemia 193Pavel Kalina

renewal and Continuity in the Façades of Spanish Cathedrals during the Baroque 215Javier Rivera Blanco

new Basilicas from ancient ones: rome and Central Italy in the eighteenth Century 245Claudio Varagnoli

rifacimenti barocchi nelle chiese toscane: dagli interventi di rimozione alla ricostruzione storiografica 269Alessandra Marino

I temi trattati in questo volume, dedicato alle trasformazioni di antiche chiese av-venute nel XVII e nel XVIII secolo, sono stati affrontati in una giornata di studi inter-nazionale tenutasi all’accademia nazionale di San luca nell’ottobre 2013. Quell’in-contro ha costituito un primo momento di confronto a cui ha fatto seguito questa importante raccolta di saggi. la linea su cui si basa la costruzione logica e scientifica di tali studi, informata al rapporto tra progetto, continuità e trasformazione, tra pro-cessualità progettuale e interpretativa delle diverse fasi storiche del manufatto e dei suoi rifacimenti, risulta essere rilevante e, nel particolare, vicina a molte delle pro-blematiche costantemente affrontate dall’accademia nazionale di San luca. anche per questo la nostra Istituzione nell’incontro di ottobre non si è posta semplicemente come un auditore silente. e particolarmente significativa per il tema trattato è stata, a mio avviso, la cornice in cui la giornata di studi ha avuto luogo, nella sala conve-gni dell’accademia dominata dal dipinto San Luca dipinge la Vergine, tradizionalmente attribuito a raffaello. Si tratta in realtà di un’opera controversa che ha attraversato quattro secoli di storia: secondo la tesi di Claudio Strinati – diversa da posizioni di altri illustri conoscitori dell’opera di raffaello – si tratta probabilmente di una più tarda interpretazione voluta dagli Zuccari nel tentativo di ascrivere all’accademia una discendenza raffaellesca. anche questo quadro di portata simbolica per la nostra Isti-tuzione è quindi un palinsesto, date le successive trasformazioni compiute sino al XIX secolo, e ci aiuta a comprendere che quello trattato è un tema assolutamente conge-niale ai nostri orientamenti, insieme alla propensione internazionale che l’accademia ha sempre perseguito, sin dalle proprie origini.

Credo che dai contributi di questo libro possano scaturire alcune riletture di mo-menti qualificanti del dibattito all’interno della stessa accademia. noi siamo in fondo abituati a ritenere che la risposta più ovvia alla riforma Tridentina sia il manifesto rappresentato dalla chiesa romana del Gesù del Vignola. Pensare che ci siano tante e così importanti risposte diversificate a livello europeo, e che non si tratti di modelli astratti, ma di modalità operative che si applicano a realtà date, permette di cogliere il senso di una delle principali problematiche che hanno animato l’Istituzione: l’idea di contaminazione tra i saperi e tra i linguaggi. la risposta infatti non è mai univoca, come eravamo abituati a pensare attraverso la formulazione del progetto di Vignola, ma è piuttosto una strategia che cerca di contemplare diverse e opposte polarità.

ecco allora che quest’idea della contaminazione può essere un tema straordinario, a cui l’accademia deve guardare anche per il proprio futuro. naturalmente non penso soltanto alle discipline diverse già coinvolte nel dibattito dell’accademia stessa – da sempre concentrata su Pittura, Scultura e architettura – ma anche all’importanza dei nuovi media, della fotografia, del design. Questo sguardo incrociato tra diverse disci-

Premessa

8

pline può trarre indicazioni anche dalle risposte che tra Seicento e Settecento vengono offerte alle problematiche postridentine. ma tra le risposte possibili a questa conta-minazione tra saperi e tra linguaggi, va anche tenuto conto della straordinaria forza unificante del barocco nei confronti delle preesistenze paleocristiane o medievali.

Questo intento, da parte della cultura architettonica barocca, di modellare declina-zioni diverse, nasce da un processo di attualizzazione che anche l‘accademia ha sempre operato nei confronti di una propria storicità. Siamo abituati ad avere un rapporto con la storia che fa i conti – senza voler dipendere dallo storicismo ottocentesco – con lo spirito più intimo delle cose che ci vengono lasciate in eredità; e a ritenere che dal loro nucleo fondante si possa istituire un processo di rinnovamento, ribadendo sempre il punto di partenza come nodo problematico a cui attenersi e da cui poi far discendere, in base a corrette metodologie, il novum. Credo che gli esempi che sono discussi nel volume possano aiutarci a capire come questo processo di continua renovatio sia importante, al-lora come oggi. Così come credo sia fondamentale il quadro costituito dall’insieme degli interventi qui presentati che, pur non avendo la pretesa di essere compiuto e esauriente, offre comunque uno scenario stimolante sugli studi internazionali.

Il punto nodale che, con diversi accenti, come ci ricordano anche i saggi di que-sto volume, ha attraversato trasversalmente ogni epoca, e che, ovviamente, è ricco di significati anche per la nostra, resta quello del rapporto tra progetto e preesistenza e, più in generale, della relazione tra nuova architettura e città storica. la questione della legittimità o meno del “nuovo” rispetto al “vecchio”, della conciliabilità tra linguaggio contemporaneo e preesistenze urbane e architettoniche, ha portato nel tempo progetti-sti, critici e storici ad assumere posizioni diverse, su un terreno di confronto (ma spesso di scontro) nel quale confluiscono contributi da diversi ambiti disciplinari. In parti-colare, poi, il secondo novecento ha visto estremizzarsi le posizioni, in una continua scomposizione della diade tradizione/innovazione, nella costante ricerca di una “iden-tità” che, paradossalmente, ha ammesso più declinazioni (si pensi in questo senso alle riflessioni di ernesto rogers, di roberto Pane e di manfredo Tafuri, o alle ricerche di Saverio muratori, aldo rossi e Carlo aymonino, solo per citarne alcuni). accordo, dissonanza, affinità, diversità, imitazione, sono divenuti termini di un discorso che troppo spesso si è rivelato privo di concreti interlocutori. In Italia sono tanti gli esem-pi significativi di possibili traduzioni “alla moderna” purtroppo non compiutamente espresse. ricordiamo un caso su tutti: nella complessità di Venezia, così profonda e stratificata, l’innervarsi di tracce poetiche contemporanee avrebbe potuto richiamare una reazione positiva, anziché un rigetto immediato come accadde ai noti progetti di Frank lloyd Wright, le Corbusier e louis Kahn. Questo rifiuto pone ancora oggi il problema di come inquadrare – e questo è un compito specifico che l’accademia nazionale di San luca si è data, anche accogliendo i lavori della giornata di studi – il rapporto con la preesistenza, da quella architettonica a quella urbana, di ogni tempo. all’epoca dei progetti per Venezia si risolse tutto con una chiusura acritica: oggi penso che si debba guardare alla vita che questi fecondi innesti del nuovo possono generare nelle nostre città.

Francesco moschini Segretario Generale

dell’Accademia Nazionale di San Luca

Introduzione - Introduction

Claudio Varagnoli, Augusto Roca De Amicis

Se l’argomento di questo libro – nato a seguito di una giornata di studi svoltasi presso l’accademia di San luca il 4 ottobre del 2013 – fosse stato presentato solo pochi decenni fa non sarebbe stato valutato appieno, dato che non può collocarsi interamente entro discipline consolidate e richiede che ognuno faccia qualche passo al di fuori dei propri confini per intenderlo meglio. l’opera di rinnovamento di chiese paleocristiane o me-dievali consegue i suoi risultati più significativi in un momento storico compreso tra il rinnovamento post-tridentino e buona parte del Settecento, e occupa un posto centrale nella cultura architettonica come nel pensiero religioso e nella liturgia, ma a lungo tale centralità non era stata colta. Gli storici del restauro infatti non possono comprendere appieno tale fenomeno se concepiscono la loro disciplina come tecnica, che si limita a fornire strumenti utili alla conservazione; ma neppure se la concepiscono come qualcosa che nasce solo con lo storicismo, senza avere niente alle spalle; e certo gli interventi sulle chiese antiche nel Sei-Settecento restano al di fuori di tale orizzonte, anche se così sfug-gono alcuni valori fondanti talmente sottesi che è difficile portarli alla luce. e la storia dell’architettura rischia di non comprendere l’argomento se non fa i conti con un’idea di tale forza che continua ancor oggi a orientare in modo preconscio il nostro orizzonte, ossia l’idea risalente a leon Battista alberti che a un’opera architettonica non si possa togliere o aggiungere altro senza comprometterla irrimediabilmente. ma l’architettura che commenta e aggiunge altro a qualcosa che già esisteva, per poter dialogare con essa deve essere costitutivamente imperfetta, incompleta. e così molti importanti studiosi nell’esaminare un monumento che presenta tali caratteri devono fare il necessario ma non esaustivo lavoro dell’anatomista, sezionandolo in fasi in sé compiute, più che dialo-ganti tra loro, rischiando di non comprendere l’esito d’insieme.

Bisogna quindi pensare tali fenomeni in termini di processualità. e anche un im-portante studioso come marvin Trachtenberg ha scritto un libro dal significativo ti-tolo Building-in-time – un solo termine connesso da trattini – indagando le vicende di grandi cantieri di chiese dalle lunghe vicissitudini. Tuttavia, i rinnovamenti compiuti nel lasso di tempo qui considerato non costituiscono un mero episodio in un’inin-terrotta catena di aggiunte e modifiche, ma sono dotati di una propria specificità e di un livello di intenzionalità che li pongono come oggetto di studio particolare, per il quale non è sufficiente pensare in termini processuali. Tale modo di operare ha infatti le sue premesse in un nuovo modo di valutare l’antichità cristiana e il suo carattere di testimonianza; e a tale istanza deve assolvere, pur con alterne vicende, un linguaggio architettonico che ha nel suo codice genetico un tratto fondamentale, e che costituisce un carattere primario di quanto chiamiamo barocco, quello dell’inclusività.

10 Augusto Roca De Amicis, Claudio Varagnoli

Siamo quindi nella posizione di interpretare un’architettura che ne interpreta un’altra, una complessa situazione ermeneutica, per cui dobbiamo risalire paziente-mente dal nostro orizzonte alle motivazioni della committenza e soprattutto all’intentio operis, per comprendere, tanto nell’alterità quanto nella continuità, quello che sta alle nostre spalle.

Una simile impostazione vorrebbe aprirsi anche ad orizzonti metodologici innovati-vi. non si tratta di individuare singole qualità inverate in un manufatto architettonico, quanto di leggere queste qualità in una relazione, quindi in una condizione di difficile inquadramento, ma che permette di uscire dall’eccessiva attenzione rivolta a questioni incentrate sul ruolo dell’autore o della committenza, o ancora sui valori simbolici o ide-ologici. Certamente gli interventi di rinnovamento hanno motivazioni legate a motivi contingenti come ad esigenze di più ampio spettro: ma la ricorrenza del fenomeno, la sua diffusione e la sua sistematicità in alcune aree non possono essere confinate in una semplice operazione legata al gusto dei tempi. e questa prospettiva di metodo si unisce al tentativo di leggere trasversalmente più culture architettoniche a confronto tra loro, utilizzando il rapporto con il passato come cartina al tornasole per verificare realtà diver-se: quindi più che lavorare attorno a singole figure e a singole opere, si è qui cercato, con l’aiuto dei maggiori specialisti in questo campo, di cogliere contesti e orientamenti di più ampia portata, in una prospettiva europea – dato che il fenomeno è principalmente legato al vecchio continente – e in una lettura di tipo comparato.

altra questione che caratterizza il fenomeno dei rifacimenti, è appunto la tendenza a non considerare il passato come tale, cioè visto in una prospettiva di conclusione e di superamento. Il passato “non è una terra straniera”– per ricordare un noto libro di david lowenthal e un film di Joseph losey con la sceneggiatura di Harold Pinter – ma una dimensione contigua o addirittura mescolata alla contemporaneità. mal-grado le dissonanze formali e talvolta anche statiche indotte dai rifacimenti barocchi, è forse questa la differenza più evidente da quella che possiamo chiamare l’età dello storicismo. da qui la difficoltà di inquadrare il fenomeno sotto l’angolazione del re-stauro, che nelle sue diverse declinazioni otto-novecentesche – dal restauro stilistico alla conservazione assoluta – si fonda proprio sulla conclusa identità del monumento, da ricostruire a posteriori con un processo induttivo o da accettare nel suo farsi o di-sfarsi attraverso la storia. ma ancora, il tema del progetto che entra nelle pieghe di un contesto edificato può sollecitare rimandi e considerazioni rivolte al nostro tempo, che sembra aver smarrito la capacità di interpretare e il necessario equilibrio per dialogare con l’alterità del passato. e da una postazione che, dopo le riflessioni di Hans Belting e di arthur C. danto sulla fine della storia dell’arte, abbandona ogni impostazione teleologica è forse possibile avvertire in tali premesse potenzialità sinora non esplorate.

Il titolo del volume vuole richiamare sinteticamente la tendenza a “ridurre alla mo-derna” il lascito architettonico della chiesa delle origini, qui intesa in un ampio arco cronologico che va dalle fondazioni costantiniane di roma, a quelle alto-medievali del mondo germanico, fino alle cattedrali del pieno medioevo diffuse in tutte euro-pa, portatrici di un ruolo simbolico capace di aggregare vaste comunità di fedeli. la modernità a cui allude il titolo è quella derivata dal sistema classico messo a punto nell’arco del XVI secolo, pur fra infiniti dibattiti e variazioni, e comunque sancito dal movimento nato dal Concilio di Trento e dalla lingua ufficiale della Chiesa di roma

Introduzione - Introduction 11

tra XVII e XVIII secolo. Questo aggiornamento non è solo formale o tipologico, poi-ché è sostanziato dalle novità liturgiche apportate dal concilio e sostanziate dall’opera di Carlo Borromeo e dei suoi seguaci attivi in tutta europa. ma, come già accennato, il fenomeno non è circoscrivibile in ambiti geografici e in parte neppure entro singole confessioni cristiane; da qui il tentativo di aprirsi a una prospettiva europea per poter valutare diversità e analogie di comportamenti di fronte ad un edificio antico – o rite-nuto tale – evidenziando continuità e rotture in tutto il continente.

Tensioni e ambivalenze non ricomponibili in un quadro unitario, sono già evidenti nel saggio di Irene Giustina sui lavori promossi dal cardinale Federico Borromeo nella milano del primo Seicento. le valutazioni positive verso le antiche chiese si accom-pagnano infatti a ricostruzioni improntate ora a istanze di magnificenza (le nuove facciate), ora di funzionalità liturgica (le absidi), usando il moderno linguaggio elabo-rato a roma ma sempre affrontando per parti l’organismo architettonico; mentre un monumento dell’importanza di Sant’ambrogio, dà luogo a un diverso atteggiamento, per il quale Borromeo volle unire conservazione a ricostruzione.

a roma, come evidenziato da augusto roca de amicis, è soprattutto il cardinale Cesare Baronio che precisa modalità d’intervento seguite per quasi due secoli. esito di una mentalità storico-simbolica, l’istanza di non alterare gli impianti e quella di conservare la materia delle antiche chiese trovano variabili punti di equilibrio. Tali istanze, dopo il trauma della distruzione della parte costantiniana della basilica di San Pietro sotto Paolo V, troveranno in San Giovanni in laterano il terreno per nuove spe-rimentazioni, giungendo alla matura formulazione di Borromini; e in San Clemente, già nel primo Settecento, un esito in cui antico e nuovo si confrontano liberamente e senza prevaricazioni.

anche nell’area napoletana, soprattutto nel diciassettesimo secolo, il rinnovamen-to avviene in ossequio alla precettistica tridentina, in stretto rapporto con il dibattito in ambito erudito e antiquario. Valentina russo pone in luce le diverse modalità di intervento, tra relativa indifferenza e tentativi di accordo linguistico con il passato. In quest’ultimo ambito rientrano alcuni interventi di Cosimo Fanzago e di arcangelo Guglielmelli, prima fra tutti la trasformazione dell’antica Santa restituta, a cui fanno da sfondo le polemiche sorte negli ambienti ecclesiastici.

nella Sicilia delle maggiori cattedrali, indagate da marco rosario nobile, gli inter-venti mostrano forti specificità, conformemente a criteri valutativi non corrispondenti a quelli in uso in altre realtà. Soprattutto i monumenti funebri, gli altari, gli apparati effimeri sono il luogo dove il potere civico, quello regio, quello vescovile si confron-tano con alterni equilibri, divenendo spesso il centro motore di interventi più ampi e sovente, come a Palermo, contrastati.

la Francia rivela, come dimostra Jörg Garms, caratteristiche specifiche nella tarda ricezione delle disposizioni tridentine e nella continuità del sistema costruttivo gotico. Solo nel Settecento si può parlare di cambiamenti nell’interno delle chiese, come nella sistemazione del coro di notre-dame a Parigi successiva al voto di luigi XIII. l’atten-zione è comunque rivolta agli arredi liturgici – pulpiti, altari “alla romana”, cancellate – mentre sono assenti le innovazioni sul piano spaziale. Un ruolo di spicco è assunto dal baldacchino, forse per la sua leggerezza e l’assonanza con il gotico.

meinrad von engelberg offre un quadro degli interventi in terra tedesca caratte-


rizzati, soprattutto dopo la pace di Westfalia, da due valutazioni, più complementa-ri che antitetiche, delle chiese medievali: testimonianze di una nazione germanica legata all’Impero per i luterani, che mostrano una propensione più conservativa; esempi dell’antichità della Chiesa tedesca per i cattolici, con maggiori istanze di rinnovamento.

l’area danubiana, trattata da Ulrich Fürst, è un’altra zona di confine caratterizzata dalla presenza di antiche abbazie e basiliche e da plurali modalità di intervento, pas-sando dal rivestimento “all’italiana” delle antiche strutture con forme moderne, come a mariazell o a Passau, alla punteggiatura di altari e arredi sacri in strutture come l’ab-bazia di Kaisheim. secondo modi franco-germanici, o ancora seguendo un principio di conformità con il gotico, come a regensburg o a Zwettl.

anche nella cattolica Boemia, indagata da Pavel Kalina, il valore dell’antichità di-viene un punto di partenza, ma sono soprattutto le immagini sacre e le reliquie, con forti risonanze simboliche, a innescare dei rinnovamenti dove il barocco e le libere reminescenze del gotico formano i variati involucri di tali testimonianze.

l’innesto di forme barocche in Spagna, come pone in luce Javier rivera Blanco, si verifica soprattutto nel completamento delle grandi cattedrali, come Valencia, nella quale si riscontra un intervento nell’interno assimilabile alle esperienze italiane. Si sviluppa per tempo una tendenza a privilegiare la coerenza del linguaggio originario, e non solo per ragioni di mera praticità. alla fine del Settecento, Ventura rodriguez offrirà soluzioni tecniche capaci di conseguire un notevole rispetto della preesistenza.

a conclusione delle premesse iniziali, Claudio Varagnoli sintetizza il corpus delle trasformazioni basilicali nell’arco del Settecento romano. Sotto la spinta dell’antiqua-ria cristiana e della lezione di muratori, il modello seicentesco da un lato si alleggerisce per aderire meglio all’edificio da restaurare, dall’altro aumenta il proprio carattere inclusivo. Questa ricerca, che si svolge tra i pontificati di Clemente XI e quello di Be-nedetto XIV, trova il suo apice nell’intervento in S. Croce in Gerusalemme, ai limiti della coerenza dell’organismo classico, nello sforzo di innovare conservando.

Il saggio di alessandra marino, infine, legge il tema del convegno in absentia cioè partendo dalle numerose rimozioni che hanno cancellato molti aggiornamenti baroc-chi in Toscana. Ciò è accaduto per il carattere eminentemente sovrastrutturale dei rifacimenti sei-settecenteschi, che si affidano a volte in canne, stucchi, affreschi, ma soprattutto per una malintesa prassi del restauro, volta a riscoprire paramenti lapidei e partiti architettonici presunti medievali, a spese della verità storica dell’edificio.

nelle pagine che seguono sono assenti, o posti in secondo piano, alcuni temi con-sueti negli studi che prendono in esame i rapporti con la tradizione, costruita e non. Si è infatti cercato di porre in secondo piano la questione della persistenza di modi, tipologie e sistemi strutturali in epoche successive alla loro affermazione: non si è quin-di affrontato il tema dell’eredità medievale nelle architetture del XVII e XVIII secolo, né ci si è soffermati sugli atteggiamenti mimetici nei confronti degli edifici del passato – quasi in una prefigurazione dell’atteggiamento stilistico – argomenti entrambi già trattati in altre sedi e sufficientemente noti, almeno nell’impostazione generale. né gli studi che qui si presentano si concentrano sulla produzione di eruditi, antiquari e architetti sul tema, sia per la vastità del soggetto, che richiederebbe un volume a parte, sia per aver voluto porre al centro dell’attenzione degli studiosi e del pubblico il risul-


tato finale in termini di architettura costruita, risultato dell’incontro o dello scontro tra epoche diverse. né infine si è posta in primo piano la questione della conserva-zione e del restauro o comunque del bilancio tra quello che si è perso e quello che si è acquisito. Si ritiene infatti che una simile prospettiva sia legata ad una disposizione che nasce solo con il secolo XIX, in una dimensione dipendente dallo storicismo e dal positivismo; un orizzonte filosofico e metodologico del tutto diverso da quello in cui si collocano i rifacimenti barocchi, che si vorrebbero quindi leggere – con tutte le difficoltà legate al comprendere ciò che è altro da noi – iuxta propria principia. natural-mente i singoli autori hanno le proprie posizioni sui temi della storia e del restauro, ma queste restano sullo sfondo dei contributi che qui si presentano.

Il presente volume intende offrire un panorama di aree geoculturali che offrono già consolidate tradizioni di studi senza certo pretendere una piena esaustività, ma indicando piuttosto percorsi ancora da esplorare. Il fenomeno della revisione moder-na di edifici si è soprattutto affermato nei paesi a forte tradizione cattolica e con un patrimonio legato alla chiesa delle origini tale da costituire la base per il rilancio del culto legato al primato romano, mentre per imprese analoghe nei paesi protestanti gli studi si stanno avviando solo di recente, soprattutto per la Germania luterana, mentre per l’Inghilterra, i Paesi Bassi, i paesi scandinavi; come pure per i paesi del cristiane-simo orientale molto lavoro va ancora fatto. né sono presenti alcuni fondamentali paesi cattolici, come il Portogallo, le Fiandre, l’Ungheria, per la minore estensione del fenomeno: ma sarà anche questa materia per un prossimo incontro.

anche questo volume deve molto a colleghi e amici che ci hanno sostenuto nella ricerca. l’iniziativa nasce con l’appoggio disinteressato e partecipe di Francesco mo-schini, Segretario Generale dell’accademia di San luca. Un ringraziamento inoltre ai colleghi che hanno accettato di presiedere le sessioni del convegno – alessandra marino ed elisa debenedetti – e a coloro che hanno offerto un valido aiuto nella tra-scrizione, nella redazione e nella traduzione di alcuni testi: Francesca nusiner, Giorgio ortolani, emma Booth, Gabriella mazzone, Carrol mortera. e naturalmente a tutti gli autori che, con grande entusiasmo, hanno condiviso questa fatica con i curatori.

If the topic of this book – originated after a one day conference at the accademia di San luca on october 4, 2013 – had been presented only a few decades ago, it would not have been fully and properly valued. In fact, it cannot be placed entirely within well-established disciplines and it requires going beyond one’s own cultural frontiers in order to better understand it. The renovation of the early Christian or medieval churches achieves its most significant results in the period between the post-Tridentine renewal and the greatest part of the eighteenth century, and plays a central role in the architectural culture, as well as in the religious thought and liturgy, even if this impor-tance was not understood for a long time. The restoration historians, in fact, cannot fully understand this phenomenon if they conceive their discipline as a technical one, providing useful tools for conservation; not even if they conceive it as something com-ing only from historicism, with no background of its own. The interventions on the ancient churches in the Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are therefore out of this field, even if some basic and intrinsic values cannot be taken into consideration in this


way. The History of architecture may not be able to fully understand this idea, if it does not deal with an extremely forceful concept, still unconsciously influencing our cultural horizon, by leon Battista alberti: nothing can be removed or added to an architectural work without hopelessly compromising it. nevertheless, the architecture commenting on or adding something to a pre-existing situation, should be intrinsically imperfect and incomplete, in order to interact with it. Consequently, many important scholars, exam-ining a monument characterized by such features, should carry out the necessary but not comprehensive work of an anatomist, cutting it into accomplished sections, more than interconnected ones, at the risk of a non-comprehensive understanding.

our subject matter must therefore be considered as a process. an important scholar such as marvin Trachtenberg wrote a book bearing the significant title Building-in-time - only one term connected by hyphens - investigating into the events of the construc-tion of major churches with various vicissitudes. However, the renovations made in the aforementioned period do not represent a mere episode in a historical series of additions and alterations, but they do possess a specificity of their own, thus becoming a subject for special studies. It is not sufficient in this case to think only in terms of a process. This way of proceeding has indeed its origins in a new way of assessing Chris-tian archaeology and its character of testimony; and this purpose is to be achieved by employing an architectural language possessing in its genetic code the fundamental feature of’ ‘inclusiveness’, the main characteristic of what we call ‘Baroque’.

We are therefore in the position of interpreting an architecture that interprets another one, a complex hermeneutic situation. Consequently, we should patiently go back from our individual horizon to the reasons of the commissioners and especially to the intentio operis, in order to understand what is behind us, regarding innovation as well as continuity.

Such an approach should also be opened to innovative methodological horizons. It is not the case of identifying individual qualities in an architectural piece of work, but it is important to read these qualities in a sort of relationship, exceeding the role of the author or of the patrons, or even the symbolic or ideological values. Certainly, renewal interventions are caused by contingencies, as well as by wider needs, but the recurrence of this phenomenon, its spread and systematic nature in some areas cannot be attributed to a simple operation linked to the taste of the times. This perspective method goes along with the effort of a transversal interpretation of different and com-parable architectural cultures. The relationship with the past is a real test in order to examine different realities. Thus, more than working on single figures and individual works, there is here an attempt to understand broader contexts and trends, included in a european perspective, through the valuable help of leading specialists in the field. This phenomenon is, in fact, mainly linked to the old Continent and should be un-derstood through the means of a comparative reading.

another issue characterizing the phenomenon of reconstructions, is precisely the trend not to consider the past as such, i.e. as something concluded and surpassed. The Past “is not a foreign country”- to remember a well-known book by david lowenthal and a film by Joseph losey with a screenplay by Harold Pinter - but a dimension adjoining or even mixed with contemporaneity. despite the formal and sometimes static discrepan-cies, originated by Baroque reconstructions, this is perhaps the most obvious difference


from what we might call the age of historicism. Hence the difficulty of considering the phenomenon from the perspective of the restoration, which in its various expressions of the nineteenth and Twentieth centuries - from the stylistic restoration to the total con-servation - is based precisely on the completed identity of the monument, to be recon-structed a posteriori through an inductive method. In addition, the issue of the project, included into an established building context, can stimulate references and considera-tions addressed to our time, seemingly losing its ability to interpret and dialogue with the diversity of the past. and from a position with no teleological perspectives, after the considerations by Hans Belting and arthur C. danto on the end of the History of art, it is probably possible to perceive an unexplored potential in such premises.

The title of the book would briefly recall the tendency to convert to modern style (alla moderna) the architectural legacy of the early churches, here considered through a wide span of time, from the Constantinian foundations in rome, to the early medieval ones of the Germanic world, up to the cathedrals of the middle ages spread throughout europe. They represented an aggregative symbol for vast communities of believers. The modernity hinted at the title is a result of the Classical system developed during the Sixteenth century, even amid endless debates and changes, and sanctioned by the move-ment ensuing from the Council of Trent and from the official language of the Church of rome, between the Seventeenth and the eighteenth century. This updating is not only formal or typological, as it is originated by the liturgical innovations of the Council, by Carlo Borromeo’s work and by his followers operating throughout europe. But, as already mentioned, the phenomenon is not limited to geographical areas and not even to individual Christian creeds. Hence the attempt to open up to a european perspective in order to assess diversities and similarities of approach in front of an ancient building - or deemed in such way - highlighting continuity and dissimilarity throughout all europe.

non-unifiable tensions and ambivalences are already evident in the essay by Irene Giustina on the works promoted by Cardinal Federico Borromeo in milan, in the early Seventeenth century. Positive appraisals of the ancient churches, in fact, go along with the reconstructions characterized by magnificence (the new façades), or liturgi-cal functionality (apses), using the modern language developed in rome but always working on the single parts of the architectural whole. a monument as important as Sant’ambrogio, gives rise to a different approach, where Borromeo combined preser-vation and reconstruction.

In rome, as evidenced by augusto roca de amicis, especially Cardinal Cesare Baronio ratifies the conditions of intervention, followed for almost two centuries. as a result of a historical and symbolic mentality, the instance not to alter the plan and to respect the original masonry of ancient churches variably coexist. These instances, after the shock of the destruction of part of the Constantinian basilica of St. Peter under Paul V, will be carried out in a new way in San Giovanni in laterano. They will lead to the mature achievement by Borromini and in San Clemente, already in the early eighteenth century, to a result where old and new architectural features compare freely and without prevailing.

even in the neapolitan area, especially in the Seventeenth century, renewals take place in accordance with the precepts of Trent, in close relationship with the scholarly and antiquarian debate. Valentina russo highlights the different modes of interven-


tion, between a comparative indifference and the attempt of an architectural linguistic agreement with the past. Some interventions by Fanzago and Guglielmelli belong to this attempt, first and foremost the transformation of the ancient Santa restituta, involving controversy on behalf of ecclesiastical circles.

In Sicily in the major cathedrals, examined by marco rosario nobile, the interventions show strong specificities, according to the evaluation criteria different from other situa-tions. above all, funeral monuments, altars, ephemeral ornaments are the places where Civic, royal and episcopal powers are facing, with alternate outcome, often becoming the central engine of more wide-ranging and contested interventions, such as in Palermo.

France, as evidenced by Jörg Garms, shows specific features in the late acceptance of the Tridentine provisions and in the continuity of the Gothic building system. only in the eighteenth century it is possible to talk about changes inside churches, as in the planning of the choir of notre-dame in Paris, after the vow of louis XIII. The atten-tion is anyway addressed to the liturgical marble decoration - pulpits, “roman” altars, balustrades - while innovations on the spacial level are absent. a prominent role is that of the baldachin, probably because of its lightness and similarity to the Gothic style.

meinrad von engelberg offers a picture of interventions in Germany, characterized, especially after the Peace of Westfalia, by two evaluations of medieval churches, more complementary than antithetical. They are the evidence of a German nation linked to the empire, for the more conservative interventions of lutherans; and an example of the antiquity of the German Church for the more modern renewals of Catholics.

The danube area, considered by Ulrich Fürst, is another frontier area characterized by the presence of ancient abbeys and basilicas and different modes of intervention, from the ‘Italian’ coating of the ancient structures with modern forms, as in mariazell or Passau, to the punctiform placement of altars and decorations in structures such as the abbey in Kaisheim, according to French-German rules, or even following a princi-ple of compliance with the Gothic style, as in regensburg or in Zwettl.

even in the Catholic Bohemia, examined by Pavel Kalina, the value of antiquity be-comes a starting point, but especially the sacred images and the relics, with strong sym-bolic resonance, trigger renovations, where the Baroque and the free reminiscences of the Gothic style represent the different external covers of such evidences.

The insertion of Baroque forms in Spain, as highlights Javier rivera Blanco, occurs mainly in the completion of the great cathedrals, such as Valencia, where an interven-tion similar to the Italian experience is visible inside. a trend to privilege the original architectural language takes place and not only for practical reasons. at the end of the eighteenth century, Ventura rodriguez offers technical solutions providing the respect of the pre-existing forms.

Claudio Varagnoli summarizes the corpus of the transformed basilicas during the eighteenth century in rome. Under the pressure of the Christian archaeology and of muratori’s heritage, the Seventeenth-century model on one hand becomes lighter, in order to better adhere to the building to be restored, on the other hand it increases its inclusive nature. This process, taking place between the papacies of Clement XI and Benedict XIV, achieves its best results in the intervention in S. Croce in Gerusalemme, challenging the coherence of the classical structure, in an effort to innovate, while preserving.


The essay by alessandra marino finally interprets the theme of the workshop in ab-sentia, i.e. starting from the several removals cancelling many Baroque renovations in Tuscany. This took place due to the mainly superstructural feature of the Seventeenth-eighteenth century renovations, making use of reed vaults, the stucco decorations, frescoes, but especially due to a misunderstood restoration procedure, aimed at redis-covering stony masonry surface and allegedly medieval architectural features, to the expense of the historical reality of the building.

In the following pages some usual themes, like the relationship with the building and non building traditions, are absent or simply put in the background. The issue of the persistence of some antique procedures, types and structural systems in later centuries was also put in the background. The question of the medieval legacy in the architectures of the eighteenth and Seventeenth century was not dealt with, as well as the mimetic approach with regard to buildings of the past – almost in a sort of anticipation of the stylistic attitude –; both topics already known and discussed in other places. Further-more, the studies here presented do not focus on the literary work of coeval scholars, antiquarians and architects on the subject, because of its vastness – requiring a separate volume – in order to focus the attention of the researchers and public on the built archi-tecture, as a result of the harmony or the clash between different ages. nor the issue of conservation and restoration, or otherwise the final result from what is lost and what is gained, is finally placed in the foreground. Such a perspective is, in fact, linked to an idea originated only in the nineteenth century, in the context of historicism and positivism: a philosophical and methodological perspective far from that of the Baroque renovations. We would like to interpret them iuxta propria principia. of course the individual authors have their own ideas on the issues of history and restoration, but these remain in the background with regard to the contributions here presented.

The present volume aims at providing an overview of geo-cultural areas offering well-established traditions of studies without pursuing any exhaustiveness, but rather indicating dimensions still to be explored. The phenomenon of the modern improve-ments of antique buildings is rooted in countries with a strong Catholic tradition and a monumental heritage arose at the time of the Church of the origins, representing a starting point for the revival of the cult linked to the roman primacy. Similar studies in Protestant countries are only recently starting, especially in lutheran Germany, while for england, the netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, as well as for the countries of eastern Christianity much work is still to be done. nor some fundamental Catholic countries, such as Portugal, Flanders, Hungary, are present, due to the lower extent of the problem: but this topic will constitute the subject of a further meeting.

This book also owes much to colleagues and friends who have supported us in the research. The initiative was created with the enthusiastic support of Francesco mos-chini, Segretario Generale of the accademia di San luca. Thanks also to colleagues who agreed to chair the sessions of the conference – alessandra marino and elisa debenedetti – and to those who have offered valuable assistance in the transcription, in the editing and translation of texts: Francesca r. nusiner, Giorgio ortolani, emma Booth, Gabriella mazzone, Carroll mortera. and of course, our thanks go to all the authors who, with great enthusiasm, have shared this effort with the editors.

Comparing the Ancient and the Modern: Relationships, Contradictions, Problems

In the capital of the Spanish Vice-Kingdom, which had been struck by many earth-quakes, revolts and epidemics, the transformative architectural intervention of religious architecture took on a key role in adopting its form “to the modern concept”1. Highly contrasting approaches lived side-by-side in Neapolitan project-makers and operators as in the guides and local artistic literature so as to configure, in the mix among technical, aesthetic and devotional factors, a complex phenomenon of modifying what already existed. This latter was able to overcome the strict conservation/innovation counterposi-tion bearing in mind the multiple architectonic choices and it was enriched exactly by the variability of its outcomes. Because of these aspects, there are still numerous research paths which need to be deepen more closely in relation to this topic2.

A necessary “contextualization” of what had been carried out in the architectonic sphere with respect to components which were “different” from architecture – from the religious and social and, hence, the scientific fields – helps to underline better the reasons and, hence, the results of the operations which had been carried out. The mix between technical demands, new liturgical factors and formal aspirations is, in fact, re-flected in a re-appropriation process of existing buildings and of their uninterrupted re-use in the Neapolitan baroque context. This latter even though updated in the lexicon of architecture, in building techniques and terms of use of traditional local materials.

Interpreting the rich harvest of renewals, re-uses, re-makings as carried out in Na-ples in the 17th century requires to find reasons of the choices, firstly, if the evolution of the scientific, coeval milieu3. Naples lived through the transition from the 16th cen-tury certainties to the doubts of the 17th century with tensions which could be noticed in the “tense” architectural language as well as in the records of its continual transfor-mation. Introducing Descartes’ ideas into the city and, even if slow, the effect of Gali-leo’s thoughts brought about very soon a distancing of the libertas philosophandi from culture, soaked in Aristotelian concepts, of the universities and the Studia run by the clergy. In 1652 Tommaso Cornelio presented his Discorso dell’Eclissi to the Accademia degli Oziosi. This was the manifesto of the contents of that new science based on the breakaway from the scholastic and declared superiority of the Moderns with respect to the Ancients: «the world has never been more antique than it is today»4. Also in the 18th century, Pietro Giannone underlined the innovative importance of the Accademia degli Investiganti which, from the 1750’s onwards, «removed that servitude which had

Architecture and Memory of Ancient Times:Renewal, Re-Use, Restoration in Seventeenth Century

Neapolitan Churches

Valentina Russo

70 Valentina Russo

been commonly suffered by those who had to swear by the verba Magistri, and made those fear who decided to philosophize, having placed aside their scholastic concepts, according to the dictates of reason»5.

The contemporary affirming of a naturalistic vein – significantly represented, be-sides, by Ferrante Imperato, who had founded the Natural History Museum in Naples6 – opened up the means to relate to a reality which transposed also on the naturalistic language of architecture. We only need to think about the vegetable motifs in the marble or stucco commissions, as well as the fantastic modelling of sea animals. This vein was carried out through the lens of experimentation with the aim of gaining knowledge and it would lead to a greater interest on the small scale, i.e. for all those micro-structures of nature which could be investigated through nature, and which were influenced as much as possible by the sense of sight.

Also in artistic literature and, in particular, in city guides, there was a frequent re-course to “observing” and “seeing” terms as an evident effect of the new, scientific ap-proach7. It can be demonstrated by the minute description of what was seen directly and, because of this, ensured the future conservation of what could be seen in the present. The entire series of “investigative” guides, from d’Engenio (1623) to Capaccio (1630) and even up to Celano (1692)8, expressed the visual experience as a guarantee of the persist-ing memory of the object. It is sufficient to recall what Francesco Sabatino d’Anfora wrote in the preface to Carlo Celano’s Notizie... underlining how the latter «did not want to stop at what he knew, nor at what he had read, but what with his own eyes, and at great effort, he had wanted to examine, what could virtually be examined»9.

Just as in the widespread interventions, also in these descriptions, there was dis-played a type of attitude which was essentially polyvalent as regards the architectonic witnesses of the previous centuries. A general sense of admiration towards these latter led to praising the great medieval basilicas – San Lorenzo, Santa Chiara and San Do-menico Churches, above all – as well as praising the memories regarding antiquity and the consequent, parallel condemnation of the adapting, coeval interventions10. As an example we can quote Celano’s criticism of the 17th century restoration work in San Lorenzo Maggiore:

it was consciously made modern by stucco being used - he noted at the end of the century - as if to say that the true objects are the ruins of venerable antiquity, because many people have smeared pieces of marble that deserved every right to be kept as they were. The win-dows which had been of a gothic-like length were now reduced to the forms which could be seen. The tribune was very beautiful with regard to what the architecture of that period could offer which in great part retained its barbarous elements11.

We find Carlo Celano himself who criticized the stucco being used in San Lorenzo and, as will be seen later on, was the figurehead of the “renewal” of the basilica of Santa Restituta as projected by Guglielmelli12.

The pride for this mythical “antiquity” led to an admiration for basilicas, sepul-chres and pictorial cycles of the Middle Ages which come from artistic literature and

Architecture and Memory of Ancient Times 71

were brought to a more complete form of maturation in the following century. The loss of the witnesses from the past was generally compensated for by the minute de-scription of the object whether it was in an architectonic or sculptural form. Another example can be found in Carlo De Lellis who, in 1654, noted with regard to Pietro De Stefano and his Descrittione... (1560) that «although with simplicity and a coarse style and a Neapolitan mother tongue he is nevertheless worthy of praise for having been the first and having preserved many things for posterity»13. “Preserve” is, in this case, a way of “sending down through the ages”, or ensuring there is a future memory of “many” described “things”. It is evident that every material aspect of the object vanishes while everything is entrusted to narration. This is why the city guides – in particular in the 17th century – took on the new “militant” role of guaranteeing the immortality of the historical meaning of the object. Therefore, at the end of the 17th century, as also Celano’s editio princeps (1692) shows, placing the text side by side with the image – for example, engraving on copper – meant giving even more support to one’s own scientific, conservative effort so as to document with the image what had been lost or was being radically transformed.

This way of relating oneself to one’s own past was in perfect harmony with the Neapolitan collectionistic-antique entourage of 17th century whom Francesco Antonio Picchiatti was an illustrious exponent14. Following on from De Dominici, the architect received the task, from the Viceroy Gaspar de Haro y Guzman, Marquis of Carpio15, to go round Italy between 1683 and 1687 «collecting ancient medals, little statues, hand drawings by worthy men, and he had also a marvellous study on antiquity, and good books and drawings»16. Such a collection, which was well-known and admired by outsiders from that period was soon lost. It was initially put in order by Picchiatti himself in his own house in Pizzofalcone and was then arranged in the Museum of don Francesco Enrico Grasso, Count of Pianura.

Equally as the “guide-literary” front, multiple forms of behaviour describe the ar-chitectonic ambit. This was characterized, in particular, during the early part of the 17th century by a frenetic activity which involved acquiring and demolishing pre-exist-ing structures with the aim of obtaining a more outstanding visibility for the religious architectures in the urban context. The phenomenon is evident when examining the number of building sites opened up because the clergy wanted to acquire them and this is true for both male and female orders17. The former and the latter were very much up-to-date as regards the change in tastes and more so than in liturgical changes taking place at that time. As a consequence they set aside, between 1650 and up to late 18th century, huge economic resources so as to transform their own forms of architecture.

With regard to other urban contexts – Milan and Rome, in particular – Carlo Borromeo’s Instructiones was a late arrival in Naples. Notwithstanding this fact their influx can be understood, in the Neapolitan synods, from the beginning of the 17th century although it is necessary to wait for at least the synod set up by Archbishop In-nico Caracciolo in 1676 for the adjournments by the Milanese archbishop to become explicit18. Also after this date, above all in the Campanian context, there was an un-

72 Valentina Russo

dergrowth of sacred literature produced following on Borromeo: an example could be considered the Antica Basilicografia by Pompeo Sarnelli in 168619. Inevitably these texts were adapted to the local contingencies.

Notwithstanding all this, the influence of Carlo Borromeo’s line-guides as regards religious architecture in Naples was, in practice, evident and widespread. The portico front, in particular with regard to the female churches, was a recurring theme as in the numerous ex novo buildings20 as in many pre-existing buildings’yards so as to isolate the church from the adjacent streets21. In a counter-reformation asset, the re-building of San Gregorio Armeno Church (1574-1580) went hand-in-hand with the building of an arched pronaos along the corresponding cardo22. Analogously “modernizing” the medieval San Marcellino and Festo Church (1626-1633)23 meant to gain urban space externally through an atrium with vaults on pillars (fig. 1). These were substituted, ac-cording to what Gaetana Cantone has suggested, by re-used marble columns during a late 17th century restoration24. The solutions followed took on, as can be seen also in the San Gregorio Armeno building-site, a double function – both distributive and symbolic – and led to the choir of nuns being accommodated at a higher level, sup-ported by the atrium structures while not being visible externally.

Fig. 1 - Naples, Santi Marcellino and Festo Church. The 17th century vaults in the atrium supported by ancient marble columns.


There are, of course, many issues which arise from the richness of these outcomes and, as a consequence, they influence the researches to afford in future years. These is-sues include, first of all, the possibility of building a periodization with regard to the suc-cession of restoration works so as to investigate possible reference and variation models in architecture’s linguistic connotations. Also, in the history of strengthening in the Nea-politan context, it is even more necessary to focus on the interpretation of its technical evolution during the 17th century. Its acceleration seems evident in the final decade and as a consequence of the dramatic seisms in 1688 and 1694, when the damages which had been caused led to the widespread re-shaping of the Parthenopean building palimpsest.

Side by side with these interventions, it seems necessary to start new monographic interpretations in the mark of Gaetana Cantone’s work about Fanzago25. In particular, for anybody who is interested in the field of restoration, the contribution made by the Picchiatti – Bartolomeo and the already mentioned Francesco Antonio – must be deepen more systematically. This is also the case of Giovan Giacomo Conforto with the mixing of documentary data and building choices.

As regards the temporal articulation and a periodization of restorations, it is clear that in the first twenty-five years of the century there are many links between the Roman and the Parthenopean architectonic culture as well as is also shown in the work of the Theatine Francesco Grimaldi26. When we return to the restorer Fanzago and, so, to a full passing over to the Baroque language with regard to the commission on the church in San Martino Chartreuse, started in 1623, it is clear that there is a denser amount of problems which are coagulated in the final twenty-five years of the century because of the impelling need to set about consolidating church architecture. There are numerous protagonists during this period, such as Giuseppe Lucchese, Giovan Battista Manni and Matteo Stendardo, that re-quire further studies: Stendardo, as an example,is a little-known but experienced engineer who had the full trust of Archbishop Cantelmo after the 1688 earthquake.

The Multiple Ways of Approaching Past Architecture: Building in the Built

Among a mass of operations going from aspirations to re-newed languages and cul-tured admiration for the memories of the ancient past, between a theatricality which indulged in the horror vacui set in pre-existences and a more controlled classic form con-nected to the literary culture of the Accademias, we could try to focus on possible inter-pretative criteria as regards ways of approaching to past architecture in the 17th century. This was an attempt already accomplished by Sandro Benedetti during the Nineteenth Congress of History of Architecture in 1980 as regards Baroque restorations in Abruzzo, where some prevalent intervention modalities were recognized27. The first was a minimal one, in which the pre-existing organism was re-used through adapting it to the baroque taste only with decorative fillings and new, sacred furniture. The second modality, de-fined as an intermediate one, transformed three aisle spaces into unique spaces with lat-eral chapels keeping the external masonries. Finally, a more radical one which re-defined entirely the internal spaces both from a planning and a decorative point of view.

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Such a sub-division could also be enriched through the interpretation of expressive modalities which are inserted on the variations of architectural assets. Starting from the “zero level” of indifference and of tabula rasa – this coincides with what was pro-jected, for example, in 1641 by Bartolomeo Picchiatti for the medieval Sant’Agostino Maggiore Church28 (fig. 2) – there are several ways to intervene on what has already been done, to assimilate the latter, or establishing harmonic relationships or, even, dis-harmonic ones. It is more often and more in general that the re-newal is conditioned by the urban asset which forces it, even when recurring to a double front or when lift-ing up façades and floors or inserting something new into previous buildings.

Last but not least with regard to such an operating line, and because of its colloca-tion in a very early Baroque phase, we can recall what was done for the building of the Gesù Nuovo Church, inaugurated in 1601, even though without a dome, at the border of the Greek-Roman plan of the city (fig. 3). From 1584, the Jesuits were able to purchase the 15th century building which had once belonged to the Sanseverino Princes in the current Gesù Square29. Then they set about a complex demolition of the previous structures with the aim of building their own Professed House30. The new

Fig. 2 - Naples, Sant’Agostino Maggiore Church. The Baroque nave which corresponds to the Angevin one. This latter has been totally cancelled by Bartolomeo Picchiatti’s design following a “modern” taste and sense of the space although maintaining approximately the previous extension of the Medieval building.


church was built within the limits of the civil 15th century residence in an initial, provi-sional arrangement which corresponded to the palace’s courtyard31. It was impossible to extend the plans on the public, urban ground of the square and, added to that, it was the resistance – which was mostly unsuccessful – by the Neapolitans which led to the partial re-use of the 15th century Piperno façades with diamond point ashlars along the perimeter sides of the building (Novello da San Lucano, 1470), re-founded32 and re-elaborated on with new 16th and 17th century insertions33.

The «repugnant hybridism» which Benedetto Croce referred to with regard to the façade of Gesù Nuovo34 was probably obtained at the end of the 16th century. This involved the increasing of the height of the pre-existing front part with ashlars taken from the lateral walls and enclosing them with stone volutes35. The Jesuits façade remained, however, unresolved from an architectonic point of view because there was curved tympanum completion which could have closed the 15th century façade, according to what was reported by documentary sources and in Alessandro Baratta (1629) and Bastiaen Stopendael’s cartographic views (1653)36.

The 16th century marble portal, which also belonged to the building of the Sanseveri-

Fig. 3 - Naples, Gesù Nuovo Church. The façade of the palace that belonged to the Sanseverino family, characterized by Piperno ashlars with the diamond tip. The layout of the church’s façade preserves the organisation of the voids of the fifteenth-century palace.

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no family, was re-used as an access point to the church and restored in 1693 by using Arcangelo Guglielmelli’s design and the Bartolomeo and Pietro Ghetti’s workmanship by adding lateral columns in red granite as well the broken fronton which was crowned by angels37 (fig. 4). So as to make visible externally the tri-partite plan of the internal part they used, finally, the little lateral portals as well as the corresponding large windows of 1598. These were the only elements which, with the ample, coeval central opening, explicitly indicated the presence of a church space behind the civil façade.

The Restoration Building-Site and the “Concordance” between the New and the Old

Besides being a sculptor and an architect of new buildings, Cosimo Fanzago was very often a restorer, with commissions which kept him involved in works around the middle of the century on buildings of pagan origins, as has been seen, together with forms of High-Medieval architecture and, then, of Angevine ones. As regards his confrontation with the early Christian centuries, we can remember the work he did in restoring the palaeochristian basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore38. Damaged by a fire in 1640, Fanzago

Fig. 4 - Naples, Gesù Nuovo Church, marble portal.


marked, in this case, his sign with the courageous inversion of the position of the presby-tery for functional reasons. This was the only part completed by the native of Bergamo before the interruption of the work which went on until 1694 (fig. 5).

The church in the San Martino Chartreuse can be considered an excellent example of experimenting with the possibility of modernizing the Angevin architecture by Fan-zago39 (fig. 6). When he started working on the Chartreuse in 1623, he opened up a long series of renewal on the building which is situated at the top of the Vomero Hill. This latter involved the star system of the coeval world of art as regards pictures and sculptures and lets us understand, once again, Fanzago’s skill to transform architecture both on a small and a large scale. In the case of the church – consacrated in 1368 and already undergone restoration in the 15th and 16th centuries – the Medieval forms were preserved both in vertical and horizontal parts. Maintaining the single aisle with lateral chapels and taking part in a transforming process which Dosio had already set up, Fanzago controlled the naturalistic superimposition of the marble inlays on the tuff masonries (fig. 7). He also added new overhanging rose-medallions on the ancient pillars which almost cited the medieval origin of the church (fig. 8). The restoration of the inferior register was, hence, completed with that of the superior cross-vaults where

Fig. 5 - Naples, San Giorgio Maggiore. The entrance with the Early Christian structures.

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Giovanni Lanfranco worked between 1637 and 1640 preserving the 14th century vaults of the choir and of the aisle, while “making them sweeter” in the curves – in this re-gard, we can remember Vasari’s intervention in the refectory-sacristy of Monteoliveto – and introducing among the gold-leafed coverings scenes of the Ascension of Christ which break through the veils with false ellipsis skylights and a theory of saints (fig. 9). Having kept the ancient material in this case, the artist broke the pre-existing forms of geometry with the illusionary effects and “modern-looking” forms. They also were precursors of what had broken through en trompe l’oeil more widely adopted in the fol-lowing century.

A significant coming together between the ancient and the new is to be found in the access parvis to the church, object of a long querelle between the Carthusians

Fig. 9 - Naples, church of the Charterhouse of San Martino. Bottom view of the 14th century vaults, restored in the 17th century and decorated with frescoes by Lanfranco. The central parts are broken with illusionistic effects.LeftFig. 6 - Naples, Charterhouse of San Martino. The front of the church into the court of access to the complex.Fig. 7 - Naples, church of the Charterhouse of San Martino. The nave in the 17th century decora-tive configuration.Fig. 8 - Naples, church of the Charterhouse of San Martino. Detail of a pillar of access to the side chapels, marked by “pinwheel” rose medallions’ decoration.

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and Fanzago40. The narthex, with its 14th century structures had been, from 1616 to 1636, involved in a renewal programme and the solution was completed thanks to the little known architect Giovan Tom-maso Gaudioso rather than to Fanzago (fig. 10). The tri-partite internal scanning is reflected on the external part in a wing with piperno pillars which defined a dou-ble serlian façade, with the corresponding pilaster strips, arch and architraved win-dows. By adding all this in a sober but autonomous design, he found a refined expedient by which the Angevin parts, the Manneristic access to the church and Corenzio and Baglioni’s decorations could be reconciled. In addition, by us-ing oculus in the lateral fields there was a general lightening which allowed the medieval pre-existence to be understood straight from the external parts.

In this very tormented scenario, Co-simo Fanzago, in 1636, was given the task of working on the marble decorations for the façade. We see this today, probably, in its final outcome: the architect, probably,

was not satisfied with the design by Gaudioso and he proposed, in an initial phase, the covering by marble of what had been already worked with the probable recall of the internal decorations. Hence around 1650 the sculptor-architect, not inclined to use drawings, showed the Carthusians a graphic – but we only possess the copy made by Manni in 1691 (fig. 11) – from which there emerges his complete restoration idea of the 14th century architecture and of the most recent additions. Fanzago proposed de-molishing the central half-pillars and substituting them with a couple of twin columns in ancient green marble on which the cross-vaults which were behind could load. The piperno pilaster strips would be made more elegant, according to Gaetana Cantone, by stuccoes or, perhaps, once again by the marble and everything would be concluded with a tympanum that is comparable, from afar, with the background conclusion of the church. From the centre, Fanzago’s front would be extended out to link up with the adjacent building in the access courtyard of the Charterhouse with niches and rooms with windows. At the very edge, two little bell towers, with Roman echoes, would help to balance, finally, the horizontal quality of the façade.

Fanzago’s solution was contrasted by the clients with arguments which took place over different decades with the architect. The opposition, in particular, to the pil-

Fig. 10 - Naples, church of the Charterhouse of San Martino. The atrium, marked by three me-dieval vaults covered with stuccoes. The system and the function of this space recalls the solution of the façade of the Basilica of Santa Chiara.


Fig. 11 - G.B. Manni (copy by C. Fanzago, 1681). Restoration design of the façade of the church of the Charterhouse of San Martino (Naples State Archive, from Gizzi, Restauri barocchi a Napoli, cit., p. 254).Fig. 12 - Naples, San Lorenzo Maggiore Church. Chapel of Sant’Antonio. The front elevation towards the transept.

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lars being substituted by columns – as spolia? – was motivated by the preoccupation of weakening the cross-vaults on «sottili a portare la lamia» («too subtle to carry the vault») piers so that the façade which was built was limited only to three spans with-out any additions.

The probable outcome of Fanzago’s concept for San Martino could be imagined, bringing it inside, thinking about the elevated part of the Chapel of Sant’Antonio in San Lorenzo Maggiore Church41 (fig. 12). Also in this case, the architect was influ-enced by the Angevin structures of the transept and of Queen Margherita of Durazzo’s Chapel so that, from 1638, he reproposed design and ornaments already prepared for the church of the Charterhouse, putting them in work since 1638. Everything was compressed so as to adapt itself to the available space and the relevant height: first of all, the ogival arches and the first register of the aisle. As a consequence, the serlian was restricted and inserted into the 13th century transept, the pillars were supported by tall bases and the circular oculi transformed into oval ones.

In comparison with the above elegant operations, often the mass of interventions carried out on the religious heritage is characterized by a reiteration of motifs and lin-guistic choices. The “modernization” that we see in most cases absorbs medieval archi-

Fig. 13 - Naples, Church of San Giovanni Maggiore, interior.


tectural forms with a sort of indifference as, for example, emerges from the restoration by Dionisio Lazzari in San Giovanni Maggiore (fig. 13), where the architect covered the 14th century pillars with tuff and brick linings42.

Very extensively, finally, the Gothic is maintained in corpore vili and restored with the preparation of forms of plaster and stucco work in relief on the surface. The pre-ex-isting pattern, with its elongated proportions, with ogives and high pillars is preserved while the stuccoes, such as the 17th century restoration of San Domenico Church also demonstrated43, have the role of “upgrading” the spaces without varying the old struc-tural arrangements.

«Del bello, dell’antico e del curioso» in the Architecture of the Past: Baroque Restorations in Santa Restituta Basilica

It is possible to recognize a more widespread indifference as regards the medieval architectonic production and, at the same time, a form of respect, it could even be called admiration, towards the classic architecture and, fully agreed with the growing “Christian archaeology”, the palaeochristian forms in Naples during the 17th century. This is in consonance with the re-birth of early Christianity studies, the mediated de-sire to transmit Christian material witnesses and, above all, the relics of the martyrs. Such a form of behaviour is emblematic, for example, in the project for the Santa Maria della Sanità Church44, where Fra’ Nuvolo, from 1602 onwards, was confronted with the pre-existing San Gaudioso Church as a catacomb. Bonded by this older part in the plan of the new building, he lifted up the 17th century presbytery to keep that “relic” at a lower level (fig. 14), making it accessible through two steps to climb up45.

A correspondence of terms was proposed through different descriptions or com-ments about interventions being carried out or which had already been completed. To the “ancient” there was, generally, connected the meaning of “curious”, while “mod-ern” was, mostly, equal to “beautiful”. As a consequence the former stirred up interest and, so, “raised curiosity” a lot more so in the antiquarian-erudite entourage and not the other which was made up of technicians and architects. The events which charac-terized the history of the restoration of the basilica of Santa Restituta in the Cathedral of Naples (fig. 15) can be considered as emblematic of such a dichotomy, whose terms, as it can see, frequently had recourse in 17th century sources.

In relation to the palaeochristian plan (4th century A.D.) with five aisles separated by spolia columns and capitals, the basilica was also deprived probably of three spans and the façade in the second part of the 13th century46. It had undergone a significant transforma-tion during the 14th century: the extreme small aisles had been closed to install more ap-pealing chapels while the arches between the columns were re-made with a raised-up curve. Such a complex and stratified asset, made up of Roman elements, high-medieval parts and the gothic architecture was object, in the second half of the 17th century, of contrasting forms of behaviour which on the one hand hinted at its “updating” with the coeval taste and architectonic language and on the other at safeguarding the signs of an ancient past47.

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The terms which we have referred to above – “modern” versus “ancient” – were represented and contrasted respectively by the figures of Carlo Celano and Giacomo Cangiano. The former was secretary of the Metropolitan Chapter and the latter was the Canon of the Cathedral. To cause this 17th century querelle there was the aspiration of car-dinal Innico Caracciolo to set up the medieval space, while including there the columns within pillars, covering the surfaces and capitals with forms of stucco and altering the luministic perception of Constantine’s building through re-designing the gothic open-ings. From 1677 the erudite-literary front, represented, in this case, by Cangiano and by the Canons of the Cathedral rose up to defend the ancient qualities of the basilica, involving its conservation «nella forma, nella quale si trova» («in the form, in which it is found»), apart from any interventions on the ceiling and the floor necessary to contrast a widespread form of damp. As Cangiano wrote to Celano in 1678,

The glorious saint and precious walls and columns and all the building of our very venerable church, built more than one thousand three hundred and forty years ago based on the very august memories of St. Elena and the emperor Constantine the Great should in no way be undone, lifted or changed as they are (...) but they should be made more beautiful and or-nated and if it were possible covered in gold and gems48.

Fig. 14 - Naples, Santa Maria della Sanità Church. The lifted presbytery and below the pre-existing San Gaudioso Church.


Notwithstanding all these forms of dissent, the Metropolitan Chapter confirmed the decision to radically alter the medieval structures, even if we could hypothesize that the decade spent between the initial protests of the Canons and the projected setting-up of the work in 1687 was also caused by a probable influence of rumours against the trans-formation of the pre-existence on the decisions of the Chapter49. The letters written to Celano by Giacomo Cangiano with the pseudonym of L’Antichità (The Antiquity) from 1687 show how, even if slowly, instances which were directed towards saving the ancient were making progress in the late Baroque Neapolitan age. To underline the refusal towards its demolition there was recalled the numeric exiguity of «antiquities surviving» in the city, where Santa Restituta, the façade of the temple of the Dioscuri and the arcades of the Roman theatre seemed to the “conservatives” to be the unique, precious witnesses and “relics”50. A little before the 1688 earthquake, again with the name of L’Antichità, Cangiano re-enforced his own “historical-antiquarian” convictions with other of technique nature underlining the structural insufficiency of what had been added on the masonry around the columns, the fact it was impossible to connect it to the pre-existing shafts – «the new building can never be united with the ancient one» – and fleeing besides from lower arches to be placed below those original ones and by raising the floor. Rather than adding material internally, Giacomo Cangiano

Fig. 15 - Naples, Cathedral. The interior of the Basilica of Santa Restituta offers an eloquent exam-ple of the compromise between old and new that is established in the design and in the construc-tion yard at the end of the 17th century.

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proposed structural interventions which would re-enforce the external part through buttresses and chains although, however, in January 1688 he considered them unnec-essary. At the same time, the Canon opposed the re-designing of the openings in the raised parts, asking to «make the Angevin windows safer» and increase the power of the light of the invaded space with new oval windows which were above the existing ones51.

The debate would, perhaps, could also obtain different results from what we see today if the 1688 earthquake had not caused damage to the church so as to make it necessary to intervene and to carry out what had already been programmed previ-ously. Notwithstanding the fact that Arcangelo Guglielmelli had been given this latter task, the front of the “conservatives” was tenacious in seeing their interests respected and defended the ancient, aiming at reducing to the minimum the impact of the new intervention.

The result of this unnerving debate was an anomalous project in the local, coeval, architectonic praxis, with its double aim of maintaining the most eloquent signs of the pre-existing building without giving up its “modern quality”. This led towards a “con-cordance” between the ancient and the new with a virtuous synthesis among the arts. However, as Giuseppe Fiengo underlined, «Even the meeting of the ancient and the

Fig. 16 - Naples Cathedral, Basilica of Santa Restituta. The rectangular windows and the ceiling.


new took on in Cangiano’s reflections ac-cents of a lively present-day situation. The dialectical comparison between the ba-roque language and the existing context would be arrived at in the full autonomy of both. There was no giving in or desire for stylistic unity for the new, no subtrac-tion, alteration or added on quality for the ancient»52.

A complete description of the work carried out was supplied by Celano him-self in 1692, as a note on the last day of the Notizie. He abundantly set out the struc-tural damage present in Santa Restituta as the cracking of the foundation arches on the left-hand side and settlements of the columns corresponding to them. There were widespread damages in the masonry «which was in such bad condition that it was not necessary to use any metal tools to smash it up but the blacksmiths hands were enough». The large chains had de-cayed, too, and were no longer held up. Finally, the cross-vaults of the small left-hand aisle were so full of holes that «the air came through the openings».

The restoration building-site was, thus, full of serious structural problems, involving the building from its foundations to its coverings, so it was the occasion for leading the strengthening to bringing the building up-to-date architectonically and, above all, decoratively. The part which involved most of the 17th century repairs was the left-hand one where new deep foundations were added, following Celano’s text. That, naturally, led to dismantling the columns on the same side – carried out on this occasion by the sculptors Bartolomeo and Pietro Ghetti53 – and their being re-proportioned and re-positioned higher up. The corresponding arches were re-built in a way which was analogous to those on the right, the masonry of the central aisle was put up higher by about nine palms (about 2,40 metres) and new rectangular windows opened up in place of the gothic ones (fig. 16). As it was less damaged by the seismic problems, the right-side of the basilica was the object of foundation and consolidation while the masonry over the arches was re-done. The vaults were completely provided with chains and the covering leant on new wooden belts.

To resolve the problems of rising damp, besides, Guglielmelli lifted up the level of the floor trying to mask over the change carried out through affixing new bases to the

Fig. 17 - Naples Cathedral, Basilica of Santa Re-stituta. Detail of the triumphal arch. The stucco covering and the wooden drap hide and enrich, in a fine continuity, the Constantinian parts of the building.

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right-hand side columns in Vesuvian stone which had not been shifted. The architect did not give up, finally, on a certain exuberance of ornamentation – already defined years before as a «mask» and «outward appearance» by Cangiano54 – by covering both the ancient masonry and what had been re-done by light-coloured stucco (fig. 17), by closing the space of the central aisle with a counter-ceiling of wooden boards and, as a scenographic epilogue to his project, he re-designed the arched apse – «of poor taste and out of all proportion» according to Celano – with an “ephemeral” drape in painted wood, which Lorenzo and Nicola Vaccaro carried out55.

The «disorder which appears impossible to get over», again following Celano, on the counter-façade was, in the end, masked over by the painting skill of Guglielmelli. The buttresses of the nearby left-sided aisle of the Cathedral, produced during the An-gevin period to the prejudice of the initial spans of the palaeochristian basilica, were masked over by the organ and the choir as well as, above all, by the illusionary, modern counter-façade of the ancient church.

The experience carried out in Santa Restituta does not represent a single case of restoration of an architecture dating to the Middle Ages within the professional curricu-lum of Arcangelo Gugliemelli and, above all, of an artifact of great importance for the local community as a cathedral or as part of this latter. The involvement for the renova-tion of many Neapolitan churches and for that of the Collegiate of San Germano in Montecassino56, should be combined, in fact, with the simultaneous and significant commitments entrusted to the same architect in the years following the earthquake of 1688 by the archbishops of Campania: commitments that were aimed at ensuring the stability of the old buildings without giving up a wide rearrangement of their architec-tural and decorative aspect.

What was initially carried out in the church of the Santi Apostoli in Nola57 (fig. 18) before the Baroque invention masked the Medieval basilica dating to the fourth decade of the 18th century, is comparable to the restoration of the basilica of Santa Restituta. Divided into three naves separated by spolia columns, next to the Cathedral

Fig. 18 - Nola, Church of Santi Apostoli. The interior towards the counterfaçade.

Fig. 19 - Salerno, Cathedral of San Matteo. The nave in the architectural and decorative eighte-enth century asset.


of Nola and already the result of a reconstruction carried out in the 12th century58, the building was probably the object of a first cycle of “modernizations” directed by Arcangelo Guglielmelli at the beginning of the 18th century; on that occasion, to-gether with the full preservation of the Medieval appearance and in accordance with the contemporary taste, the church was enriched with stuccoes and paintings in the higher parts and covered by a false vault on the nave59. Domenico Antonio Vaccaro

Fig. 20 - Amalfi, Cathedral of Sant’Andrea. The nave still shows the rhythm of the Medieval struc-tures despite the Baroque decorations.

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therefore designed the marble works, documented from 1734 and until 1746 follow-ing the archival sources60. The granite columns, still preserved at the end of the 17th century, will be then incorporated into the pillars with red marble coverings61 and the same pillars will include a balcony and double rampant marble staircase recurring, in the unconventional composition of the skulls, to an intense memento mori.

As the Neapolitan context, also the Principato Citra was largely marked by damages due to the earthquake of 1688, with the widespread need for intervention in the civil and ecclesiastical forms of architecture62. Among these latter, the Cathedral of San Mat-teo in Salerno (fig. 19) showed a very pronounced framework of damages, attributable to the deformability under seismic loads of the high structures resting onto slender spolia columns. Founded at the end of the 11th century with three naves covered by wooden roofs63, the vulnerable Cathedral of Salerno had been subjected to reinforcements at the middle of the 15th century with the construction of buttresses towards its right side.

This part had proved to be unstable again in the next century so as to determine, in 1590, the addition of further external buttresses and of four pillars that incorporated the existing columns64. The solicitations of the end of the 17th century and the solu-tions designed by Guglielmelli acted therefore on an artifact whose Norman spatiality of the naves had been altered during previous centuries by insertions without any

Fig. 21 - Naples Cathedral, Basilica of Santa Restituta. The painted counter-façade.


figural logic, as well as structurally inefficient, providing the impulse to a project, sub-stantially defined by the Neapolitan architect, and to a tormented restoration yard65.

The report prepared by Guglielmelli in 1691 highlighted firstly the structural prob-lems of the church, due to the decay of the wooden covering and to the slippage between the old columns – as he noted, «escono fuori del vivo palmi 4» – and the high walls, without correspondences between full and empty spaces, with thicknesses greater than the underlying capitals’ ones and «non si ritrovano fatte a simetria»66. By contrast, bringing back the Cathedral to a «buona simetria» so as it «non resti difforme come hanno fatto li antichi»67 represented, in the case of Salerno, the primary goal of the architect in parallel to the necessary strengthening works. This was sought by reducing the pillars from eleven to six on each side, the alternating incorporation of columns into the pillars and the re-placement of those removed at the side of the new pillars. Finally, the addition of lateral chapels corresponding to the new asset would “modernize” and stiffen transversely the church.

Started in April 1691, the restoration of the Cathedral of Salerno stopped soon because of economic reasons and perhaps of the architect’s distance from the building yard, so including only parts of the right front of the nave. The program’s key-choices undertaken by Guglielmelli, subject to variations from 1698 due to the new arch-

Fig. 22 - Sessa Aurunca, Cathedral of San Pietro. The medieval interior with the 18th century renewal.

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bishop Poerio’s decisions and the entrance into the yard of Carlo Buratti68, can be connected in some respects to the aspirations, then disregarded, for Santa Restituta: among these, incorporating the antique into quadrangular pillars, fully masking it and deleting, with the works of art, what visible of the medieval parts. Nevertheless, the contradictory and arduous Salerno project would have a higher “antiquarian” mean-ing, little noted by critics later, put into effect by putting the columns coming from the suppression of the arches at the side of the new pillars69. This solution, re-elaborated in the yard by Buratti by inserting the columns into the corner of more imposing pil-lars70, brings us to mind illustrious precedents of the 17th century reuse of columns re-moved from pre-existences, as that operated by Francesco Borromini into San Giovan-ni in Laterano about half a century before71. At the same time, it cannot but make us consider one aspect, yet to be further deepened for the contexts under consideration, inherent the meanings and ways of re-use of antique columns in the Baroque period.

The coeval architectural changes of the Cathedral of Sant’Andrea in Amalfi (fig. 20) can be considered equally complex in relation to the dialectics between conserva-tion of the antique and impulse towards new forms. In this case too the damage due to the earthquake of 1688 caused the starting of a restoration that lasted for several decades and whose first phase, dictated by the urgent need for strengthening, was once again planned by Arcangelo Guglielmelli72. The design that he elaborated from 1690 involved the elimination of the wooden roofing from the nave and the aisles, the lowering of slender walls on either side of the nave, the elimination of a second set of openings with «tutte quelle colonnette di marmo che fanno ornamento interno alle finestrelle»73 and the closing of the windows along the nave. With a more evident respect for antiquity, the columns that thickly marked the preexisting space were left on site as well as «la memoria antica della mosaicha» was preserved in the restoration of the façade corresponding to the atrium74.

The arrival of the Archbishop Michael Bologna in the Amalfi Cathedral from 1701 determined therefore an evident modification of the initial programs75, with the accel-eration of interventions altering its proportions and destroying ancient vestiges: the reali-zation of the coffered ceiling onto the nave, still designed by Guglielmelli, was followed by the deleting of the older columns, the elimination of many funerary monuments, the realization of heavy pillars topped by new arches and the addition of side chapels. It was vain, in that case, the heartfelt complaint of the Elects of Amalfi and the action brought by them to the Holy See in 1705 aimed at safeguarding the Cathedral «cospicua e bella così per l’antichità, e moltitudine di colonne (...) come per la grandezza del vaso, in cui poteva uguagliarsi ad ogni più sontuoso Santuario di questo Regno»76.

Also in relation to the interventions briefly examined, we can consider that the intervention in Santa Restituta, which took place at the end of the century, had a key-role with regard to the problems dealt with for multiple reasons. First of all, it stands as the result of a dialectics which was not only centred on eminently structural problems – as, for example, in the case of the controversy between Fanzago and the members of the Charterhouse – or on figurative choices but on the legitimacy or not of safeguard-ing the material of the past and of guaranteeing its recognition in the church’s space.


Keeping the combination between elements and forms of different epochs allows us to recognize a maturing taking one’s distance from the past that, in any case, did not give up to the language of the present but used it in a “lighter” way and entrusted itself to frames of stucco and, differently from the past, to illusion. The painter Guglielmelli was given the task of alluding to the lost spans in the High-Medieval basilica through the false forms of architecture of the counter-façade (fig. 21) just like the skill of Vacca-ro was entrusted with the job of designing the triumphant drape in the palaeochristian apse. This was an expedient of a “transient” character, today we would say “reversible”, that in a much more “ephemeral” connotation with respect to what had been inserted in the previous decades, could be considered the prologue of an approach describing those interventions on the antique of the first few decades of 18th century in Naples and Campania (fig. 22).

1 This paper constitutes an elaboration and deepening of issues already discussed by the Author in Architettura nelle preesistenze tra Con-troriforma e barocco. “Istruzioni”, progetti e cantieri nei contesti di Napoli e Roma, in S. Casiello (ed.), Verso una storia del restauro. Dall’età classica al primo Ottocento, Firenze 2008, pp. 139-206. All the English translations of the quotations in the text and notes are due to the Author.

2 Although the scientific literature concern-ing the Neapolitan architecture of the 17th cen-tury is extremely broad, in-depth and articulated, even though the theme of the restoration during the same period is only on a few occasions the subject of specific studies. Among these see: G. Cantone, Napoli barocca e Cosimo Fanzago, Napoli 1984, pp. 185-301; G. Amirante, Innovazione o conservazione: esiti controriformistici nell’architettura napoletana del Seicento, in “Napoli nobilissima”, XXVIII, 1-6 (1989), pp. 9-14; G. Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione dell’antico nella Campania dell’età ba-rocca, in S. Casiello (ed.), Restauro tra metamorfosi e teorie, Napoli 1992, pp. 65-90; M. R. Pessolano, Nihili omnino habens veteris architecturae: fortune del gotico a Napoli nei secoli XVI-XVIII, in G. Simonci-ni (ed.), La tradizione medievale nell’architettura italiana dal XV al XVIII secolo, Firenze 1992, pp. 97-131; Russo, Architettura nelle preesistenze, cit., pp. 147-172; S. Gizzi, Restauri barocchi a Napoli, in Ritorno al barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, Napoli 2009, vol. II, pp. 253-262.

3 See M. Torrini, Dal naturalismo alla rivoluzi-one scientifica. Filosofia e scienza a Napoli tra XVI e XVII secolo, in G.Pugliese Carratelli (ed.), Sto-ria e Civiltà della Campania. Il Rinascimento e l’età barocca, Napoli 1993, pp. 455-463 and B. De Giovanni, Magia e scienza nella Napoli seicentesca, in Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, catalogue of the exhibition, Napoli 1984, p. 37f. For an overview of the intellectual context of the 16th and 17th century, see N. Badaloni, Fermenti di vita intellet-tuale a Napoli dal 1500 alla metà del ‘600, in Storia di Napoli, Napoli 1980, vol. VIII, pp. 307-352.

4 Quoted in Torrini, Dal naturalismo, cit., p. 460.

5 P. Giannone, Istoria Civile del Regno di Na-poli..., Palmyra 1763, vol. IV, p. 120.

6 See F. Imperato, Dell’historia naturale di Fer-rante Imperato napolitano..., Napoli 1599; E. Sten-dardo, Ferrante Imperato. Collezionismo e studio della natura a Napoli tra Cinque e Seicento, Napoli 2001.

7 See V. Pinto, Racconti di opere e racconti di uo-mini. La storiografia artistica a Napoli tra periegesi e biografia. 1685-1700, Pozzuoli 1997, pp. 68-69.

8 For an overview about the characteristics of Neapolitan historical guides, see AA.VV., Libri per vedere. Le guide storico-artistiche della città di Napoli: fonti testimonianze del gusto immagini di una città, Napoli 1995, with references.

9 C. Celano, Notizie del bello dell’antico e del curioso della città di Napoli per i signori forastieri..., Napoli 1692, page without number.

Notes

94 Valentina Russo

10 For the relationship between literature and remains of Gothic architecture in Naples between the 16th and 18th centuries, see Pes-solano, Nihili omnino, cit.

11 Celano, Notizie del bello, cit., V edition ed. by G.B. Chiarini, Napoli 1856-1860 (reprint 1970), vol. III, p. 139.

12 See E. Tarallo, La Basilica di Santa Restituta. Vicende e trasformazioni, in “Atti dell’Accademia Napoletana ‘San Pietro in Vincoli’”, XI, 2, 58 (1927), pp. 1-47, quoted in Amirante, Innovazi-one o conservazione, cit., pp. 9-14 and in Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit., pp. 68-76.

13 C. De Lellis, Aggiunta ms. alla “Napoli Sac-ra” di C. D’Engenio Caracciolo, Napoli 1654 (F. Aceto ed., Napoli 1977), vol I, p. 7.

14 See R. Ruotolo, Aspetti del collezionismo napo-letano del Seicento, in Civiltà del Seicento, cit., vol. I, pp. 41-48. For a description of the collection, see Celano, Notizie del bello, cit., IV ed., Napoli 1792, V day, pp. 69-73, also reported in F. Strazzullo, Architetti e ingegneri napoletani dal ‘500 al ‘700, Roma 1969, pp. 276-278. For its extensive activ-ity in the Vice-Kingdom of Naples, see R. Pane, Architettura dell’età barocca in Napoli, Napoli 1939, pp. 128-132; Strazzullo, Architetti e ingegneri, cit., pp. 267-301; G. Cantone, L’architettura, in Civiltà del Seicento, cit., pp. 71-13; Ead., Napoli barocca, Roma-Bari 1993, pp. 150-166; F. Marías, Bar-tolomeo y Francesco Antonio Picchiatti: arquitectos de los virreyes españoles de Napoles, in Künstlerischer Austausch zwischen Spanien und Neapel in der Zeit der Vizekönige, Proceedings of the International Congress, Hamburg 1996, pp. 67-85; Id., Bar-tolomeo y Francesco Antonio Picchiatti, dos arquitec-tos al servicio de los virreyes de Nápoles: Las Agustinas de Salamanca y la escalera del palacio real, in «Anu-ario del Departamento de Historia y Teoria del Arte», Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, IX-X (1997), pp. 177-195; A. Gambardella, Le opere di Francesco Antonio Picchiatti nelle chiese di Napoli, Napoli 2004.

15 See B. Cacciotti, La collezione del VII marchese del Carpio tra Roma e Madrid, in «Bollet-tino d’Arte», LXXIX, 86-87 (1994), pp. 133-196.

16 B. De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti napoletani, Napoli 1742, vol. III, p. 392.

17 Within an extensive bibliography on the subject, see: Strazzullo, Architetti e ingegneri, cit.; A. Venditti, Fra’ Nuvolo e l’architettura na-poletana tra Cinque e Seicento, in Barocco europeo,

barocco italiano, barocco salentino, Proceedings of the International Congress (Lecce 21-24 Sept. 1969), Lecce 1969, pp. 195-248; Cantone, Na-poli barocca, cit.; Ead., Nella Napoli del Seicento: dal “largo” alla piazza, in “Storia della città”, 54-55-56 (1990), pp. 115-130; T. Colletta, Le piazze seicentesche a Napoli e l’iniziativa degli Ordini religi-osi, in “Storia della città”, 54-55-56 (1990), pp. 105-114; Cantone, Napoli barocca, cit.; D. Del Pesco, L’architettura della Controriforma e i cantieri dei grandi Ordini religiosi nella Napoli vicereale, in Pugliese Carratelli (ed.), Storia e Civiltà della Campania. Il Rinascimento, cit., pp. 327-387; G. Cantone (ed.), Campania barocca, Milano 2003; D. Del Pesco, Napoli capitale, in A. Scotti Tosini (ed.), Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il Seicento, Milano 2003, vol. II, pp. 510-541.

18 See A. Caserta, San Carlo Borromeo e Napo-li, in San Carlo Borromeo in Italia, Brindisi 1986, pp. 55-84.

19 For the work of Sarnelli and the contem-porary reworking of San Carlo Instructiones, see M. Basile Bonsante, Architettura e committenza re-ligiosa: l’“Antica Basilicografia” di Pompeo Sarnelli, in “Archivio Storico Pugliese”, XXXV (1982), pp. 205-236.

20 See, for example, the façades of the church-es of Gesù delle Monache (1582), Regina Coeli (1590-1594), Santa Maria della Stella, San Giuseppe dei Ruffo (dal 1720), San Giovanni Battista delle Monache, Sapienza (dal 1634) and San Giuseppe delle Scalze: Cantone, Napoli ba-rocca, cit., pp. 187-231 and pp. 232-234.

21 If in other geographical contexts as Lom-bardia there are many essays about the dialectic between the Tridentine rule and the existing buildings, in the Neapolitan context we must refer to the writings concerning the develop-ment of architecture in the city between the 16th and 17th century as Venditti, Fra’ Nuvolo, cit.; Cantone, Napoli barocca, cit.; R. Pane, Ar-chitettura dell’età barocca in Napoli, in Id. (ed.), Seicento napoletano. Arte, costume, ambiente, Mi-lano 1984, pp. 28-31; R. Mormone, Rassegna dell’architettura, ivi, pp. 32-50; S. Savarese, Fran-cesco Grimaldi e l’architettura della Controriforma a Napoli, Roma 1986, pp. 13-28; Del Pesco, L’architettura della Controriforma, cit.; Ead., Na-poli: l’architettura, in C. Conforti, R.J. Tuttle (eds.), Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il secondo Cinquecento, Milano 2001, pp. 318-347. More


directly focused on the operations on existing buildings are the essays by Amirante, Innovazi-one o conservazione, cit. and by Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit.

22 See R. Pane, Il monastero napoletano di San Gregorio Armeno, Napoli 1957; Cantone (ed.), Campania barocca, cit., pp. 119-124.

23 Among the most recent studies about the complex of San Marcellino: G. Cantone, Intorno a San Marcellino. L’architettura a Napoli dalla controriforma al neoclassico, in “Annali del Barocco in Sicilia”, 6 (1999), pp. 107-123; A. Fratta (ed.), Il complesso di San Marcellino. Storia e restauro, Napoli 2000; C. Aveta, Vicende storiche e costruttive della chiesa dei Santi Marcellino e Festo, in S. Casiello (ed.), Le cupole in Campania. Ind-agini conoscitive e problemi di conservazione, Napoli 2005, pp. 207-219.

24 G. Cantone, Convento dei Santi Marcellino e Festo, in Ead. (ed.), Campania barocca, cit., p. 129.

25 Or, as more recently, in S. Di Liello, Gio-van Battista Cavagna. Un architetto pittore fra Clas-sicismo e Sintetismo tridentino, Napoli 2012.

26 Savarese, Francesco Grimaldi, cit.27 S. Benedetti, L’architettura dell’epoca barocca

in Abruzzo, in «Atti del XIX Congresso di Storia dell’Architettura», (L’Aquila 15-21 Sept. 1975), L’Aquila 1980, vol. II, p. 280f.

28 V. Russo, Sant’Agostino Maggiore. Storia e conservazione di un’architettura eremitana a Napoli, Napoli 2002.

29 G. Ceci, Il palazzo dei Sanseverino Principi di Salerno, in “Napoli nobilissima”, VII (1898), pp. 81-85; C. De Frede, Il principe di Salerno Roberto Sanseverino e il suo palazzo in Napoli a punte di diamante, Napoli 2000.

30 See R. U. Montini, La chiesa del Gesù, Napoli 1956; M. Errichetti, La cupola del Gesù Nuovo, in “Napoli nobilissima”, II, 5 (1963), pp. 177-184; P. Pirri, Giuseppe Valeriano S.I. architetto e pittore, 1542-1596, Roma 1970; M. Errichetti, La chiesa del Gesù Nuovo in Napoli. Note storiche, in “Campania Sacra”, 5 (1974), pp. 35-75; E. Nappi, Le chiese dei Gesuiti a Napoli. Il Gesù Nuovo, il Gesù Vecchio, S. Francesco Saverio, poi S. Ferdinando, in Pane (ed.), Seicento napoletano, cit., pp. 318-337; F. Divenuto, La diffusione a Napoli, nel XVI secolo, dell’architettura della Com-pagnia, nella cronaca di un gesuita, in G. Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura a Roma e in Italia (1580-1621), Proceedings of the 23th Congress of History of

Architecture, (Roma, 24-26 March 1988), Roma 1989, vol. II, pp. 365-386; Cantone, Napoli barocca, cit., pp. 40-49; A. Schiattarella, F. Iap-pelli S.I., Gesù Nuovo, Castellammare di Stabia 1997; Cantone (ed.), Campania barocca, cit., pp. 71-78; S. Casiello, V. Russo, E. Vassallo, From static history to restoration issues: The Gesù Nuovo church in Naples (Italy),in D. D’Ayala, E. Fodde (eds.), Structural Analysis of Historic Construction. Preserving Safety and Significance, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Construction, (Bath, 2-4 july 2008), London 2008, vol. I, pp. 259-266.

31 F. Divenuto, Napoli, l’Europa e la Compag-nia di Gesù nella “Cronica” di Giovan Francesco Araldo, Napoli 1998, p. 235.

32 Pirri, Giuseppe Valeriano, cit., p. 116 and 121, note 58.

33 See R. Pane, Il Rinascimento nell’Italia me-ridionale, Milano 1977, vol. I, p. 217; Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit., p. 76 and note 23.

34 B. Croce, Storie e leggende napoletane, Bari 1919 (1948IV from which we quote), p. 27.

35 Montini, La chiesa del Gesù, cit., p. 16.36 Schiattarella, Iappelli, Gesù Nuovo, cit., p.

52.37 G. Amirante, Architettura napoletana tra Sei-

cento e Settecento. L’opera di Arcangelo Guglielmelli, Napoli 1990, p. 249 and p. 334, doc. 72.

38 Amirante, Architettura napoletana tra Sei-cento e Settecento, cit., p.191f.; Cantone, Napoli barocca, cit., pp. 142-149.

39 R. Causa, L’arte nella Certosa di S. Martino a Napoli, Cava de’ Tirreni 1973; Cantone, Napoli barocca, cit., p. 59f; Ead. (ed.), Campania baroc-ca, cit., pp. 33-52.

40 G. Cantone, La facciata della chiesa di S. Martino e la controversia tra Cosimo Fanzago e i cer-tosini, in “Napoli nobilissima”, VIII (1969), pp. 165-175; F. Strazzullo, Il ‘gran rifiuto’ di Fanzago, in “Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana”, XXV (1976), pp. 41-56; R. Pane, Marmi mischi e aggiunte a Co-simo Fanzago, in Id. (ed.), Seicento napoletano, cit., pp. 131-132; J. N. Napoli, Pianificare o indulgere nel capriccio? Cosimo Fanzago e la causa ‘ad exuber-antiam’ alla Certosa di San Martino, in “Napoli no-bilissima”, IV, 5-6 (2003), pp. 209-218.

41 G. Cantone, La controversia tra Cosimo Fan-zago e i Certosini (II). Il cappellone di S. Antonio e la Cappella Cacace in San Lorenzo Maggiore, in “Napoli nobilissima”, VIII, 5 (1969), pp. 227-

96 Valentina Russo

235; Ead., Napoli barocca, cit., pp. 265-269; A. Martinelli Marin, L’intervento di Dionisio Lazzari e aggiunte documentarie sull’attività ivi del Fanzago, in “Napoli nobilissima”, XXV (1996), pp. 13-22; E. Ricciardi, Trasformazioni moderne in San Loren-zo Maggiore, in Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano. Saggi e documenti 1998, Napoli 1999, pp. 93-103: 98.

42 G. Borrelli, La basilica di San Giovanni Mag-giore, Napoli 1967; O. Foglia (ed.), La basilica di San Giovanni Maggiore a Napoli. Storia e restauro, Napoli 2014.

43 R. Picone, Nuove acquisizioni per la storia del complesso di San Domenico Maggiore in Napoli(I) (II), in “Napoli nobilissima”, XXXII, 1-2 (1993), pp. 35-55; XXXII, 5-6 (1993), pp. 216-225.

44 Cfr. A. Spinosa, N. Ciavolino, S. Maria della Sanità. La chiesa e le catacombe, Napoli 1981; A. Ghisetti Giavarina, La prima esperienza di Fra’ Nuvolo: S. Maria della Sanità in Napoli, in L’Architettura a Roma e in Italia (1580-1621), cit., vol. II, pp. 321-332 and pp. 547-550.

45 E. Nappi, Santa Maria della Sanità. Inediti e precisazioni, in Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano, cit., pp. 61-76.

46 For the medieval vicissitudes of the build-ing, A. Venditti, Urbanistica e architettura angioina, in Storia di Napoli, Napoli 1969, vol. III, pp. 738-749; R. Di Stefano, F. Strazzullo, Restauri e sco-perte nella cattedrale di Napoli,in «Napoli nobilis-sima», X, 1-6 (1971), pp. 49-51; R. Di Stefano, La cattedrale di Napoli. Storia, restauro, scoperte, ritrova-menti, Napoli 1975, pp. 140-142; S. Romano, N. Bock (eds.), Il Duomo di Napoli dal paleocristiano all’età angioina, Napoli 2002; U. Dovere, La basil-ica di Santa Restituta, Milano 2004; V. Lucherini, L’invenzione di una tradizione storiografica: le due cat-tedrali di Napoli, in “Prospettiva”, 113-114 (2004, but 2005), pp. 2-31; C. Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples. Church Building in Angevine Italy, 1266-1343, New Haven 2004 (trad. It., Le pietre di Napoli. L’architettura religiosa nell’Italia angioina 1266-1343, Roma 2005, pp. 94-110); M. Rippa, La prima cattedrale di Napoli - Santa Restituta, in “Quaderni dell’Archivio Storico” (2005-2006), pp. 33-111; C. Ebanista, L’insula episcopalis di Napoli alla luce degli scavi di Roberto Di Stefano, in A. Aveta, M. Di Stefano (ed.), Roberto Di Stefano. Filosofia della conservazione e prassi del restauro, Na-poli 2013, pp. 165-180.

47 For the 17th century debate and the result-ing planning choices, see Tarallo, La Basilica

di Santa Restituta, cit.; Amirante, Innovazione o conservazione, cit., pp. 9-14 and Ead., Architettura napoletana, cit., pp. 184-189; Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit., pp. 68-76; Rippa, La prima cat-tedrale, cit.

48 «le sante gloriose e preziose mura e colonne e tutta la fabrica della nostra venerandissima chie-sa, edificata più di milletrecento quaranta anni a dietro dalle augustissime memorie di S. Elena e Costantino Magno imperatore non si debbano in nessun modo sfabricare, levare o mutare come sono [...] ma si debbano rinforzare abbellire et or-nare e se fosse possibile incastrar d’oro e di gem-me». Letter of Cangiano to Celano (January 9, 1678), rep. in Tarallo, La Basilica, cit.,p. 13 and in the essays quoted in the previous note.

49 If, as Carlo Celano testifies in 1692 (Ce-lano, Notitie del bello, cit., 1692, I day), «although the expense, which would have been enough to make it change shape, the Chapter did not want the old one to be altered, made in the time of the great Constantine, nor capitals and columns covered with stucco», it is conceivable that the querelle of previous years had encoun-tered, finally, a support even among the mem-bers of the Metropolitan Chapter.

50 See the letter of Celano to Cangiano of May 17, 1687: «in Naples no more antiquities remain except three of them, that is only the façade of San Paolo, the Anticaglia, and this im-perial basilica made by Constantine the Great and consecrated by St. Sylvester» (rep. in Taral-lo, La Basilica, cit.,p. 13).

51 Tarallo, La Basilica, cit., pp. 14-15.52 Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit., p. 76.53 For those on the left, see the document

in V. Rizzo, Lorenzo e Domenico Antonio Vaccaro: apoteosi di un binomio, Napoli 2001, p. 222, n. 76.

54 We refer to the letter sent in the second half of 1687 (?) by Cangiano to Celano in which the Antiquity, fled to Santa Restituta in order to pro-tect itself in a century «full of lustrous and exterior-ity», laments what was being done «if not to kill me (...) at least to bury myself in it and shut myself up in the walls (...) so to beneither no longer nomi-nated nor seen» (Tarallo, La Basilica, cit., p. 14).

55 Rizzo, Lorenzo e Domenico Antonio Vaccaro,cit., docs. 76, 84, 87 and Amirante, Ar-chitettura napoletana, cit., pp. 26-27.

56 Amirante, Architettura napoletana, cit., pp. 217-241.


57 Among the only contributions that focus, specifically, on that architecture in Nola, see A. M. Russo, Chiesa dei SS. Apostoli in Nola, Nola 1973; G. Cantone (ed.), Campania barocca, cit., pp. 195-197.

58 See G. Rosi, Il campanile della cattedrale di Nola, in «Bollettino d’Arte», 1 (1949), p. 18.

59 Arcangelo Guglielmelli is the paintings’ author in the «suffitta» (ceiling) of the church, dedicated to the Deaths in 1707 (see Architettura napoletana, cit., p. 35, nota 31), a circumstance that makes us hypothesize that the false vault and the stuccoes had already been realized in that year.

60 Rizzo, Lorenzo e Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, cit., p. 107; Cantone (ed.), Campania barocca, cit., pp. 196-197. The restoration designed by Vaccaro in Nola was funded, following the pay-ments of the 18th century, by the noble Maria Felice Mastrilli, antiquarian, collector and or-ganizer of a museum in his palace in Naples (see S. Napolitano, L’antiquaria settecentesca tra Napoli e Firenze. Felice Maria Mastrilli e Gianste-fano Remondini, Firenze 2005).

61 This covering was removed after 1949, considering that Giorgio Rosi, superintendent of monuments in Naples during the second half of the Forties, could still see, in the mentioned year, the eighteenth-century «crusta» of red mar-ble around the marble columns (Rosi, Il cam-panile della cattedrale di Nola, cit., p. 19).

62 For an overview, see M. C. Cioffi (ed.), Il Barocco a Salerno, Salerno 1998; M. C. Gallo, Tipi e forme degli ammodernamenti barocchi nel Salernitano, Salerno 2004.

63 A. Capone, Il duomo di Salerno, Salerno 1927-1929, 2 voll.; M. De Angelis, Il Duomo di Salerno nella sua storia, nelle sue vicende e nei suoi monumenti, Salerno 1936; G. Chierici, Il duomo di Salerno e la chiesa di Montecassino, in “Rassegna storica salernitana”, I, 1 (1937), pp. 95-109; A. Carucci, Strutture architettoniche e forme d’arte della cattedrale di Salerno, Salerno 1977; R. Di Stefano, Salerno. La cattedrale di San Matteo, Na-poli 1986; A. Carucci, La cattedrale di Salerno, Salerno 1995; Antonio Braca, Il Duomo di Saler-no. Architetture e culture artistiche del Medioevo e dell’Età Moderna, Salerno 2003.

64 For these interventions, see Capone, Il duomo di Salerno, cit., pp. 205-212.

65 See G. Amirante, Il terremoto del 1688 e il

restauro delle cattedrali di Amalfi e Salerno, in G. Spagnesi (ed.), Esperienze di Storia dell’architettura e restauro, Roma 1987, pp. 263-273; Ead., Ar-chitettura napoletana, cit., pp. 177-180; Braca, Il Duomo di Salerno, cit., pp. 239-244.

66 Capone, Il duomo di Salerno, cit, p. 218.67 Capone, Il duomo di Salerno, cit., p. 219.68 For the sequence of the interventions and

the “corrections” to Guglielmelli’s project, see ivi, pp. 234-236; Braca, Il Duomo di Salerno, cit., p. 244f; M. G. Pezone, Carlo Buratti. Architettura tardo barocca tra Roma e Napoli, Firenze 2008, pp. 126-133.

69 This solution is mentioned in the report, contained in the Platea dating 1716, exten-sive description of the “corrections” made to Guglielmelli’s project in the years after 1697: «Ed in primo luogo, avendo riconosciuto irrimedia-bile il disegno già preso, il quale distruggeva af-fatto tutto l’antico, e nascondeva sotto Pilastri le colonne, che prima formavano gli archi, ed erano sino al numero di undici colonne per parte, delle quali ne venivano fabricate cinque per parte den-tro l’anima d’essi Pilastri, oltre il notabilissimo difetto di ponersi l’altre colonne, che parimente dovevano levarsi dal suo luogo, e collocarsi sopra base di fabbrica al lato dei Pilastri (...)» (rep. in Capone, Il duomo di Salerno, cit., p. 240).

70 In the description of the works for com-pleting the nave (October 16, 1702) it is speci-fied «promette detto mastro Gregorio levare le colonne di marmo; e porle e collocarle nel loro luogo secondo il disegno e tutte quelle che man-cano formarle dell’istessa ampiezza e lunghezza come l’altre di mattoni (...)» (rep. in Pezone, Carlo Buratti, cit., p. 131).

71 See A. Roca De Amicis, L’ opera di Borro-mini in San Giovanni in Laterano: gli anni della fabbrica (1646-1650), Roma 1995, pp. 73-75.

72 Amirante, Architettura napoletana, cit., pp. 180-182 e pp. 316-317.

73 Salerno State Archive, Notary Stefano Ve-rone from Scala, year 1691, fol. 6699, rep. in ivi, p. 316.

74 Ivi, p. 317.75 See Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit., pp.

76-77.76 The action is in M. Camera, Memorie storico-

diplomatiche dell’antica città e ducato di Amalfi, Salerno 1881, vol. II, appendix VII, pp. XII-XIII, quoted in Fiengo, Istanze di conservazione, cit., p. 77.

ALLA MODERNAAntiche chiese e rifacimenti barocchi: una prospettiva europea

Old Churches and Baroque Renovations: a European Perspective

a cura di Augusto Roca De Amicis e Claudio Varagnoli

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ISBN 978-88-7575-220-0

Euro 30,00

Curatori: Augusto ROCA DE AMICIS, ordinario di Storia dell’Architettura pressoSapienza Università di Roma; Claudio VARAGNOLI, ordinario di Restauro architettonico presso l’Università degliStudi “Gabriele d’Annunzio” di Chieti e Pescara.

Testi di: Irene GIUSTINA, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Dipartimento diIngegneria Civile, Architettura, Territorio, Ambiente e di Matematica; Augusto ROCADE AMICIS, Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Storia, Disegno eRestauro dell’Architettura; Valentina RUSSO, Università degli Studi di Napoli“Federico II”, Dipartimento di Architettura; Marco Rosario NOBILE, Università degliStudi di Palermo, Dipartimento di Architettura; Jörg GARMS, Universität Wien;Meinrad von ENGELBERG, Technische Universität Darmstadt, FachbereichArchitektur; Ulrich FÜRST, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Institut fürKunstgeschichte; Pavel KALINA, České Vysoké Učení Technickév Praze, FakultaArchitektury; Javier RIVERA BLANCO, Universidad de Alcalá, Escuela TécnicaSuperior de Arquitectura; Claudio VARAGNOLI, Università degli Studi “Gabrieled’Annunzio” di Chieti e Pescara, Dipartimento di Architettura; Alessandra MARINO,Soprintendenza Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Firenze, Pistoia e Prato

Le nuove istanze devozionali promosse dallaControriforma hanno dato luogo, tra il XVII e il XVIIIsecolo, a numerosi interventi di rinnovamento rivoltia importanti monumenti sacri: dalle basiliche romanealle chiese abbaziali e alle cattedrali gotiche di tuttaEuropa. Il forte potenziale simbolico di questi edifici e la volontà di mantenere una continuità - ideale e materiale - con l’esistente hanno dato luogo a unsingolare connubio tra il nuovo linguaggio barocco,con la sua forza unificante, e un’antichità non accettatanelle concezioni artistiche dell’epoca, ma di fattoaccolta e reinterpretata. Esigenze liturgiche, politiche odi statica dell’edificio hanno dato luogo a un’ampiacasistica di relazioni tra spazi, elementi strutturali e decorativi; un fenomeno per lungo temposottovalutato o letto attraverso le categorie del restauromoderno. Da quali valutazioni scaturivano le finalitàconservative in un orizzonte lontano dallo storicismo?Le motivazioni simboliche, pratiche, ideologiche di tali interventi hanno radici comuni o sono più forti le specificità delle singole realtà geoculturali? Rispetto a tali interrogativi questo libro, che raccoglietesti dei maggiori specialisti europei sull’argomento,offre un terreno comune di confronto, assieme a unariflessione sui rapporti tra progetto e preesistenza inun momento in cui la contemporaneità si interroga sulruolo da affidare al patrimonio architettonico e in cui si indebolisce la fiducia di un effettivo, profondorapporto con il nostro passato.

The new devotional instances between the Seventeenthand Eighteenth centuries, promoted by the Counter-Reformation, led to various interventions aimed atrenewing important sacred monuments: from theRoman basilicas to the abbey churches and Gothiccathedrals throughout Europe. The strong symbolicpotential of these buildings and the desire to maintaina continuity - both ideal and material - with the existingstructures gave rise to a unique marriage. The newBaroque language and its unifying nature, meet theChristian antiquity, rejected in artistic conceptions ofthe time, but actually accepted and reinterpreted.Liturgical and political requirements, or consolidationinstances, have resulted in a series of relationshipsbetween spaces, structural and decorative elements.This is a phenomenon which has long been underratedor understood only through the categories of modernrestoration. What were the evaluations that shaped theconservation purposes in a time far away fromhistoricism? Do the symbolic, practical, ideologicalreasons of such interventions have common roots ordoes the specificity of geo-cultural realities prevail?This book, which collects the texts of the majorEuropean specialists on the subject, provides acommon ground for comparison, together with areflection on the relationship between design andexisting architecture, in a time when the contemporarythought questions the role to be given to thearchitectural heritage, and when the confidence in areal, deep relationship with our past becomes weak.

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