Seattle, Seattle Art MuseumOctober 17 2019 - January 26 2020

Curated by Sylvain Bellengerwith the collaboration of Chiyo Ishikawa, George Shackleford and Guillaume Kientz

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art MuseumMarch 01 2020 - June 14 2020

Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte

DirectorSylvain Bellenger

Chief CuratorLinda Martino

Exhibition DepartmentPatrizia PiscitelloGiovanna Bile

Documentation DepartmentAlessandra Rullo

Head of DigitalizationCarmine Romano

Restoration DepartmentAlessandra Golia

Legal ConsultingStudio Luigi Rispoli

American Friends of Capodimonte PresidentNancy Vespoli

Seattle Art Museum Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEOAmada Cruz

Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and SculptureChiyo Ishikawa Curatorial InternGloria de Liberali

Deputy Director for Art AdministrationZora Foy Exhibitions and Publications ManagerTina Lee

Director of Museum Servicesand Chief RegistrarLauren Mellon Associate Registrar for ExhibitionsMegan Peterson

Director of Design and InstallationNathan Peek and his team Exhibition DesignerPaul Martinez

Acting Director of CommunicationsCindy McKinley and her team

Chief Development Officer Chris Landman and his team

Kayla Skinner Deputy Directorfor Education and Public EngagementRegan Pro and her team

Embassy of ItalyWashington

The Embassy of Italy in Washington D.C.

Front coverParmigianinoLucretia1540, Oil on panelNaples, Museo e Real Boscodi Capodimonte

Exhibition Catalogue AuthorsSylvain BellengerJames P. AnnoChristopher BakkeProofreading and copyeditingMark CastroGraphic DesignStudio Polpo Photos creditsMuseo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte© Alberto Burri by SIAE 2019, Fig. 5 © 2019 Andy Warhol Foundationfor the Visual Arts by SIAE, Fig. 6PhotographersLuciano RomanoSperanza Digital Studio, Napoli Published by MondoMostrePrinted in Italy by TecnostampaFinished printing on September 2019 Copyright © 2019 MondoMostre All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrival system, without prior permission In writing from the publiser Isbn 978-88-905853-7-1

Kimbell Art Museum DirectorEric M. Lee Deputy DirectorGeorge T.M. Shackelford Curator of European ArtGuillaume Kientz Deputy Director of Financeand AdministrationSusan Drake Head of Collections Management& RegistrationPatty Decoster Head of Marketing and Public RelationsJessica Brandrup

MondoMostre PresidentTomaso Radaelli CEOSimone Todorow di San Giorgio Institutional RelationsMaria Grazia Benini Head of Asia-PacificDavid Gramazio Head of North AmericaAnna Bursaux

Exhibition ManagerDiana Boldrini Parravicini Legal AffairsChiara Ferraro Accounting & FinanceMonica Zdrilich

American travelers who know Naples primarily as a jumping-off point to the great archeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum overlook the incredible riches of the city’s buildings, churches, and museums. Located in a verdant park overlooking the city, Mount Vesuvius, and the bay of Naples, the Capodimonte Museum is one of Italy’s largest museums and home to one of the finest collections of Italian and Spanish painting in the world. Its heart is the splendid Farnese collection of painting and sculpture, formed in Parma and Rome in the sixteenth century and inherited by Charles VII of Naples and Sicily (who later became Charles III of Spain). Earthy Italian and Spanish masterpieces of the baroque period, grounded in realism and produced in Naples, built on this foundation. Characteristic of both periods is a focus on the human figure, whether in portraits, mythological subjects, or religious scenes. Flesh & Blood features many profound expressions of the intersection of physical and spiritual existence, with unceasing emphasis on the human body as a vehicle to express love and devotion, physical labor, tragic suffering, and spiritual release. This exhibition gives our visitors the rare opportunity to see how brilliant and innovative artists such as Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Jusepe de Ribera approached these timeless themes.

The Seattle Art Museum and the Kimbell Art Museum have greatly enjoyed collaborating with the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte on this extraordinary project. Our two institutions were enthusia-stic about the prospect of an exhibition from Naples, but it was only when the directors and curators traveled there, met with museum colleagues, and saw the extraordinary works of art in the galleries and in storage that we realized how powerful this exhibition could be. We would like to thank Sylvain Bellenger, Director of the Museum, for his collegiality in welcoming us to Naples and generosity in sharing these treasures with our visitors. We are also grateful to Patrizia Piscitello, Head of Exhibi-tions. Logistical details were managed by the expert team of MondoMostre, and we would like to especially thank David Gramazio and Diana Boldrini Parravicini for their tireless work to make this a stunning and successful exhibition and publication. The curatorial team of Chiyo Ishikawa from Seattle and George Shackelford and Guillaume Kientz from the Kimbell worked smoothly together, expertly identifying works that were masterpieces of their time and still relevant today.

At the Seattle Art Museum, our gratitude goes to Kimerly Rorschach, former Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, who initiated the project for SAM. Generous support for this ambitious project was provided by Presenting Sponsor ArtsFund. Special thanks to Lead Sponsor 4Culture, Major Spon-sor Robert Lehman Foundation, and Hotel Partner Four Seasons Hotel Seattle. At the Kimbell Art Museum, we would like to thank Kay and Ben Fortson, Kimbell Fortson Wynne, and the Board of Di-rectors of the Kimbell Art Foundation for their strong commitment to the project from the outset, fur-thering the mission to bring great works of art to Fort Worth. Both museums have much appreciation for their incredible staffs for presenting and interpreting this beautiful exhibition for our audiences.

Amada CruzIllsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEOSeattle Art Museum

Eric M. LeeDirectorKimbell Art Museum

Back in the 18th century, the “Grand Tour d’Italie” inspired and captured the imagination of many artists from across Europe. Poets, painters, musicians and artists would venture to the Italian pe-ninsula in search of their roots, connecting to the traces of an ancient past, that had a great bearing on their lives and on the forms of artistic expression they were so keenly exploring. Rightly so, for many the Grand Tour would end in Naples a city of unparalleled beauty, a kaleidoscope of diverse cultures and millenary history. In Naples, they would reach the zenith of splendidness.Nea Polis founded by the Greeks thrived and flourished throughout the centuries. This breathtaking city has been under different rulers, harbingers of new, rich and diverse cultures. The city and its people embraced the novelties while at the same time fascinating the newcomers. Until today, it continues to exhilarate, change vibrantly and stupefy. The exhibition “Flesh& Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum” is truly im-pressive. Life, in its human and spiritual dimensions, is vividly captured in the works of artists such as Raphael, Titian, Luca Giordano, Artemisia Gentileschi, El Greco and Jusepe de Ribera. As the astounding art in display in the exhibition from the Farnese Collection and the Seventeenth Century Neapolitan school unfolds in this exquisite catalogue, the reader is overwhelmed. This spectacular exhibit is also a testament to the strong cooperation between some of the greatest cultural institutions and associations in Italy and the United States, like the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the Seattle Art Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum and the American Friends of Capo-dimonte. They tirelessly endeavored to renew and strengthen the bonds of friendship and deep cultural ties between our countries and people by bringing a unique glimpse of Italy to Seattle and Fort Worth. A visit to the exhibition will be an enriching experience that will foster the knowledge of one of the most impressive collections of art in Italy, and mutual respect and admiration, which our coun-tries are proud to share. 

Armando VarricchioAmbassador of Italy

Naples is one of the oldest cities in Europe. Founded in the sixth century BCE by the Greeks, this splendid city and its bay have been occupied by a succession of rulers spanning from the Romans, Normans and Angevins to the Spanish and French. An eclectic, distinct culture emerged that con-tinues to both exhilarate and befuddle each brave soul that ventures into the bosom of its ancient avenues. Every street corner is a discovery. Every piazza, palace and church an open air museum. Rightly stated, Naples is a work of art.

Overlooking this masterpiece above the city is the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte. Foun-ded in 1738, Capodimonte was the hunting lodge of the King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon. Char-les was a new breed of ruler for this ancient city. His Naples was no longer under the domain of a foreign power, but a newly created independent state. Charles was its sovereign in residence who ushered in a period of cultural glory that was to become the envy of Europe for over a hundred ye-ars. He spearheaded the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, established the San Carlo Opera House and began construction of the Italian Versailles at Caserta. Most significantly he brought to Naples the extraordinary private collection of antiquities and Renaissance and Baroque masterpie-ces inherited from his mother, Elisabeth Farnese.

The Farnese Collection, comprised of masterworks from throughout Europe, boasts artists such as Raphael, Titian, El Greco and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Initiated by Pope Paul III Farnese, the col-lection grew as his heirs continued to commission and acquire works primarily from the centers of Rome and Parma. The seventeenth century Neapolitan School, also presented in the current exhi-bition, draws directly from the city’s artistic genius. Masters including Jusepe de Ribera and Luca Giordano established Naples as one of the leading centers of European art. Flesh & Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum brings highlights from these two collections to the United States for the first time.

On behalf of the American Friends of Capodimonte (AFC), I want to thank Seattle Art Museum Director and CEO Amada Cruz and Kimbell Art Museum Director Eric M. Lee for their generous collaboration in making this exhibition possible. Board members Cristina Del Sesto, Dr. Claire Van Cleave and founding President Vincent Buonanno offered essential guidance in the production of this project. I also want to thank Sylvain Bellenger, director of the Museum and Royal Park of Ca-podimonte, for his tireless support of the AFC and for his visionary leadership of the Capodimonte Museum. It is a privilege for the AFC to contribute to Director Bellenger’s mission. We offer this exhibition catalogue, authored by our two AFC Fellows, as a monument to the bonds between our two great nations.

Nancy VespoliPresident, American Friends of Capodimonte

I wish to open this preface by thanking the Directors of the Seattle Art Museum and the Kimbell Art Museum on behalf of Capodimonte's staff and Italy's cultural ministry – to which I add my personal debt of gratitude – for the presentation of the exhibition Flesh & Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum. We at Capodimonte are thrilled that the American public will be able to admire the masterpieces of one of the great museums of the world.

The Farnese were exceptional patrons of the arts. Over several centuries they commissioned and collected the works of art that today constitute the Farnese Collection. Following in their footsteps, and heeding the lessons of the Medici, the ruling family in Naples, the Bourbons, established the Royal Tapestry Factory and the Capodimonte Porcelain Factory. Their legacy to the present is a col-lection that spans the ages, and today Capodimonte is perhaps the only museum in Italy to present a comprehensive overview of the art of painting from the 13th century to the present. This includes artists from Naples and Italy, but also those international painters who traveled here to leave their mark for future generations.

This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as the Museum will soon undergo significant renovation and will be partially closed in upcoming years. This has allowed our curatorial team to select an exceptional list of works to represent two of the most fertile and interesting periods of Italian art: the Renaissance and Baroque.

I hope this exhibition will represent the beginning of a relationship that will foster exchange and knowledge between our cultures, and I wish to thank everyone who has worked so hard to make the possible, both in Italy and the United States. The exciting and fruitful collaboration between Capodimonte, the Seattle Art Museum and the Kimbell Art Museum has been, and will continue to be, a successful and rewarding friendship.

Sylvain BellengerDirectorMuseo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte

THE MUSEUMAND ROYAL PARK OF CAPODIMONTE

THE FARNESE COLLECTION:HISTORY AND ART

THE NEAPOLITAN BAROQUE MASTERSIN THE CAPODIMONTE COLLECTION

THE ARTWORKS

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

SELECTED READINGS

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CONTENTS

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THE MUSEUMAND ROYAL PARKOF CAPODIMONTE

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Ascending from the chaotic beauty of contemporary Naples to the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte evokes the sensation of pilgrimage. The robust sensory input of a pulsating humanity and racing motorini gives way to an unexpected serenity where one of the world’s greatest collections of European art is exhibited within a Royal Palace Museum without rival in Italy. Boasting 47,000 artworks spanning from the medieval period to the present day, the Capodimonte Museum (Fig. 1) presents works by great artists throughout its 126 galleries including Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Giovanni Bellini, Bruegel the Elder, Caravaggio, Louise Bourgeois, and Andy Warhol, to name only a few.

The origins of Capodimonte’s collections begin with one of the most discer-ning patrons of the Italian Renaissance, Pope Paul III Farnese (1468-1549; r. 1534), who commissioned works from Raphael, Titian and Michelangelo. Charles of Bourbon (1716-1788) received the Farnese Collection through his mother Elisabeth (1692-1766), the Queen consort of Spain and took it with him to Naples in 1735, having assumed the Neapolitan throne a year before. Charles commissioned Giovanni Antonio Medrano (1703-1760) to construct Capodimonte in 1738 with the desire to display his collection in this new hilltop palace. Before leaving Naples for the Spanish crown in 1759, Charles had ve-ritably transformed Naples into one of the most sophisticated cities in Europe.

Fundamental to Capodimonte’s allure, both then and now, is the Royal Park

Fig. 1The Capodimonte MuseumNaples, Italy

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of Capodimonte. With its 300 acres and more than 400 plant species, the Royal Park is an unspoiled green space overlooking the city and the Bay of Naples. Designed by Ferdinando Sanfelice (1675-1748) in 1742, the Park includes a late baroque garden of Sino-English design, the first mandarin trees in Italy, as well as rare Eastern fragrances. Of the seventeen historic buildings in the Park, the Royal Porcelain Factory established in 1743 remains prominent, having produced what is still known today as Capodimonte porcelain.

Despite a brief period of expulsion by the French from 1806-1816, the Bour-bons continued to enrich Capodimonte’s collections through important acquisi-tions, including works from Neapolitan churches and convents as well as private gifts, until the Unification of Italy in 1861. Capodimonte then passed to the Sa-voy dynasty, who continued this tradition until the Palace became a possession of the Italian State after the Second World War. Opened to the public as a museum in 1957, Capodimonte thus entered the modern museological era.1

THE BOURBONS 1734-1806Charles of Bourbon, son of King Philip V of Spain (1683-1746) and Elisabeth Farnese, ascended to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples in 1734. As an avid hunter and heir to the renowned Farnese Collection via his mother, Charles desired to construct a new royal palace with magnificent views atop the Capo-dimonte hill. The new young king contracted the military engineer and archi-tect Giovanni Antonio Medrano to build the palace, breaking ground in 1738. With construction underway, Charles commissioned the architect Ferdinando Fuga (1699-1781) in 1742 to transform the vast forest surrounding the site into a scenographic garden with five grand avenues radiating from the Porta di Mezzo near the palace.

Charles founded several important manufactories throughout his kingdom including the Royal Porcelain Manufactory within Capodimonte’s forest in

1 Standard references for the history of the the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte and its collections include Bruno Molajoli, Il Museo di Capodimonte (Naples: Franco Di Mauro Editore, 1961); Mariella Utili, ed. Museo di Capodimonte (Milan: Touring Editore, 2002); Nicola Spinosa, ed. Capodimonte: Omaggio a Capodimonte, 2 Vols. (Naples: Electa, 2007).

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1743. He also developed a lively court attracting Europe’s rich and famous including the Marquis de Sade, Canova, Wright of Derby, Johann Winckel-mann and Goethe. Under Charles’ auspices, Naples became the last stop for the Grand Tour d’Italie. By 1759 the Farnese Collection was installed within the finished galleries at Capodimonte along with numerous other Bourbon ac-quisitions. That same year, Charles left Naples for Spain to assume the Spanish crown styled as Charles III.

Ferdinand IV of Naples (1751-1825) succeeded Charles in 1759. Although primarily focused on the construction of the Royal Palace of Caserta begun by his father in 1752, Ferdinand promoted contemporary art in Naples and collected works by celebrated international artists including Anton Raphael Mengs, Angelica Kauffmann and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Ferdinand also ac-quired the first canvases from the southern Italian school by Polidoro da Cara-vaggio, Jusepe de Ribera and Luca Giordano, and acquired over 20,000 works on paper from Count Karl Joseph von Firmian (1716-1782), including etchings and drawings by Fra Bartolomeo, Dürer, Ribera and Rembrandt.

THE FRENCH DECADE 1806-1816Ferdinand IV’s reign in Naples was dramatically interrupted in 1799 when French troops under Napoleon sacked the city. The Parthenopean Republic was declared, lasting only six months, and Ferdinand was temporarily restored to the throne. Napoleon deposed Ferdinand in 1805 and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844) in 1806. The brief period of French domination in Naples from 1806-1816 is known sardonically in the city as the Decennio francese or French Decade.

Napoleon relocated his brother Joseph to Spain in 1808. Joachim Murat (1767-1815), Napoleon’s brother-in-law, then assumed the Neapolitan crown from 1808-1815. Murat reinvigorated Capodimonte and its environs. Finely crafted furniture in the Empire style flowed to Capodimonte from France, as Murat also engaged local craftsman to produce a range of decorative arts according to his taste.

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In 1806 Murat ordered a great wall composed of tufa blocks to be con-structed around the Spiniato or flattened plane surrounding the palace. Along the walls two new entrances were opened; the Porta Grande on Via dei Ponti Rossi, and the Porta Piccola on the current Via Miano. Murat developed the infrastructure around Capodimonte, with urban arteries connecting local vil-lages in the countryside, and built a bridge over the Sanità district connecting the heart of the city to the Capodimonte hill.

THE BOURBON RESTORATION 1816-1860After Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Ferdinand was reinstated as King of Naples and the Two Sicilies in 1816, now styled as Ferdi-nand I. With the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, Ferdinand transferred

Fig.2 The Salone delle feste or Ballroom designed by Antonio Niccolini and executed by Salvatore Giusti

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many of the works from Capodimonte down the hill to the Palazzo degli Studi, which today is the site of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale of Naples. Ferdi-nand I acquired the eclectic Borgia Collection in 1817.

Ferdinand II (1810-1859) succeeded to the throne in 1830 and renewed the initiative to complete the Reggia that had been under construction since 1738. He enlisted head architect Antonio Niccolini (1772-1850) to finish the northern end of the palace with its monumental staircase. Decorative programs were undertak-en within the official presentation rooms on the piano nobile where portraits of the Bourbons were displayed, executed by artists such as Francesco Liani, Angelica Kauffmann and Giuseppe Cammarano. Salvatore Giusti, a student of Jacob Philip Hackert, decorated the Salone delle feste or ballroom (Fig. 2) during this period, based upon the designs of Antonio Niccolini.

During the Decennio francese, innumerable monasteries in Naples were sup-pressed and their artistic treasures later integrated into the Bourbon collections, including paintings by Colantonio, Pinturicchio and Matthias Stom. At the same time, dispersion was a factor during this period. Royal gifts from the Farnese and Bourbon collections were conferred to the University of Palermo in 1838, and the Prince of Salerno, Leopoldo of Bourbon (1790-1851) sold portions of his collection to eliminate his significant gambling debts.

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND THE SAVOY 1861-1957With the Unification of Italy in 1861, the Royal Palace of Capodimonte passed from the Bourbons to the Savoy. The Savoy developed the southern end of the palace to be an intimate space for their private apartments overlooking the bay, today known as the Ottocento privato. Annibale Sacco (ca.1828-1887) was appointed director of the royal house and sought to preserve the artistic patri-mony at Capodimonte with an eye towards porcelain and the decorative arts. In 1866 the Porcelain Room or chinoiserie executed in 1757-59 for the Palace of Portici was transferred to Capodimonte and installed on the piano nobile.

Annibale Sacco, with the assistance of artists Domenico Morelli (1823-1901) and Federico Maldarelli (1826-1893), also acquired contemporary art, numbe-ring over 600 paintings and 100 sculptures. In addition, the Royal Bourbon

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Fig.3 Masaccio (San Giovanni Valdarno 1401-Rome 1428)Crucifixion, 1426Tempera on panel 83 x 63.5 cminv. Q 36

Armory, an expansive Roman pavement from an imperial villa on the island of Capri and tapestries produced by the Royal Bourbon Manufactory, were all transported to the palace. One of Capodimonte’s most distinguishing features, the Belvedere overlooking the city and bay, was reorganized under King Um-berto I of Savoy (1844-1900). The Belvedere features a monumental fountain attributed to the Flemish artist Joseph Canart (1713-1791). The fountain was moved from the Tower Garden in the Park to the Belvedere in the 1880’s.

By the first decade of the twentieth century, Capodimonte passed to the Duke of Aosta, a cadet branch of the Savoy. The family remained in the palace until the end of World War II, although the edifice passed from the Crown into the public domain in 1920. After the Unification, Capodimonte acquired se-minal works including Masaccio’s Crucifixion (Fig. 3). of 1426 and Jacopo de’ Barbari’s 1495 Portrait of Luca Pacioli (Fig. 4).

Fig.4 Jacopo de’ Barbari(Venice 1460/70-Mechelen 1521)Portrait of Luca Pacioli, 1495Oil on panel 98 x 108 cm inv. Q 58

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1957 AND BEYONDIn May 1957 Capodimonte opened to the public as a member of the newly instituted Italian museum system created after the devastation of World War II. Under the superintendencies of Ferdinando Bologna (1925-2019) and Raffa-ello Causa (1923-1984), Capodimonte underwent radical changes in its move towards modernization. The work was initiated in 1952 according to the vision of Bruno Molajoli (1905-1985) and architect Ezio de Felice (1916-2000). The entire edifice was restored, with new modern galleries designed to accommoda-te the diverse collections conserved in the museum, without altering the historic decorative elements of the interior.

Exhibitions of contemporary art were held in the 1970’s and artworks were acquired, including Alberto Burri’s Grande Cretto Nero, 1978 (Fig. 5). In the following decade, new spaces were opened and Nicola Spinosa devised a fresh arrangement of the collections throughout the museum, granting the museum the fundamental character it has today. The comprehensive reorganization of the museum was completed in 1995.

Fig.6 Andy Warhol(Pittsburgh 1928-New York 1987)Vesuvius, 1985, 1985Acrylic on canvas230 x 300 cm

Fig.5 Alberto Burri(Città di Castello 1915-Nice 1995)Grande Cretto Nero, 1978, 1978 (detail)Varnished majolica500 x 1500 cm

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Weaving a historical narrative that sweeps from Masaccio’s Crucifixion to Warhol’s Vesuvius, 1985 (Fig. 6), the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte offers a journey that traverses the centuries, highlighting both artistic treasures and natural wonders. With robust programs of public engagement and far-sighted strategic planning, Capodimonte remains a cultural campus that even Charles of Bourbon could admire.

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THE FARNESE COLLECTION:HISTORY AND ART

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ASCENT TO POWER Born on February 29, 1468 in the small town of Canino within the Papal States, Alessandro Farnese entered a world experiencing rapid political and religious change. His star rose steadily as he pursued a career within the Church, culmi-nating in his election as Pope in 1534, taking the name of Paul III. Throughout his reign on the Papal throne until his death on November 10, 1549, Paul III was at the epicenter of European politics and art, establishing himself as one of the greatest patrons of the sixteenth century. Paul III oversaw the execution of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel from 1536-41. He excommunicated King Henry VIII of England in 1538 and recognized the Jesuit Order in 1540. Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to paint his late masterpiece in fresco within the Pauline Chapel from 1542-49, and he convened the Council of Trent in 1545 to combat Protestantism. Along the way he initiated the forma-tion of one of the finest art collections in Europe – the Farnese Collection.

Alessandro Farnese was the scion of a family that while respectable, had never breached the upper echelons of European society. The son of Pierluigi Farnese, a military man, and Giovanna Caetani, Alessandro established his family among the most influential dynasties in Europe. Instead of pursuing a military or ag-ricultural career, Alessandro was trained as a humanist in the sometimes-con-troversial Gymnasium Romanum under Giulio Pomponio Leto (1428-1498). Educated at the University of Pisa, Alessandro then entered the illustrious court of Lorenzo de’Medici (1449-1492) from 1487-89, where he became friends with Giovanni de’Medici, later Pope Leo X (1475-1521: r. 1513).1

Resolutely ambitious, Alessandro arrived in Rome in 1489 with a letter of introduction from Lorenzo the Magnificent. Seeking a secretarial position wi-thin the Roman Curia, the burgeoning humanist quickly made the acquaintance of Vice Chancellor Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503) who was soon to become Pope Alexander VI in 1492. Alessandro’s sister, Giulia “la bella”, married Orsino Or-sini in 1489, but was rumored to be Rodrigo’s mistress. When Borgia ascended

1 Helge Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, Power and Politics in Renaissance Italy (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2007), 23-26.

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to the papacy, Alessandro’s career quickly took off, perhaps in no small part due to the influence of his sister. A rapid succession of promotions followed; he was made Papal Treasurer in 1492, Cardinal Deacon of the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in 1493, Papal Legate to the Papal States in 1494 and was given the bishoprics of Corneto (now Tarquinia) and Montefiascone in 1501.2

Alessandro’s advancement proceeded unhindered upon the death of Alexan-der VI in 1503, continuing under the reign of Pope Julius II (1443-1513; r. 1503). Alessandro received the wealthier church of Saint Eustace and the bishopric of Parma in 1509. Importantly, Julius II also legitimated and ensured rights of in-heritance for the four children Alessandro fathered with the Roman noblewoman Silvia Ruffini (1475-1561): Costanza, Pierluigi, Paolo and Ranuccio.3

It was during this period that Alessandro commissioned the precocious Raphael (1483-1520) to paint his portrait around 1509-11 (Plate 2). Raphael was simultaneously engaged with painting a suite of reception rooms, com-monly called the Stanze, for Julius II in the Apostolic Palace. The young painter depicts Alessandro in a three-quarter pose, standing within an architectural interior that opens upon a lush landscape. Holding a letter in his right hand and enrobed in his Cardinal reds, the expression that Raphael captures is one of poise and confidence.

Upon the ascension of his old friend Giovanni de’Medici to the papal throne in 1513 as Leo X, Alessandro’s fortunes grew exponentially. In 1513, Alessan-dro’s income was 3,600 scudi. By the next year it increased to 9,300 scudi.4 He received the benefices of Monreale in Sicily and Avignon in France. With his increased wealth and station, Alessandro maintained positive relations with the next Medici pope, Clement VII (1478-1534; r. 1523). According to the 1526 census, Alessandro had the largest Cardinal’s court, numbering 306 souls.5

2 Ingeborg Walter and Roberto Zapperi, “Breve storia della famiglia Farnese,” in Casa Farnese (Milan: Ricci, 1994), 9-31; Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 27. 3 Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 30.4 Cristoph Lutipold Frommel, Der römische Palastbau der Hochrenaissance (Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1973), 128; Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 30. 5 Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 30.

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During Clement VII’s papacy, the Venetian painter Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547), who was a collaborator and confidant of Michelangelo (1475-1564), painted two portraits of the pope in 1527, one example of which is included in the present exhibition. Sebastiano’s Portrait of Pope Clement VII (Plate 6) depicts the pope prior to the cataclysmic Sack of Rome during the same year by the mutinous troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558). In this portrait, Clement VII is portrayed seated and confidently gazing to our left amidst a rich green background. The virile strength of his comport-ment evinces no sign of the tragic event soon to befall his papacy.

POPE PAUL III AND THE MAKING OF A COLLECTION IN ROMEThe formation of the Farnese Collection is inextricably linked to the ever-in-creasing prestige catalyzed by Alessandro’s ascent within the Papal Curia. The reign of Leo X from 1513-21 was a prosperous period for the Cardinal. In 1495, Alessandro bought a former bishop’s palace near the church of Saint Bridget in the Arenula district of Rome at the significant cost of 5,500 scudi.6 Over the course of several years, he continued to purchase adjacent proper-ties. In 1517, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1484-1546) began knocking down the preexisting structures, breaking ground on a new palace, the Palazzo Farnese. Serving as Alessandro’s residence from 1519, the palace became one of the city’s hallmarks of Renaissance architecture, with subsequent contri-butions from esteemed architects including Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta (1532-1602).

Following Clement VII, Alessandro was elected as Pope Paul III in 1534 at the age of 67. That same year, he nominated the humanist and archaeologist Latino Manetti (1486-1553) to the post of commissario for Roman antiquities. The collection of antiquities amassed by Paul III and his heirs is nearly unpar-alleled in quality, including rare gems carved from precious stones and monu-mental statuary, such as the Farnese Hercules and the Farnese Bull, unearthed in the Roman Baths of Caracalla. Today the Farnese Collection of antiquities is

6 Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 41.

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exhibited primarily at the Museo Ar-cheologico Nazionale of Naples, hav-ing been brought to the city in 1787 by the grandson of Elisabeth Farnese, King Ferdinand I (1751-1825) of Na-ples and the Two Sicilies.

A central policy of Paul III’s pon-tificate was the ubiquitous practice of nepotism. Paul’s eldest son, Pier Luigi (1503-1547), was appointed as the pa-pal gonfaloniere and hereditary duke of the newly created duchy of Castro in northern Lazio. In 1545, he was installed as the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, a territory that would later

prove to be a rich source of income for the Farnese, providing an environment to collect and display their art.

Paul proceeded to either induct his grandsons into the Cardinalate or marry them to prestigious families throughout Europe to consolidate political ties. Ottavio Farnese (1524-1586), son of Pier Luigi, was engaged to Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of Charles V, thereafter called Madama. Ottavio inherited the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1549. Orazio Farnese (1532-1553) be-came the third Duke of Castro, and his brother Ranuccio (1530-1565) became a Cardinal at the ripe age of fifteen. Importantly for the Farnese Collection, Pier Luigi’s eldest son Alessandro the Younger (1520-1589) was elected Cardinal in 1534 at the age of fourteen.7 Cardinal Alessandro became the true scion of the Farnese, continuing his grandfather Paul III’s ambitious political and artistic program after the Pope’s death in 1549.

Amongst his many offices, Cardinal Alessandro served as Vice Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church from 1535 until his death in 1589. He therefore

Fig.7 Titian(Pieve di Cadore 1488/90-Venice 1576)Portrait of Pope Paul IIIwith the Camauro, 1543Oil on canvas105 x 80.8 cminv. Q 1135

7 Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 51.

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held his residence in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome, built by Donato Bramante (1444-1514) from 1489-1513. To valorize the Farnese name, Car-dinal Alessandro commissioned Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) in 1546 to paint a fresco cycle within the Cancelleria extolling the virtue of the Farnese papacy under Paul III. Devised by the learned Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), Vasari exe-cuted the entire cycle in a stunning one hundred days, granting the room the name of Sala dei 100 Giorni.

TITIAN AND THE FARNESE IN ROMETitian (1488/90-1576), one of the greatest painters of the sixteenth century and a superb portraitist, hailed from Venice and painted for sovereigns throughout Eu-rope, including Charles V and King Francis I of France (1494-1547). The Farnese soon lured the famed artist into their orbit. The first portrait Titian painted for the Farnese is Paul III’s grandson Ranuccio, dated to 1542, and now exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Upon the invitation of Paul III the next year, Titian met the pope in Bologna where the pontiff held meetings with Charles V. There he painted his first portrait of the steely pope from April to May of 1543. Titian’s Pope Paul III Without a Cap (Plate 8) enjoyed immediate success. Seated with a direct and penetrating gaze, the aging pope, although greyed, projects res-olute power. So well admired, Titian executed a second version in 1543 for the pope’s grandson, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza di Santa Fiora (1518-1564), entitled Portrait of Paul III with the Camauro (Fig. 7), exhibited today at Capodimonte.8

The Farnese’s relations with Titian continued into 1545-46. The artist was eager to secure for his son Pomponio the abbey of San Pietro in Colle, within the diocese of present-day Vittorio Veneto and Titian consented to Cardinal Alessandro’s invitation to work for the papal family in the Eternal City. During this period Titian painted a series of masterwork portraits of the family, includ-ing the Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Fig. 8), Portrait of Pier Luigi Farnese, and the famous Portrait of Paul III with His Grandsons Alessandro and Ottavio (Fig. 9), all of which are displayed at Capodimonte.

8 Mariella Utili, “Ritratto del papa Paolo III a capo scoperto,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 206-208.

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Fig.8 Titian(Pieve di Cadore 1488/90-Venice 1576)Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, (detail), 1545-46Oil on canvas97 x 73 cminv. Q 133

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Portraits were not, however, the only interest of the Farnese. In 1544, while the artist was still in Venice, Cardinal Alessandro commissioned Titian to execute one of the most famous pictures in the Farnese Collection: Danae (Plate 9). Likely finished in Rome in 1545-46, this erotic subject depicts the mythological princess Danae within her bedchamber as the god Zeus transforms himself into a golden cloud, showering down upon her nude body.9 Cupid watches at the right as Perseus is conceived with-in Danae’s womb. Overtly erotic and intended only for private viewing, Cardinal Alessandro demonstrates his “progressive” taste for a sixteenth century churchman.

CARDINAL ALESSANDRO HOLDING COURT IN ROMEResiding within the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Cardinal Alessandro maintained an impressive stable of intellectuals and artists that enjoyed lodging and a sti-pend within the residence. As early as 1541, the renowned miniaturist and ma-nuscript illuminator Giulio Clovio (1498-1578) was in residence at the Cancel-leria, serving as an advisor of acquisitions and in 1546 executed his masterpiece, the Farnese Hours, today in the The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

Doménikos Theotokópoulos (ca. 1541-1614), better known as El Greco, originally trained as an icon painter in his native Candia (present day Crete) before moving to Venice around 1567, where he began learning to paint in the modern Italian style. El Greco moved to Rome from 1570-77 and was recei-ved as a guest by Cardinal Alessandro. During his Roman sojourn, El Greco painted several masterworks, including his Portrait of Giulio Clovio of 1571 (Plate 11) and Boy Blowing on an Ember of 1571-72 (Plate 12). In the Portrait of Giulio Clovio, El Greco presents the erudite miniaturist within an interior, pointing toward his masterwork the Farnese Hours as a turbulent sky looms in the background. The expressive brushstrokes the painter employs in this por-trait are brought to a fever pitch in Boy Blowing on an Ember. Fashioned as a nocturne, the boy blows on an ember to light the candle in his right hand, as the thick impasto of the flame crackles on the surface of the canvas.10

9 Utili, “Danae,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 208-10.10 Leone de Castris, “Ragazzo che accende una candela con un tizzione (El soplón),” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 246-48.

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Fig.9 Titian(Pieve di Cadore 1488/90-Venice 1576)Portrait of Pope Paul III with His Grandsons Alessandro and Ottavio, 1545-46Oil on canvas202 x 176 cminv. Q 129

FULVIO ORSINI AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONSTO THE FARNESE COLLECTIONThe contributions of Fulvio Orsini (1529-1600) to the formation and size of the Farnese Collection are of fundamental importance. The illegitimate son of an Orsini, Fulvio entered the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano as an altar boy in 1539 at the age of ten. He received a world-class education under the canon Gentile Delfini, who introduced the young Fulvio to the Farnese. By 1554 Fulvio served as the librarian and keeper of the Farnese Collection under Cardinal Ales-sandro, and received a stipend and lodgings within the Palazzo della Cancelleria

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until his death in 1600. Educated as a humanist, Fulvio commanded expertise in a number of disciplines including philology, history and the burgeoning field of archaeology. As the principal counselor and procurator of Farnese acquisitions, he was also an indefatigable collector of art in his own right.

Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who was Fulvio Orsini’s first great patron, died in 1589. After his death, the collection in Rome passed to his great-nephew Cardinal Odoardo Farnese (1573-1626). When Orsini died in 1600, he thus bequeathed the great majority of the personal collection he had amassed to Cardinal Odoardo.11 The inventory of the works acquired by Orsini is of cen-tral importance to the Farnese Collection, as it specifies the provenance, name of seller and price for each object. The breadth, quality and depth of Orsini’s collection are singular. The inventory lists around 1,900 silverworks, over 500 bronzes, 113 paintings and works on paper, 70 gold coins and 58 busts and reliefs.12 Among the works are Michelangelo’s Armigers cartoon from ca. 1546-50 (Fig. 10) for the Pauline Chapel, Raphael’s Moses Before the Burning Bush cartoon of 1511-14 for the Stanza di Eliodoro in the Vatican, and El Greco’s 1571 Portrait of Giulio Clovio—all of which are exhibited at Capodimonte.

CARDINAL ODOARDO AND THE EMILIAN CONNECTIONAT THE PALAZZO FARNESECardinal Odoardo is perhaps best known for commissioning the Bolognese artist Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) to execute the monumental fresco cycle within the Palazzo Farnese entitled The Loves of the Gods from 1597-1608. Annibale employed other Emilian artists including his brother Agostino Car-racci (1557-1602), Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-1647) and Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino (1581-1641) to help with the cycle. It is during this period that Cardinal Odoardo acquired numerous other works on canvas from Annibale, Agostino and Giovanni Lanfranco.

Traveling to Rome at the invitation of Cardinal Odoardo in 1595, Annibale

11 Pierluigi Leone de Castris, “Ritrattro di Clemente VII,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 188-190. 12 Bertrand Jestaz, “Le collezioni Farnese di Roma,” in I Farnese, ed. Lucia Fornari Schianchi and Nicola Spinosa (Napoli: Electa, 1995), 59.

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13 Leone de Castris, “Sposalizio mistico di santa Caterina,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 294-95.14 Leone de Castris, “Pietà,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 304-305.15 Leone de Castris, “Arrigo Peloso, Pietro Matto e Amon nano,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 289-90. 16 Utili, “La Maddalena Assunta in cielo,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 319-320. 16 Utili, “La Maddalena Assunta in cielo,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 319-320. For the dating of this picture, see Arnold Witte, “A New Date for Lanfranco’s Decoration of the Camerino Degli Emeriti,” The Burlington Magazine 142, no. 1168 (July 2000): 423-28.

brought with him his Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine (Plate 14) as a “letter of introduction.” Originally executed in ca. 1585 for Ranuccio I Farnese (1569-1622), Duke of Parma and Piacenza, the picture gracefully depicts the Christ Child bestowing a wedding ring upon the finger of the early Christian martyr, Catherine of Alexandria.13 Cardinal Odoardo also commissioned Annibale in ca. 1600 to ex-ecute one of his great masterpieces, the Pietà (Plate 16). Drawing initial inspiration from Michelangelo’s marble Pietà in Rome created more than a century before, Annibale combines the classicizing pyramidal arrangement of the figures with a heightened pathos and tenebrism indicative of the burgeoning Baroque style.14

Cardinal Odoardo, like his predecessors, maintained a robust household of courtiers. In his acclaimed triple portrait Hairy Harry, Mad Peter and Tiny Amon of ca. 1598 (Plate 15), Agostino Carracci captures three figures of particular in-terest from Cardinal Odoardo’s court in Rome. Along the right side of the canvas is the court jester Peter, conversing with Harry (Arrigo Gonzalez) in the center, a gentleman from the Canary Islands who suffered from hypertrichosis. To the left is the dwarf Rodomonte, also known as Amon. These “meraviglie” at Cardinal Odo-ardo’s court illustrate his interest in the so called “curiosità” of nature.15

In addition to contributing to the Loves of the Gods fresco cycle in the Galleria Farnese within the Palazzo, Giovanni Lanfranco was also commissioned by Cardi-nal Odoardo to execute the Assumption of Mary Magdalene (Plate 17) which ac-companied additional paintings with desert themes, for the ceiling of the Camerino degli Eremiti in the palace around 1611.16 With flowing golden locks and escorted by three putti, all in the nude, Mary Magdalene ascends into the sky with open arms as her gaze is fixed upon heaven. The verdant landscape articulated by Lan-franco portrays the interest in nature that painters from the Emilia and northern Italy had expressed since the late fifteenth century.

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Fig.10Michelangelo(Caprese 1475-Rome 1564)Group of Armigers, (detail), ca. 1546-50Charcoal on 19 sheets of real bolognese paper2630 x 1560 mm

THE DUCHY OF PARMA AND PIACENZADuring the first years of the seventeenth century, many artworks in the Farnese Collection were in transit between the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, and the Palaz-zo del Giardino in Parma. Not only did Cardinal Odoardo enlist Emilian artists to fresco the Galleria Farnese in Rome, but the family itself scrupulously acqui-red and maintained possessions within the Emilia that were first incorporated into the Papal States under the political program of Pope Paul III. The duchy of Parma, in particular, became a lively center of artistic production under the Farnese dukes. The Palazzo del Giardino, on the west side of the Parma River

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17 Leopold von Ranke, The History of the Popes (London: Bell & Daldy, 1873), 197; Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 67. 18 Letizia Arcangeli, “Feudatari e duca negli stati farnesiani 1545-1587,” in Il Rinascimento nelle corti padane: Società e cultura (Bari: De Donato, 1977), 77-95. 19 Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 113

bisecting the city, was richly decorated by Farnese artworks after its ground-breaking in 1561 under Duke Ottavio Farnese. Directly facing the Palazzo del Giardino from the east side of the Parma River is the Palazzo della Pilotta, also began under Duke Ottavio around 1580 and expanded by Duke Ranuccio I Farnese, but never finished. These two palaces housed the family’s famed col-lection as many works were transferred north from Rome to Parma.

After capturing the papal tiara in 1534, Pope Paul III created the Duchy of Camerino between the border of Lazio and Tuscany in 1537 for his eldest son Pier Luigi. Against the wishes of Charles V, Paul III proceeded to appoint Pier Luigi as the Duke of Parma and Piacenza in August 1545. Pier Luigi encountered signifi-cant resistance from the old landowning families, or feudatares of the region and was soon assassinated in 1547 at Piacenza by conspirators of the same medieval feudal class, likely under the instigation of Charles V.17 Pier Luigi’s son Ottavio inherited the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza after his father’s assassination. Under pressure from Charles V, however, Paul III rescinded the duchy from Ottavio, only for Ottavio to effectively take it back by the threat of force in the same year of the pope’s death in 1549. Ottavio built up his ducal power over the following years. King Philip II of Spain, successor to Charles V, then recognized him and his heirs in 1556 to be the rightful dukes of Parma and Piacenza.18

Ottavio’s son, Duke Alessandro of Parma and Piacenza (1545-1592) achieved great military fame for the Farnese in the service of Philip II. Duke Alessandro fought in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 that rebuffed the westward advance of the Ottoman Turks and became a Statholder in 1578. He became famous throughout Europe for laying siege to Protestant-held Antwerp in 1585.19 Duke Ranuccio I Farnese inherited Parma and Piacenza upon his father Alessandro’s death in 1592. It was Duke Ranuccio I and his grandfather Duke Ottavio who played pivotal roles in embellishing the Palazzo del Giardino and Palazzo della Pilotta.

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Fig.11Pieter Bruegel the Elder(Breda ca.1525-Brussels 1569)The Blind Leading the Blind, 1568Distemper on linen canvas85.5 x 154 cminv. Q 1

20 Lucia Fornari Schianchi, “Venite all’ombra dei gran gigli d’oro”: forme del collezionismo farnesiano a Parma,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 68.21 Castris, “Ritratto di giovane donna (l’“Antea”),” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 183-85. 22 Gamrath, Farnese: Pomp, 69-70, 122-23.

They commissioned local Emilian artists within the palaces and transferred works to Parma from the Farnese Collection in Rome.

The first inventory drafted in 1587 of the Palazzo del Giardino notes some forty artworks from the school of Parma that are central to the character of the Farnese Collection. In addition to paintings, other valuable objects such as gold jewelry, cameos, precious stones, dinnerware, clocks and ornate masks are listed.20 Included in the 1587 inventory is Parmigianino’s (1503-40) Lucretia, executed in 1540 (Plate 7). Present in the Palazzo del Giardino’s later inven-tory of 1680 is also Parmigianino’s masterwork Antea (Plate 4) of ca. 1535, likely executed in Parma. One of the most intriguing and enigmatic portraits of the sixteenth century, the figure of Antea captures our attention with her direct gaze and sumptuous garments. The identity of the sitter is uncertain. Some have mistakenly suggested that the portrait may be of a famous Roman courtesan mentioned by Benvenuto Cellini and Pietro Aretino.21

Political stability in the duchy of Parma and Piacenza remained tenuous into the first years of the seventeenth century. As Duke Ranuccio I sought to consol-idate his power after inheriting the duchy in 1592, a large-scale aristocratic plot was discovered in 1611 that boldly devised to murder him and his newborn son Odoardo (1612-1646) at the infant’s baptismal ceremony. Upon uncovering the plot, Ranuccio I held a mock trial and proceeded to execute nearly one hundred people, many of them nobles, between 1611-12.22 The fiefs of the condemned were seized along with all of their property. The Farnese Collection was thus expand-ed not only by commissioning and buying art, but also by confiscation. Among the masterpieces confiscated from Giovan Battista Masi (1574-1612) were Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525-1569) The Blind Leading the Blind (Fig. 11) and The Misanthrope (Fig. 12), both painted in 1568 and now on view at Capodimonte.

The 1680 inventory of the Palazzo del Giardino presents a more comprehen-sive view of the collection of paintings in Parma, including the paintings sent

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from Rome. More than 1,095 paintings are listed in a gallery comprised of over fifty-three rooms. Among them were works by Giovanni Bellini, Lorenzo Lotto, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Sebastiano del Piombo, Parmigianino, Rosso Fioren-tino, Andrea del Sarto and El Greco, as well as many others. Importantly, the collection has no works by the early Baroque master Caravaggio (1571-1610) or his followers, with the exception of Lionello Spada’s Cain and Abel (Plate 20). Bartolomeo Schedoni’s Charity of 1611 (Plate 18), however, does display the in-fluence of Caravaggio and is considered to be one of the artist’s greatest works.

The organization of the Farnese Collection in Parma continued under the last Farnese Dukes, Francesco (1678-1727) and Antonio (1679-1731). With the death of Duke Antonio, the dynasty passed in 1731 to the fifteen-year-old Charles of Bourbon (1716-1788). The patrilineal line of the Farnese was extinguished for-ever and the golden age of Farnese collecting ceased. But a bold new chapter in the collection’s history shortly followed. Charles of Bourbon transferred the col-lection, representing over two hundred years of artistic patrimony, to one of the greatest eighteenth-century in Europe—Naples.

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23 Nicola Spinosa, “Le Collezione farnesiane a Napoli: da raccolta di famiglia a Museo e Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte,” in I Farnese: Arte e Collezionismo (Naples: Electa, 1995), 80.24 Spinosa, “Le Collezione farnesiane a Napoli,” 80-82.

NAPLES AND THE FARNESE COLLECTIONOn January 1731, Duke Antonio Farnese died without heirs. The duchy of Parma and Piacenza thus passed to Charles of Bourbon, whose mother Elis-abeth Farnese (1692-1766) was the Queen consort of King Philip V of Spain (1683-1746), and niece of Duke Antonio. Charles took possession of Parma and Piacenza in October 1732, assuming ownership of all the properties and collections of art now spread across palaces in Rome, Parma, Piacenza and other sites within Lazio, numbering over 3,000 objects across all inventories.23

After thirty years under the Austrian Viceroyalty and precipitated by the tumultuous events surrounding the succession of the Polish throne, Charles of Bourbon moved to seize the Kingdom of Naples and all of southern Italy in 1733 to establish an independent state. Elisabeth Farnese and Charles’ advisor Joaquín de Montealegre (1698-1771), Duke of Salas, sought approval from the Spanish Crown to move the Farnese Collection to Naples. Giovanni Bernardi Voschi, head of collections at Parma, drafted an inventory of the objects to be transferred from Parma to Naples in May 1735. Bernardino Lolli, custodian of the Farnese Collection, received the items in late 1735 and 1736 at the Palazzo Reale on the bay in Naples.24

Architect Domenico Fontana (1543-1607) began construction on the current Palazzo Reale in the early seventeenth century. By the time Charles of Bourbon took up his residence there in 1734, the palace was in significant need of repair. Charles commissioned Giovanni Antonio Medrano (1703-60) to make renova-tions in advance of his marriage to Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724-60) in May 1738. Charles simultaneously commissioned Medrano to execute two additional building projects, the palaces of Portici and Capodimonte, having already com-pleted the Teatro San Carlo the year before.

Capodimonte was to serve as a picture gallery and hunting lodge for the young king, and the first stone was laid under Medrano on September 9, 1738. It was decided to move the Farnese Collection and other important works to the pal-

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Fig.12Pieter Bruegel the Elder(Breda ca.1525-Brussels 1569)The Misanthrope, 1568Tempera on canvas86 x 85 cminv. Q 16

ace in 1754, and by 1759 the artworks were installed in the available rooms that had been completed. By 1799, there were more than 1,700 paintings on site at Capodimonte. As Nicola Spinosa suggests, many of them must have been of Farnese origin.25

Few families can lay claim to such an illustrious collection assembled in lit-tle more than two hundred years. As Pope Paul III ele-vated the Farnese family to the highest levels of European politics, his heirs followed the example of their pater familias in commissioning and acquiring innumerable masterworks from the greatest artists of the age. An unbroken succession of collecting thus continued from Paul III to his last male heir Duke Antonio, whereupon the Farnese Collection passed to Charles of Bourbon. Na-ples was to be its final destination. Parthenope sang her song, and as a grand lady atop the hill, Capodimonte continues to offer her treasures as she majes-tically overlooks the city that has come to call the Farnese Collection its own.

25 Spinosa, “Le Collezione farnesiane a Napoli,” 82-87.

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THE NEAPOLITAN BAROQUE MASTERSIN THE CAPODIMONTE COLLECTION

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NAPLES AND CARAVAGGIOWhen Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) arrived to Naples in October 1606 the city had no well-defined school of painting. This is sur-prising. For centuries Naples was the second largest city in Europe. At the beginning of the seventeenth century only Paris surpassed its population of 270,000, and within fifty years that figure would grow by 100,000.1 Since 1503, the recently united Spanish Crown had governed this early modern European metropolis. The Spanish were just one of the many major powers that laid claim to Naples throughout its tumultuous history. In the thirteenth century, the Swabian King Frederick II controlled Naples and southern Italy, establishing enduring political and cultural precedents for this vast Mediter-ranean periphery. The south, with Naples as its capital, changed hands to the French Angevins in the fourteenth century, and to the Kingdom of Aragon in the fifteenth century.

The image of a large city in which different cultures and political regimes take root suggests a dynamic artistic center, one in which ancient traditions co-alesce and create modes of expression even more remarkable than what came before. And yet an artistic renaissance bypassed Naples, at least in the visual arts. Although the Angevins imported Italy’s best humanists, writers, and artists, no local school filled the void when these figures departed. The sixteenth-cen-tury Neapolitan humanist Pietro Summonte (1453-1526) commented that in the nearly two hundred years since Giotto had worked under Robert d’Anjou (1278-1343), only one painter of note was ever active in Naples.2 Other politi-cal leaders concentrated on urban planning in order to cope with the city’s im-possible geography and population density. Naples remained singularly cut-off from the exceptional developments in the arts occurring in Rome, the great Tu-scan cities, the Emilia, Genoa, Milan, and Venice. Southern Italy existed apart from these vital centers of the North. It was an expanse of baronial, feudal ter-

1 John A. Marino, Becoming Neapolitan: Citizen Culture in Baroque Naples (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 8-9.2 That painter was Colantonio, the Flemish-inspired teacher of Antonello da Messina. The full text of Summonte’s 1524 description of Neapolitan art is reprinted in Roberto Pane, Il Rinascimento nell’Italia meridionale, Vol. I (Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 1975), 63–71.

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ritory where the wealthy avoided cities and paid little mind to commissioning art for the exaltation of religious, civic, and familial institutions.

Steady artistic patronage would not emerge in Europe’s second city until after February 1565, when the young archbishop of Naples, Alfonso Carafa (1540-1565), held a synod that mandated the redevelopment of the city’s hundreds of long-neglected churches.3 This was no small task. The reliable Neapolitan historian Carlo Celano (1617-1693), writing roughly one hundred years later, reported that the city housed 304 churches.4 Remodeling this constellation of ecclesiastical complexes to conform with the Council of Trent would last well into the eighteenth century.

Within fifteen years of Alfonso Carafa’s mandate, a coterie of artists was exe-cuting religious altarpieces in large quantities for the first time in Naples. This first generation of painters – the Sienese Marco Pino, the Fleming Dirck Hendri-cksz, the Greek (or perhaps Albanian) Belisario Corenzio, and the Neapolitans Francesco Curia, Girolamo Imperato and Fabrizio Santafede – lacked sufficient training and experience to create inspired work, or even model figures. With their own limited means, they gleaned stylistic particularities and surface traits from established artists further north like the Zuccari, Leandro Bassano, the Cavaliere d’Arpino and Bartolomeo Spranger. The result for Naples was twenty-five years of Mannerism’s eccentricities without the appeal of its courtly pomp and bookish sophistication. Nevertheless, the search for an artistic voice was sincere. The wil-lingness to experiment and the eagerness to learn from great northern artists – to whom Neapolitan patrons and artists awarded unhesitating deference – was the pervading artistic sentiment in Naples at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This was the fertile environment into which Caravaggio unexpectedly arrived.5

Caravaggio only had four grueling years left to live after he killed Ranuccio Tom-masoni in Rome in 1606. During these final years, he passed what amounts to seven-

3 For Alfonso Carafa, see Romeo De Maio, Alfonso Carafa: Cardinale di Napoli (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1961).4 Carlo Celano, Notizie del bello, dell’antico e del curioso della città di Napoli, vol. I, ed. Atanasio Mozzillo, Alfredo Preofeta and Francesco Paolo Macchia (Naples: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane, 1970), 20.5 The authoritative study of this period is Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Pittura del cinquecento a Napoli: 1573–1606: l’ultima maniera (Naples: Electa Napoli, 1991).

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teen months in Naples over two distinct periods, from October 1606 to June 1607 and from October 1609 to July 1610. Three months after his arrival, the charitable confraternity of Pio Monte della Misericordia commissioned Caravaggio to paint the major altarpiece for their church. Pio Monte was a new institution, founded in 1602 and governed by seven leading members of the young generation of Neapol-itan aristocrats. Most prominent among them was the intellectual Giovan Battista Manso (1569-1645), friend and biographer of Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), who was instrumental in selecting Caravaggio to execute Pio Monte’s high altar.6

Caravaggio’s Seven Works of Mercy of 1607 condenses the seven acts of cor-poral mercy described by Christ in the Gospel of Matthew into one enigmatic painting, the subtlety and quality of which had never been seen in Naples befo-re. In the bottom register, the artist choreographed eleven figures within a dark Neapolitan alley, and yet the distinct features and actions of every character re-main readable to the discerning eye. In the upper half, two angels descend into the scene with the Virgin and Child. As a mere toddler with shaggy blond hair and a ruddy mouth, Christ observes the crowd below. Caravaggio treats the angels’ wings naturalistically, illuminating their white feathers with a brilliant light that also calls attention to the angels’ muscular arms, as well as the serene faces of Mary and Jesus. Whereas in Rome the naturalism and chiaroscuro that made the painter famous had only ever been an alternative to the tastefulness of classicism, in Naples Caravaggio eclipsed in absolute terms what the city’s provincial painters could produce. The great Neapolitan art historian Raffaello Causa wrote that Caravaggio’s altarpiece, which he reverentially dubbed “Our Lady of the Misericordia,” was “the principal work of Caravaggio’s maturity, which decisively began the course of modern painting in Naples.”7

6 Loredana Gazzara, “Caravaggio nella prima cappella del Pio Monte della Misericordia,” in Caravaggio Napoli, ed. Maria Cristina Terzaghi (Milan: Electa, 2019), 61.7 Raffaello Causa, Opera d’arte nel Pio Monte della Misericordia a Napoli (Cava de’ Tirreni & Naples: Di Mauro, 1970), 20.

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BATTISTELLO CARACCIOLO Battistello Caracciolo (1578-1635) was one of the first Neapolitan artists to adopt Caravaggio’s style. First recorded as an assistant fresco painter in the large work-shop of the prosaic Belisario Corenzio (ca. 1558-1643), Battistello turned enthusi-astically to Caravaggio as soon as the master appeared in Naples. It is now known that the two artists were in fact friends or at least colleagues. Banking documents show that Battistello withdrew money on Caravaggio’s behalf in 1607, and it is likely that he was present in Caravaggio’s studio while the Seven Works was being painted. By December of 1607, Battistello painted an altarpiece for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception in Santa Maria della Stella with pronounced caravag-gesque elements. Faces are true-to-life portraits and stray light falls miraculously on the figures. Most conspicuously, Battistello has appropriated the motif of inter-vening angels for the upper register of the composition. 8

Caravaggio remained a touchstone for Battistello even as the Neapolitan artist outlived him by twenty-five years. Battistello benefited from journeys to Rome, Flo-rence and Genoa where he enjoyed patronage from the Medici and Doria families. The Ecce Homo (Plate 19) from the 1620’s pares down Caravaggio’s style to its most essential form, presenting Pilate and Christ in an unidealized manner against a black background. The restricted space and half-length figures are inspired by Caravaggio’s second Neapolitan period, and the composition may derive from a lost original by Caravaggio himself.9 The Virgin of the Souls with Saints Clare and Francis (Plate 24) was painted in the first half of the 1620’s for the church of Santa Chiara in the province of Nola outside Naples. The image of angels with the Virgin and Child interceding from above testifies to the continued presence of the Seven Works of Mercy in the imagination of Neapolitan artists. Battistello was, however, more than a mere imitator. In the Virgin of the Souls, Battistello interprets the eso-teric iconography with tact. Saint Francis’s open, stigmatized hand is as deferential to Saint Clare’s monstrance as it is to the Virgin above, making clear that the saving power of the Eucharist is equal to that of the miracle visualized in the altarpiece.

8 Maria Cristina Terzaghi, “Caravaggio a Napoli: un percorso,” in Caravaggio Napoli (Naples: Electa Naples, 2019), 27, 29.9 Nicola Spinosa, ed., Museo e gallerie nazionali di Capodimonte: Dipinti del XVII secolo, la scuola napoletana, la collezioni borboniche e postunitarie (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2008), 64.

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JUSEPE DE RIBERA Ten years after Caravaggio came to Naples, another foreigner arrived and rapidly asserted himself as the city’s leading artist. Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652) was born in Xàtiva, near Valencia, but little is known about his early life and training in Spain. Although he may have moved to Rome as early as 1606, he is first re-corded as executing a painting for the church of San Prospero in Parma in 1611, which was later to be admired by Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619).10 Within a ye-ar he is securely present in Rome and already painting a type of work that he was to produce in vast quantities his entire career: single-figure, half-length images of saints, philosophers, and allegorical personifications. In 1616 he settled in Naples where he passed the remainder of his long and prolific life.

In a city governed by the Spanish monarchs, Ribera benefited from his natio-nality. He lived in the royal palace, and the many Spanish viceroys who came and went granted him numerous commissions that were transported back to Spain. For Naples’s most prominent churches, Ribera painted several masterpieces that stand as monuments of Italian baroque painting, including the Pietà (1637) and Commu-nion of the Apostles (1651) in San Martino and San Gennaro Emerging from the Furnace (1646) in the chapel of the eponymous saint in the city’s cathedral. Ribera pleased patrons by solving the riddle of what to do with Caravaggio’s legacy. The visual power of the Lombard master was impossible to deny, but his indifference to prescribed iconography and conventional beauty made his art incomprehensible or distasteful to many, even the cultural elite. Ribera threaded the needle by employing dramatic lighting and lifelike detail in order to make his religious and mythological subject matter comprehensible. Chiaroscuro becomes a spotlight shone directly on the painting’s protagonist. Naturalism becomes a grotesque detail, either comic or horrendous, that underscores a figure’s physical and moral character. Ribera’s eye for light and color, his delectable impastos, and his sharp attentiveness to new arti-stic developments made this a winning formula for over thirty-five years.

Saint Jerome (Plate 27) and Drunken Silenus (Plate 26), both executed in 1626, are exceptional showcases of the first phase of Ribera’s maturity. The for-

10 Nicola Spinosa, Ribera: l’opera completa, 2nd ed. (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2006), 15–16.

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mer portrays an old and emaciated Saint Jerome in the desert. An angel appe-ars and blows a horn. The saint’s arms extend and his brow furrows as though the sudden noise has startled him. The compositional space is dominated by the saint’s withered body, which reflects the divine light above. Ribera’s loaded brush renders Jerome’s wrinkled forehead as palpable human flesh. In the Drunken Silenus, Ribera places similar emphasis on the nude body but with an entirely different intent. The earliest provenance of the work is unknown, but in 1653 Naples’s leading collector, Gaspar Roomer (1596-1674), acquired it. The ribald Silenus is just the sort of painting that a private collector would show off to flaunt his good taste and intelligence, which until recently meant mastering and taking pleasure in classical antiquity. Ribera’s fat-bellied Silenus is a parody of recumbent Roman fluvial statues and the erotic Venuses of the great Venetian Renaissance painters. Famed for wisdom equal to Socrates, Silenus mocks the physical beauty of these figures as he holds out his cup for a refill. His father, the goat-like Pan, crowns him with ivy and bolsters the jolly drunk’s self-assuredness.

Ribera’s bodily, densely painted canvases dominated Naples until the middle of the century and left a lasting impression on the generation that succeeded him. His most personal and original interpreter was a figure known as the Ma-ster of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, so named because of the works he painted of this subject in Birmingham, Munich, Brooklyn, and the collection of Capodimonte (Plate 25). This independently minded artist was perhaps Spani-sh and was almost certainly Ribera’s pupil Juan Dò (ca. 1604-1656) or Barto-lomeo Passante (1618-1648).11 Whoever he was, the artist specialized in rustic scenes with even thicker impastos than Ribera. His paintings are populated wi-th leather-skinned peasants who inhabit a clay-colored world. The anonymous artist’s singular aesthetic is not unlike that of the Neapolitan presepe or crèche, and it evokes a similarly sincere, vernacular Christian piety.

11 Nicola Spinosa, Pittura del seicento a Napoli: da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione (Naples: Arte’m, 2010), 326.

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COLOR, GRACE AND THE ALTERNATIVES TO RIBERAFew artists south of Rome could match Ribera’s skill and inventiveness. A pain-ter like the Flemish (or Dutch) Matthias Stom (ca. 1600- ca. 1650) fabrica-ted candle-lit works en masse while drifting between Italian cities, including Naples from 1635-1638. The Supper at Emmaus (Plate 28) imitates Caravag-gio’s paintings of the same subject (London, National Gallery; Milan, Brera), taking equal pleasure in the tabletop still life while transforming the scene into one of his signature nocturnes.

Ribera’s primary rival during these years was the Neapolitan Massimo Stan-zione (ca. 1585-1656). Unlike Ribera, Stanzione was a fresco painter, and Ne-apolitan churches relied heavily on his large workshop before the mid-1650s. His early works, like Capodimonte’s Martyrdom of Saint Agatha (Fig. 14) (ca.

1623-25), show Stanzione to be one of the many followers of Caravaggio in Naples. As his career progressed, Stanzione developed an interest in the Roman styles of the Carracci, Pous-sin, and Guido Reni. Famously, his ei-ghteenth-century biographer Bernar-do De Dominici (1683-1759) called him “il Guido Reni Napoletano.”12 The Massacre of the Innocents (Plate 29), which is a second version of the painting at the Schloss Rohrau in Au-stria, blends together figures found in paintings of the same subject by Pous-sin and Reni (at the Musée Condé and Bologna Pinacoteca, respectively).

12 Bernardo De Dominici, Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, vol. III, tome I, ed. F. Sricchia Santoro and Andrea Zezza (Naples: Paparo Edizione, 2003–2014), 107.

Fig.14Massimo Stanzione(Orta d’Atella ca. 1585– Naples 1656)Martyrdom of Saint Agatha, 1623-1625Oil on canvas204 x 150cm inv. 1204

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Nevertheless, the dark color palette and violent details—like the baby’s severed hand in the foreground—are Neapolitan touches.13

The French painter Simon Vouet (1590-1649) was also an important model for Stanzione and many other Neapolitan painters. The precocious Vouet spent the years 1613-1627 in Italy, whereupon he returned to Paris and painted several interior decorative cycles for the most prestigious chateaux and hôtel particuliers of the French elite (all of which are destroyed or dismantled). Although he is often grouped together with other French artists in Rome inspired by Caravag-gio, it was Venice and the sumptuous art of Paolo Veronese that determined the course of Vouet’s career. From Rome Vouet sent major works to Naples that influenced a generation of the city’s artists like Capodimonte’s Circumcision of Christ, painted in 1622 for the church of Sant’Arcangelo a Segno, and the Ap-parition of the Virgin to Saint Bruno in San Martino from 1626. Vouet painted The Angel with Tunic and Dice (Plate 22) in the summer of 1627 during his final months in Italy for Cardinal Asconio Filomarino, who would become archbishop of Naples in 1641. The painting originally belonged to a suite of twelve angels holding instruments of Christ’s Passion, of which six are said to survive.14

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-ca. 1653) settled in Naples in 1630 and remained there until her death around 1653, save for a sojourn to London from about 1638 to 1642. Artemisia was already a fully formed artist, having been trained by her father Orazio, a striking colorist who had got on well with Caravaggio in Rome. She inherited her father’s penchant for painting figures with draperies of pronounced color, but her work is distinct from his in its dazzling sensual appeal. A stay in Venice, plus her friendship with Simon Vouet—who painted a powerful portrait of her now in a private collection—inspired Artemisia to paint luxurious fabrics and precious metals with radiant color. Her canvases glimmer with san-guine reds, cobalt blues, and golden ambers.15

13 Sebastian Schütze and Thomas Willette, Massimo Stanzione: l’opera completa (Naples: Electa Napoli, 1992), 203. 14 For Vouet and Cardinal Filomarino, see Erich Schleier, “Les commanditaires de Vouet à Rome,” in Simon Vouet : les années italiennes, 1613-1627 (Paris: Hazan), 77-79.15 On Artemisia and color see Jesse M. Locker, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Language of Painting (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015), 114–124.

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Fig.15Bernardo Cavallino(Naples 1616-1656)The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia, 1645Oil on canvas183 x 130 cminv. Q 1795

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Artemisia painted Judith more than any other subject.16 Her portrayals of the Jewish heroine who, with the help of her maidservant Abra, seduced and beheaded the Assyrian general Holofernes to save the Hebrew people have attracted signi-ficant attention from art historians and popular audiences alike. This is linked to the unmistakable pictorial and dramatic quality of the paintings, but also due to the impulse to associate these works with Artemisia’s life. In May 1611, a painter under her father’s employ named Agostino Tassi (ca. 1580-1644) raped the se-venteen-year-old Artemisia. After he offered to marry her, Artemisia acquiesced to continued sexual relations with Tassi. The promise amounted to nothing and the following year Orazio Gentileschi brought Tassi to trial, during which Artemisia underwent thumbscrew torture in order to prove the veracity of her testimony.

Artemisia must have painted the Capodimonte Judith and Holofernes (Plate 21) not long after the Tassi trial. Critics now agree that it is the artist’s earliest depiction of this bloody tale of Old Testament justice. Recent documentary evidence suggests that the Florentine collector Laura Corsini purchased the painting in 1617. This means Artemisia likely executed the painting within five years of the trial.17

Looking at Artemisia’s many Judith paintings in biographical terms is a com-pelling interpretation, albeit not an exhaustive one. Artemisia was also working in the mainstream of European seventeenth-century painting. She had in mind Caravaggio’s unforgettable treatment of the same theme (Rome, Palazzo Bar-berini), not to mention her father’s own Judith paintings now in Hartford and Oslo. Artemisia’s true intentions are, of course, unknowable. Hers was an era with radically different understandings of rape and violence than our own. Yet her life story is impossible to ignore. Artemisia is a rarity in the history of art. She joins Leonardo, Michelangelo, Caravaggio and Goya as one of the only ar-tists before the mid-nineteenth century who merged her psyche with the canons of the Western pictorial tradition.

16 Mary D. Gerard, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 278. Gerrard’s monograph remains the groundbreaking work on Artemisia and is the source for the biographical information that follows. 17 Francesca Baldassari, Artemisia Gentileschi e il suo tempo (Milan: Skira, 2016), 134–136.

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Artemisia exerted a marked influence on the Neapolitan artists working beyond Ribera’s shadow. Massimo Stanzione and Pacecco de Rosa (1607-1656) imitated her rich draperies and color combinations. Numerous artists collaborated with Artemisia on paintings, including Domenico Gargiulo, Viano Codazzi, Onofrio Palumbo, and Bernardo Cavallino (1616-1656). The latter worked so closely with Artemisia that attributions have often oscillated betwe-en the two artists. Nevertheless, Cavallino’s work is more distinct than similar. He was a singular talent, painting tiny cabinet pictures that convey a quiet reli-gious spirit similar to that of the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia (Plate 30) is a bozzetto, or oil sketch, for his only signed and dated work, painted for the Neapolitan church Saint Anthony of Pa-dova in 1645 (Fig. 15).18 Cecilia’s blue and yellow drapery is a direct imitation of Artemisia’s signature color scheme, but the dainty faces and hands belong to Cavallino’s unique mode of telling stories in hushed tones.

STILL LIFE IN NAPLESThe genre of still life experienced a rapid growth in popularity in Naples during the years 1640-1660, which set the genre on a course of artistic experimen-tation and playfulness that lasted well into the eighteenth century. The first generation of major Neapolitan private collectors—Gaspar Roomer, Andrea d’Avalos, Peppe Carafa, and Ferrante Spinelli—established the viability of the genre. Still life appealed to these men for its visual delights and as a mark of class sophistication. Unlike in northern Europe, or even in Rome, Neapolitan still-life rarely aspired to allegorical and moral messaging.19

The painter Giacomo Recco (1603-ca. 1653) was the first successful still life artist in Naples. His work is either lost or unsigned, making attributions virtually impossible. His student Paolo Porpora (1647-1673) and the better-known Luca Forte (ca. 1605-ca. 1660) continued in the vein of Giacomo, executing charming paintings of fruit, birds, fish, and floral vases. Although these artists were the

18 Nicola Spinosa, Grazie e tenerezza “in posa”: Bernardo Cavallino e il suo tempo (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2013), 344.19 Nicola Spinosa, “La nature ‘in posa’ à Naples au XVIIe siècle: progrès et regards des etudes,” in L’Œiel gourmand: parcours dans la nature morte napolitaine du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Galerie Canesso, 2007), 8.

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first specialists of still life in Naples, the foundations for the genre were laid decades before in the work of Battistello, Ribera, and other painters influenced by Caravaggio like Carlo Sellitto (1581-1614) and Filippo Vitale (ca. 1585-1650). The narrative paintings of these artists feature still life elements of books, skulls, loafs of bread, baskets, and vases - always minutely realized and canted at oblique angles so as to catch the eye of the viewer. The bottom foregrounds of the Drunken Silenus and Saint Jerome - capturing, respectively, the polish of shells and the fibrous texture of paper - show Ribera to be as equally adept at precise detail as he was at broad, creamy brushstrokes. The snake that eats Ribera’s signature in the Silenus makes plain the pleasure the artist took in the still life genre. The Still Life with a Goat’s Head (Plate 33), attributed to the painter by Nicola Spinosa in 2011,20 shows Ribera painting still life with the same bluntness as his martyrdoms and the same pensiveness of his many saints and philosophers.

The younger generation of still-life painters whose works decorated the pri-vate palazzi of collectors like Gaspar Roomer (owner of over 120 still lifes)21

drew their inspiration from Ribera, and they scrutinized his paintings for objects and motifs. This is especially evident in Giovan Battista Recco’s (1634-ca. 1660)

20 Nicola Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli: da Mattia Preti a Luca Giordano, natura in posa (Naples: Arte’m, 2011), 290.21 Pierluigi Leone de Castris, “Quelques réflexions sur la nature morte à Naples dans les premières décennies du XVIIe siècle, in L’Œil gourmand, 14.

Fig.16Mattia Preti(Taverna 1613-La Valletta 1699)Sketch of the Votive Frescofor the Plague of 1656, 1656Oil on canvas127 x 75 cminv. Q 262

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Still Life with Candles and a Goat’s Head (Plate 32), which transforms Ribera’s gruesome precursor into a manicured arrangement of diverse objects and textures, not unlike the vitrine of a boutique. Giovan Battista was the brother of Giaco-mo Recco (1603-1653). He and his nephew Giuseppe (1634-1695) made up one of the two still-life dynasties in Naples, the other being the Ruoppolo family lead by Giovan Battista Ruoppo-lo (1629-1693), with whom the younger Recco’s works are often confused, not least of all due to their identical monograms.

The flower specialist Andrea Belevedere (ca. 1652-1732) belonged to the succeeding generations of still-life painters, whose colorful and gentle work looks forward to the eighteenth century. Between 1694-70, he was painter to the royal court in Madrid at the same moment as Giordano, and when he re-turned to Naples, he retired from painting to spend the remaining thirty years of his life writing for the theater. The beautiful Still Life with Morning Glories and Boule de Neige Roses (Plate 37) was famous in the eighteenth century. It belonged to the Neapolitan lawyer Giuseppe Vallatta, who welcomed artists and foreigners into his private collection to admire it.22

22 De Dominici, Vite, vol. III, tome II, 1077.

Fig.17Mattia Preti(Taverna 1613-La Valletta 1699)Sketch of the Votive Frescofor the Plague of 1656, (detail), 1656 Oil on canvas127 x 75 cminv. Q 265

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ART IN NAPLES AFTER THE PLAGUE OF 1656The history of Seicento Neapolitan painting divides conveniently into two chapters. Ribera, ailing in health yet not in creative vitality, died in 1652. Arte-misia was painting for the astute collector Don Antonio Ruffo in Messina, but died around 1653. Plague ravaged Naples. The epidemic is estimated to have killed 60% of the city’s population, or 210,000 people.23 Virtually every active artist was a victim of the plague. Massimo Stanzione, Aniello Falcone, Juan Dò, Pacecco De Rosa, Agostino Beltrano, Bernardo Cavallino, Niccolò De Si-mone, Francesco Francanzano, and Giordano’s father Antonio all died in 1656. Andrea Vaccaro (1604-1670) was the only major artist of the older generation who survived.24

Mattia Preti (1613-1699) and Luca Giordano (1634-1705) swiftly filled this artistic void. The two painters, the former born in the cultured Calabrian town of Taverna and the latter a native Neapolitan, broke with the stillness of Ribera and the Bolognese classicism of Stanzione, introducing bold movements and chaotic crowds into their prodigious canvases and frescoes. Their artistic voices appeared slightly before the plague, as Nicola Spinosa has noted in numerous essays.25 Preti had been living in Rome since 1636 (or possibly 1633). In the Eternal City, the Calabrian painter, still in his twenties, voraciously absorbed the most advanced currents in painting and set about mastering the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio, the large-scale figure style of Reni and Guercino, and the idyllic and literary subjects of Poussin and Sacchi.26 By March 1653, perhaps after periods in Venice and other northern Italian centers, Preti settled in Naples. He painted his first Neapo-litan public commission in December of that year, Saint Nicholas of Bari (Plate 34) for the Calabrian church of San Domenico Soriano.27

23 Giuseppe Galasso, Napoli capitale: identità politica e identitià cittadina. Studi e ricerche 1266–1860 (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2003), 124, 126.24 Christopher R. Marshall, Baroque Naples and the Industry of Painting: The World in the Workbench (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016), 259 (58 for the death of Antonio Giordano).25 See, for example, Spinosa’s contribution in L’Âge d’or de la peinture napolitaine: de Ribera à Giordano (Paris: Lineart, 2015), 242-243. 26 John T. Spike, Mattia Preti: Catalogo ragionato dei dipinti / Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (Taverna: Museo Civico di Taverna & Florence: Centro Di, 1999), 23.27 Spike, Mattia Preti, 206.

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Fig.18Luca Giordano(Naples 1634-1705)Madonna of the Rosary, 1657Oil on canvas253 x 191 cminv. Q 492

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Preti fills the space with the body and cope of Saint Nicholas, which seem to be quivering before divine power.

Preti witnessed the plague of 1656, and in November of that year he was commissioned to fresco the seven city gates with votive images of the Immacu-late Conception and Saints Januarius, Francis Xavier, and Rosalia. Aside from the badly weathered fresco on the Porta San Gennaro, these no longer exist, but Capodimonte preserves two bozzetti that record Preti’s unflinching portrayal of city streets lined with dead, denuded corpses.28 In 1659 Preti began working in Malta, where he would eventually settle permanently and pass four decades of immense productivity. The Feast of Belshazzar (Plate 35) was painted in Malta around 1665, but was acquired by a Neapolitan collector by 1715.29 It remains a deeply Neapolitan work, inspired by Rubens’s Banquet of Herod, formerly in the Gaspar Roomer collection and now in the National Gallery of Scotland.

Fig.19Luca Giordano(Naples 1634-1705)Lucretia and Tarquin, 1663Oil on canvas138 x 187 cminv. Q 1678

28 Ibid, 194–199.29 Ibid, 201.

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Luca Giordano’s career was equally distinguished and prolific. In the 1650s, the young Giordano aimed to best his older rival Preti by cultivating patrons of all types and mastering the painting of religious and classical subjects in an array of popular styles. He even painted without charge for poor churches.30 Once Preti had transferred to Malta, the knowledge-hungry Giordano appears to have studied in Venice and then returned to Naples by about 1664. Giordano’s frene-tic, entrepreneurial spirit never waned during the following forty years, despite criticism that the quality of his work suffered for it. In Naples, he left behind an abundance of exuberant paintings that exemplify the city’s joyful excess, such as Capodimonte’s two versions of the Madonna of the Rosary (Fig. 18) (1657 & 1664), the nave and dome of San Gregorio Armeno (1677-79), and the Triumph of Judith (1702) in the treasury of San Martino. Giordano was no less admired outside Naples: the artist frescoed the gallery of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence (1682-85) and passed a brilliant ten-year period in the royal court of Spain (1692-1702).

Venus, Mars and Cupid (Plate 36) belongs to a series of works Giordano executed for Andrea d’Avalos, a ravenous collector of erotic art whose descen-dants bequeathed his collection to Capodimonte in 1882. The comical painting depicts Venus in the grotto of Vulcan, carelessly ignoring the putto on her lap while enjoying the attention of a Mars who is eager to please. Other nudes painted for d’Avalos include a Lucretia (Fig. 19) and a highly provocative Sle-eping Venus. (Fig. 20) Giordano’s wife posed for these works, which Bernardo De Dominici considered a breach of decorum.31

When the seventeenth century began, Naples was deprived of a school of paint-ing to call its own. By the reign of Giordano, Neapolitan painting was, at least in the opinion of one preeminent art historian, the most accomplished in Italy.32 The century of art that Caravaggio initiated and Ribera stabilized was conti-

Fig.20Luca Giordano(Naples 1634-1705)Sleeping Venus, 1663Oil on canvas137 x 190 cmainv. d’Avalos 259

30 Giuseppe Scavizzi, Luca Giordano: la vita e le opere (Naples: arte’m, 2017), 126.31 De Dominici, Vite, vol. III, tome I,.795.32 Rudolf Wittkower, “Art and Architecture,” in The New Cambridge Modern History Volume V: The Ascendancy of France, 1648–88, ed. F.L. Carsten (London: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 150.

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Fig.21Luca Giordano(Naples 1634-1705)Apollo and Marsyas, ca. 1657 Oil on canvas 205 x 259 cminv. Q 799

nued by Giordano, who revered the latter and, in works like his Apollo and Marsyas (Fig. 21) (ca. 1657), expertly emulated the Valencian master’s prece-dent (Fig. 22). This chapter in Neapolitan art came to a close with Francesco Solimena (1657-1747). Trained by his father Angelo in the provinces of Campa-nia, Solimena painted with impeccable technical prowess. His 1707 vault fresco The Triumph of the Christian Faith Through the Works of the Dominican Order, painted in the sacristy of the order’s major Neapolitan church, marked a definiti-ve rupture with the naturalism of Caravaggio. Solimena’s spiraling arrangement of weightless figures thrust Neapolitan art into the eighteenth century.33

33 Ferdinando Bologna, Francesco Solimena (Naples: L’Arte Tipografica, 1958), 111.

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Fig.22Jusepe de Ribera(Xàtiva 1591-Naples 1652)Apollo and Marsyas, 1637Oil on canvas182 x 232 cm inv. Q 511

The Self-Portrait of 1715 reveals a self-assured man who calls attention to his profession, knowing that it affords him distinction and privilege. Solimena was seventy-six when Charles of Bourbon established the independent Kingdom of Naples, but the painter had lost neither his confidence nor his proficiency, and he adjusted effortlessly into Charles’s urbane court. The king even entrusted Solime-na with frescoing an Allegory of Conjugal Virtue on his bedroom ceiling in order to celebrate his marriage to Maria Amalia of Saxony in 1738. By the time of Solimena’s death in 1747, Bourbon Naples was a recognized capital of European culture, totally remote from the provincialism that the fugitive Caravaggio had encountered nearly a century and a half earlier. The airy, pastel-colored paintin-gs of the mature Solimena and his prolific student, Francesco De Mura (1696-1782), belong exclusively to the Naples of the Grand Tour and of the Bourbons.

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THEARTWORKS

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1LORENZO LOTTO(VENICE CA. 1480-LORETO 1556)PORTRAIT OF BISHOP BERNARDO DE' ROSSI1505 - Oil on panel - 54.7x41.3 cm - inv. Q 57

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2RAPHAEL(URBINO 1483-ROME 1520)PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL ALESSANDRO FARNESE, FUTURE POPE PAUL IIIca. 1509-1511 - Oil on panel - 132 x 86 cm - inv. Q 145

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3LORENZO DI CREDI(FLORENCE 1459-CA. 1536)ADORATION OF THE CHRIST CHILD1523 - Oil on canvas - 117 x 88 cm - inv. Q 48

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4PARMIGIANINO(PARMA 1503-CASALMAGGIORE 1540)ANTEAca. 1535 - Oil on canvas - 136 x 86 cm - inv. Q 108

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5MORETTO DA BRESCIA(BRESCIA 1498-1554)CHRIST AT THE COLUMNca. 1525 - Oil on panel - 59 x 42.5 cm - inv. Q 97

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6SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO(VENICE 1485-ROME 1547)PORTRAIT OF POPE CLEMENT VIIante 1527 - Oil on canvas - 145 x 100 cm - inv. Q 147

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7PARMIGIANINO(PARMA 1503-CASALMAGGIORE 1540)LUCRETIA1540 - Oil on panel - 68 x 52 cm - inv. Q 125

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8TITIAN(PIEVE DI CADORE 1488/1490-VENICE 1576)POPE PAUL III WITHOUT A CAP1543 - Oil on canvas - 113.7 x 88.8 cm - inv. Q 130

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9TITIAN(PIEVE DI CADORE 1488/1490-VENICE 1576)DANAE1544-1545 - Oil on canvas - 113.7 x 88.8 cm - inv. Q 134

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10FRANCESCO SALVIATI(FLORENCE 1510-ROME 1563)SELF-PORTRAITca. 1545 - Oil on panel - 75.5 x 58.5 cm - inv. Q 142

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11EL GRECO(CANDIA CA. 1541-TOLEDO 1614)PORTRAIT OF GIULIO CLOVIOca. 1571 - Oil on canvas - 58 x 86 cm - inv. Q 191

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12EL GRECO(CANDIA CA. 1541-TOLEDO 1614)BOY BLOWING ON AN EMBER1571-1572 - Oil on canvas - 60.5 x 50.5 cm - inv. Q 192

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13GIAMBOLOGNA(DOUAI 1529-FLORENCE 1608)RAPE OF A SABINE1579 - Bronze - h 98.1 cm - inv. AM 10524

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14ANNIBALE CARRACCI(BOLOGNA 1560-ROME 1609)MYSTICAL MARRIAGE OF SAINT CATHERINEca. 1585 - Oil on canvas - 160 x 128 cm - inv. PR 319On permanent loan from Palazzo Reale, Naples

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15AGOSTINO CARRACCI(BOLOGNA 1557-PARMA 1602)HAIRY HARRY, MAD PETER AND TINY AMONca. 1598 - Oil on canvas - 101 x 133 cm - inv. Q 369

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16ANNIBALE CARRACCI(BOLOGNA 1560-ROME 1609)PIETÀ1599-1600 - Oil on canvas - 156 x 149 cm - inv. Q 363

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17GIOVANNI LANFRANCO(TERENZO 1582-ROME 1647)ASSUMPTION OF MARY MAGDALENEca. 1611 - Oil on canvas - 109 x 78 cm - inv. Q 341

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18BARTOLOMEO SCHEDONI(MODENA 1578-PARMA 1615)CHARITY1611 - Oil on canvas - 180 x 128 cm - inv. Q 373

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19BATTISTELLO CARACCIOLO(NAPLES 1578-1635)ECCE HOMOca. 1611-1615 - Oil on canvas - 76 x 103 cm - inv. Q 1709

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20LIONELLO SPADA(BOLOGNA 1576-PARMA 1622)CAIN AND ABELca. 1612-1614 - Oil on canvas - 178.5 x 118 cm - inv. Q 622

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21ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI(ROME 1593-NAPLES CA. 1653)JUDITH AND HOLOFERNESca. 1612-1617 - Oil on canvas - 159 x 126 cm - inv. Q 378

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22SIMON VOUET(PARIS 1590-1649)ANGEL WITH TUNIC AND DICE1620-1625 - Oil on canvas - 102 x 78 cm - inv. Q 1141

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23GUIDO RENI(BOLOGNA 1575-1642)ATALANTA AND HIPPOMENESca. 1620-1625 - Oil on canvas - 192 x 264 cm - inv. Q 349

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24BATTISTELLO CARACCIOLO(NAPLES 1578-1635)THE VIRGIN OF THE SOULSWITH SAINTS CLARE AND FRANCIS1622-1623 -Oil on canvas - 290 x 205 cmPermanent loan from the church of Santa Chiara, Nola

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25MASTER OF THE ANNUNCIATIONTO THE SHEPHERDS(NAPLES ACTIVE 1620S-40S)ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS1625-1630 - Oil on canvas - 178 x 262 cm - inv. SM 3199

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26JUSEPE DE RIBERA(XÀTIVA 1591-NAPLES 1652)DRUNKEN SILENUS1626 - Oil on canvas - 185 x 229 cm - inv. Q 298

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27JUSEPE DE RIBERA(XÀTIVA 1591-NAPLES 1652)SAINT JEROME1626 - Oil on canvas - 267 x 164 cm - inv. Q 312

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28MATTHIAS STOM(AMERSFOORT CA. 1600-SICILY (OR VENICE?) CA. 1650)SUPPER AT EMMAUSca. 1635-1640 - Oil on canvas - 154 x 200 cm - inv. Q 197

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29MASSIMO STANZIONE(ORTA D’ATELLA CA. 1585-NAPLES 1656)MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS1630-1635 - Oil on canvas - 127 x 153 cm - inv. Q 1707

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30BERNARDO CAVALLINO(NAPLES 1616-1656)THE ECSTASY OF SAINT CECILIA1645 - Oil on canvas - 61 x 48 cm - inv. Q 285

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31BERNARDO CAVALLINO(NAPLES 1616-1656)SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUAca. 1645 - Oil on canvas - 128 x 102 cm - inv. Q 279

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32GIOVAN BATTISTA RECCO(NAPLES 1615-1660)STILL LIFE WITH CANDLESAND A GOAT’S HEADca. 1650 - Oil on canvas - 132 x 183 cm - inv. Q 1776

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33JUSEPE DE RIBERA(XÀTIVA 1591-NAPLES 1652)STILL LIFE WITH A GOAT'S HEADca. 1650 - Oil on canvas - 69 x 100 cm - inv. Q 1785

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34MATTIA PRETI(TAVERNA 1613-LA VALLETTA 1699)SAINT NICHOLAS OF BARI1653 - Oil on canvas - 214 x 161 cm - inv. Q 258

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35MATTIA PRETI(TAVERNA 1613-LA VALLETTA 1699)THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZARca. 1665 - Oil on canvas - 182.8 x 261.6 cm - inv. Q 254

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36LUCA GIORDANO(NAPLES 1634-1705)VENUS, MARS AND CUPIDca. 1670 - Oil on canvas - 152 x 129 cm - inv. Q 1194

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37ANDREA BELVEDERE(NAPLES CA. 1652-1732)STILL LIFE WITH MORNING GLORIESAND BOULE DE NEIGE ROSES1680-1690 - Oil on canvas - 99 x 74 cm - inv. Q 252

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38GIOVANNI BATTISTA RUOPPOLO(NAPLES 1629-1693)STILL LIFE WITH VEGETABLES AND FLASKante 1670 - Oil on canvas - 97 x 130 cm - inv. Q 1203

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39FRANCESCO SOLIMENA(SERINO 1657-NAPLES 1747)SELF-PORTRAIT1715 - Oil on canvas - 128 x 112 cm - inv. 3518

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40ALEXANDRE HYACINTHE DUNOUY(PARIS 1757- JOUY-EN-JOSAS 1841)VIEW OF NAPLES FROM CAPODIMONTE1813 - Oil on canvas - 124 x 178 cm - inv. OA 1394

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ARTISTBIOGRAPHIES

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Andrea Belvedere was a specialist of floral still lifes. He broke with the previous generation of Ne-apolitan still-life artists by producing more restrained compositions and favoring light colors and delicate, decorative motifs. Belvedere was employed as a court painter in Spain between 1694-70, a prestigious post likely arranged by Luca Giordano, with whom Belvedere shared certain early Rococo visual affinities. Upon his return to Naples in 1700, Belvedere ceased painting and devoted himself to writing for the theater.

Born Alessandro Bonvicino in the small town of Rovato in the northern Italian territory of Brescia, Moretto rose to prominence as a painter of altarpieces. Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Raphael all exerted an active influence on his style, and Moretto worked with Lorenzo Lotto at Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Oscillating between the traditions of the Venetian and Central Italian scho-ols, he also painted portraits for which he is well known. The portraitist Giovanni Battista Moroni is his most accomplished pupil. A pious man, Moretto is said to have prepared himself to paint holy figures, such as the Madonna and Child, by praying and fasting.

Battistello Caracciolo was an assistant to the prolific, albeit conventional, fresco painter Belisario Corenzio. He reinvented himself artistically when Caravaggio arrived to Naples in October 1606, becoming one of the first Neapolitan painters to imitate Caravaggio’s style in his altarpiece at Santa Maria della Stella in December 1607. In 1615 he painted the Liberation of Saint Peter, one of the six companion altarpieces to Caravaggio’s Seven Acts of Mercy. He traveled to Florence in 1617-18, painting portraits of the Grand Duke Cosimo II and his wife Maria Maddalena of Austria. Battistel-lo remained a practitioner of fresco throughout his career and executed cycles at Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, San Diego dell’Ospedaletto, and the Palazzo Reale, in Naples.

NAPLES CA. 1652-1732

ROVATO 1498-BRESCIA 1554

NAPLES 1578-1635

ANDREA BELVEDERE

MORETTO DA BRESCIA

BATTISTELLO CARACCIOLO

145

First trained as a goldsmith, Agostino Carracci later studied painting under Propsero Fontana and Bartolomeo Passarotti. Working in multiple media, he also mastered printmaking and tapestry de-sign. With his brother Annibale and his cousin Ludovico, Agostino co-founded the Accademia degli Incamminati that emphasized drawing from life as a response to the Mannerist distortions of space and anatomy. As a leader within the School of Bologna, he studied the works of Correggio in Parma and also sojourned in Venice. Agostino contributed to major fresco cycles in Bologna and Rome, where he joined Annibale at the Palazzo Farnese in 1598.

One of the greatest painters at the turn of the seventeenth century, Annibale Carracci defined an early Baroque style emphasizing classical monumentality and a heightened dynamism. A master of history painting and genre scenes, he co-founded the Accademia degli Incamminati with his brother Agostino and cousin Ludovico, which contributed to the ascendance of the School of Bologna. Achieving success as a fresco painter in Bologna, Annibale was invited by Cardinal Odoardo Far-nese in 1595 to paint The Loves of the Gods cycle in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome. Annibale’s most accomplished pupils include Domenichino, Giovanni Lanfranco and Guido Reni.

Bernardo Cavallino has been called the “Nicolas Poussin of Naples” for his small, understated cabinet paintings. Virtually nothing is known about his life, and it is presumed that he died in the plague of 1656 at the age of forty. Early works like Capodimonte’s Martyrdom of Saint Bar-tholomew (c. 1635) appear to be religious altarpieces, yet Bernardo De Dominici claims that the painter Andrea Vaccaro advised Cavallino to court private collectors instead of painting public works, for which his talents were less suited. Cavallino’s subsequent small paintings on canvas and copper are among the most enigmatic and subtly dramatized works of art executed in Naples during the seventeenth century.

BOLOGNA 1557-PARMA 1602

BOLOGNA 1560-ROME 1609

NAPLES 1616-1656

AGOSTINO CARRACCI

ANNIBALE CARRACCI

BERNARDO CAVALLINO

146

LORENZO DI CREDI

ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI

GIAMBOLOGNA (JEAN DE BOULOGNE)

Lorenzo di Credi was born and trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of An-drea del Verrocchio. He exerted an early influence on Leonardo da Vinci. As Leonardo’s star rose, da Vinci in turn influenced Credi. Upon Verrocchio’s death in 1488, Credi inherited his master’s work-shop. He executed several notable altarpieces in Florence and Pistoia and was also an accomplished portraitist, including his notable Portrait of Caterina Sforza. The influence of Fra Bartolomeo, Peru-gino and the young Raphael is discernable in his work. Among Credi’s pupils are Giovanni Antonio Sogliani and Antonio del Ceraiolo.

The daughter of the Roman caravaggesque painter Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi be-gan training as an artist with her father at the age of fifteen. In 1611 she was raped by the painter Agostino Tassi who was taken to trial by Orazio the following year. Artemisia’s peripatetic career brought her to Rome, Florence, Venice, London, and Naples. Her patrons included the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II, Neapolitan Viceroy and Duke of Alcalá, Cassiano dal Pozzo, and Don Antonio Ruffo of Messina. Among her rare public works are three altarpieces (in situ) for the cathedral of Pozzuoli near Naples.

Originally from Flanders, Jean de Boulogne trained under Jacques du Broeucq in Antwerp before traveling to Italy in 1550, where he studied antique statuary in Rome. Lauded for his sculpture in marble and bronze, Giambologna’s work embodies the late Renaissance and Mannerist styles. The sculptor spent much of his career in Florence after arriving to the city in 1553, where he took inspiration from the works of Michelangelo. He became a member of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno founded by Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, whom he served as one of the most celebrated sculptors at the Medici court.

FLORENCE 1459-CA. 1536

ROME 1593-NAPLES CA. 1653

DOUAI 1529-FLORENCE 1608

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LUCA GIORDANO

EL GRECO (DOMÉNIKOS THEOTOKÓPOULOS)

GIOVANNI LANFRANCO

Luca Giordano was the son of painter Antonio Giordano, and he trained with Ribera just prior to the master’s death. After Preti’s departure for Malta, Giordano dominated Neapolitan painting for forty years. His frescoes at Santa Brigida (1678), San Gregorio Armeno (1678-79), the Girolamini (1684), and the Palazzo Medici-Ricardi in Florence (1685) are monumental landmarks of the European Ba-roque. He spent 1692-1702 in the Royal Court of Spain and returned to Naples to fresco his final masterpiece, The Triumph of Judith (1704), shortly before his death.

Born Doménikos Theotokópoulos in the Kingdom of Candia, modern day Crete, El Greco was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect who achieved fame in Spain. Trained as a Byzantine icon pain-ter, El Greco moved to Venice around 1567, and then traveled to Rome from 1570-77 where he lear-ned the modern Italian style. A guest of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese at the Palazzo Farnese during his Roman sojourn, El Greco then moved to Toledo, Spain in 1577. He received major commissions throughout Spain and lived in great style. His mature works evince a highly original, expressionistic approach that both inspired and puzzled his contemporaries.

Giovanni Lanfranco apprenticed with Agostino Carracci in Bologna and then moved in 1602 to join Annibale Carracci in Rome at the Palazzo Farnese. A specialist in ceiling fresco, he embellished seve-ral churches in Rome, including the dome of Sant’Andrea della Valle in 1627. Lanfranco met great success in Naples from 1634-46 and was the highest paid artist in the city. He painted frescoes for its greatest religious institutions such as the Gesù Nuovo, Certosa di San Martino and the Tesoro di San Gennaro. Lanfranco’s dynamic Baroque style inspired later Neapolitan artists including Mattia Preti, Luca Giordano and Francesco Solimena.

NAPLES 1634-1705

CANDIA CA. 1541-TOLEDO 1614

TERENZO 1582-ROME 1647

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LORENZO LOTTO

MASTER OF THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS

PARMIGIANINO (FRANCESCO MAZZOLA)

A painter, illustrator and draughtsman, Lorenzo Lotto is traditionally associated with the Venetian school. He developed an individualistic style and executed altarpieces, religious works and portraits throughout northern Italy, including Venice, Treviso, the Marches, Rome, Bergamo, Ancona and Loreto. Although little is known of his early training, Giovanni Bellini was certainly a formative influence. A devoutly religious man, Lotto joined the Holy Sanctuary at Loreto in 1552 as a lay brother and was buried at his request in a Dominican habit. After his death in 1556 his status stea-dily declined, until Bernard Berenson resuscitated his reputation in the late nineteenth century.

Ferdinando Bologna coined the name of this artist in 1958, deriving it from a painting of this subject in the Birmingham Museum of Art. The artist, active in the 1620s and 40s, appropriated Ribera’s naturalism and impastos to create images of heightened pathos. In later works the artist dabbled in the domestic sweetness of Bernardo Cavallino. While the proper name of the painter is still disputed, he is most likely Juan Dò or Bartolomeo Passante.

Francesco Mazzola, more commonly known as Parmigianino, was a Mannerist painter and print-maker active in his native Parma, as well as Florence, Bologna and Rome. An artist of exceptional talent, Parmigianino mastered multiple genres such as history painting, portraiture, and mythical subjects, as well as working in fresco. He is noted for his elegant, elongated figures and refined style. He met Correggio, who was highly influential in Parma. As cited by Giorgio Vasari, Parmigianino conducted alchemical experiments, likely to discover a new medium for his etchings. He died of fe-ver in 1540 at the young age of thirty-seven. Parmigianino remains one of the most respected artists of his generation.

VENICE CA. 1480-LORETO 1556

NAPLES, ACTIVE 1620S-1640S

PARMA 1503-CASALMAGGIORE 1540

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SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO

MATTIA PRETI

RAPHAEL (RAFFAELLO SANZIO DA URBINO)

Sebastiano Luciani received his nickname del Piombo, meaning “of the lead,” when he assumed the post of Keeper of the Seal under Pope Clement VII. Sebastiano successfully synthesized the colorism of the Venetian School with the monumental compositions of the Roman School, arriving in the Eternal City in 1511. He became one of the leading painters in Rome after the death of Raphael in 1520. Sebastiano was one of the few major painters to work closely with Michelangelo, who sup-plied him with drawings that Sebastiano executed in paint. Before becoming a painter, Sebastiano was noted as an accomplished lutenist in his native city of Venice.

Mattia Preti was born in Taverna, Calabria in 1613. By 1636, he had moved to Rome with his brother Gregorio, ten years his senior and also a painter. In the Eternal City, Preti executed masterful frescoes in the apse of the Theatine church of Sant’Andrea della Valle with scenes of the martyrdom of Saint Andrew (1650-51). Preti was the most gifted painter in Naples when he moved there in 1653, a year after Ribera’s death. He witnessed the plague of 1656 and produced the disaster’s most lasting testament: the city’s frescoed gates and their surviving bozzetti. He settled in Malta by 1660, and dominated painting for four decades.

Raphael is considered to be one of the greatest artists of the High Renaissance, with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. He apprenticed under Perugino and proceeded to work in Florence and Rome. His Stanze fresco cycle in the Vatican’s Apostolic Apartments is lauded as one of the greatest achievements in the tradition of Western art. A master of religious and mythological subjects, as well as portraiture, Raphael’s style is characterized by its idealized grace and harmony. A master architect, draughtsman and tapestry designer, art historians have traditionally signaled the end of the High Renaissance in 1520 with Raphael’s death at the age of thirty-seven.

VENICE 1485-ROME 1547

TAVERNA 1613-LA VALETTA 1699

URBINO 1483-ROME 1520

150

GIOVAN BATTISTA RECCO

GUIDO RENI

JUSEPE DE RIBERA

Rediscovered in the 1960’s, Giovan Battista Recco is now known to have been the uncle of Giuseppe Recco and the brother of Giacomo Recco, the ostensible founder of Neapolitan still-life painting. He specialized in earth-toned kitchen scenes manifestly derived from the Spanish tradition of still life painting. While a visit to Spain cannot be ruled out, Recco most likely absorbed this style from Ribera as well as other Spanish artists whose works circulated in Neapolitan private collections. Only two paintings are known to bear his signature and many attributions to him remain contested.

Guido Reni was one of the most revered painters in the history of western art until the nineteenth cen-tury, when changes in public taste rendered his expressly Christian and classical works unfashionable. He trained in his native Bologna with the Carracci in the 1590’s and moved to Rome in 1601. In Rome he skillfully alternated between Caravaggio-inspired works like his Crucifixion of Saint Peter (1604, Vatican Museum) and the classicism of the Carracci, best demonstrated in Reni’s immensely famous Aurora fresco in Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini (1614). Despite the decorous style of his paintings, Reni was a compulsive gambler, and this habit informed the direction of his life and career.

Born in Xàtiva, Jusepe de Ribera may have moved to Italy in 1606, but is recorded definitively in Italy by 1611, when he executed his first known work for the church of San Prospero in Parma. He was active in Rome until he settled in Naples in 1616, where his realism and chiaroscuro made him the leading artist in a city in thrall to Caravaggio. In the 1630’s, Ribera’s art took on lighter tonali-ties inspired by a revival of interest in Titian. Afflicted by illness, his prolific pace halted in the mid-1640’s. Nevertheless, the works from the final eight years of Ribera’ life, San Gennaro Emerging from the Furnace (Naples, Cathedral, 1646) and the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1648), are among his very finest.

NAPLES 1615- 1660

BOLOGNA 1575-1642

XÀTIVA 1591-NAPLES 1652

151

GIOVANNI BATTISTA RUOPPOLO

FRANCESCO SALVIATI

BARTOLOMEO SCHEDONI

Giovan Battista Ruoppolo, whose work has often been confused with Giovan Battista Recco’s due to their identical monograms, was among the most successful seventeenth-century still life painters in Naples. Bernardo De Dominici valued him sufficiently to write a stand-alone biography of him in his Lives of Neapolitan artists of 1742-45. Ruoppolo’s still lifes include bounties of fish, fruit, and vegetables that are typical of the richness and excess favored by Neapolitan private collectors.

Also known as Francesco de’ Rossi, Francesco Salviati was trained as a painter in his native Florence under several masters including Andrea del Sarto and Baccio Bandinelli. Working in the Mannerist idiom, many of his compositions present figural contortions set within densely populated scenes. The painter traveled to Rome in 1531 and helped Giorgio Vasari fresco the Palazzo Salviati, from which he appropriated his surname. Salviati traveled to Bologna in 1540, then Venice, and made frequent trips to Rome between 1548-63. Salviati was a prolific and gifted portraitist whose works share an affinity with those of Bronzino.

From Modena, Bartolomeo Schedoni moved to Parma by 1594 where his father worked as a mask maker for Duke Ranuccio I Farnese. He traveled to Rome in 1595 apprenticing briefly under Fe-derico Zuccari, before returning to Parma in the same year due to illness. Schedoni worked with Ercole dell’Abate at the Palazzo Comunale from 1598-1607, and then entered the service of Duke Ranuccio I in Parma. His early work displays the influence of Correggio and later of the Carracci and Caravaggio. Incarcerated for violent altercations on two occasions, Schedoni died a premature death, possibly due to suicide after a night of heavy gambling losses.

NAPLES 1629-1693

FLORENCE 1510-ROME 1563

MODENA 1578-PARMA 1615

152

FRANCESCO SOLIMENA

LIONELLO SPADA

MASSIMO STANZIONE

Francesco Solimena was the son of a pupil of Francesco Guarino, one of the major artists in the pro-vinces around Naples. Guarino, as well as the towering precedents of Preti and Giordano, inspired Solimena’s earliest work. Beginning in 1681, Solimena entered into a decades-long collaboration with the great Benedictine abbey of Montecassino. His frescoes for the sacristy of San Domenico Maggiore (1707) and the interior facade of the Gesù Nuovo (1725) are mature works that inaugu-rate the classicism of the eighteenth century in Naples. Bernardo De Dominici promoted Solimena as Naples’s greatest artist, and his pupils remained the leading artists in the city for two generations.

First exposed to the School of Bologna, Spada apprenticed under Cesare Baglioni. Early in his career he collaborated with Girolamo Curti specializing in illusionistic ceiling paintings, or quadratura, in Bologna. Spada entered the Carracci Academy in the early seventeenth century and was influenced by Ludovico Carracci. He travelled to Rome by 1609, then Malta, where he encountered the work of Caravaggio, garnering the disparaging nickname “the ape of Caravaggio” from his enemies. In 1617 Spada became a court painter to Duke Ranuccio I Farnese in Parma. His later works evince the influence of Correggio.

Massimo Stanzione trained with the late-Mannerist painter Fabrizio Santafede and later with Batti-stello. While his early work betrays the influence of Caravaggio, Stanzione preferred the style of the Bolognese classicists in Rome, which he visited in 1617-18 and 1625-30. He also drew inspiration from the colors and textile materials of Artemisia and Vouet. Beginning in the 1630s, Stanzione cornered the market for fresco painting in Naples, distinguishing himself from Ribera. His frescoes in the nave vaults of Santi Marcellino e Festo and San Paolo Maggiore are now lost, though his extensive work at San Martino remains. Stanzione almost certainly died in the plague of 1656.

CANALE DI SERINO 1657-BARRA DI NAPOLI 1747

BOLOGNA 1576-PARMA 1622

ORTEA DI ATELLA CA. 1585-NAPLES 1656

153

MATTHIAS STOM

Matthias Stom was born near Utrecht around 1600 and likely trained with Gerrit von Honthorst in the 1620’s. He resettled in Naples in 1632, where his candlelit interior nocturnes inspired by Honthorst were greeted with great favor, judging by the quantity of works that survive. He moved to Sicily in the early 1640’s and continued to paint in the same vein. His only signed work is the Miracle of Saint Isidro Labrador in Caccamo, near Palermo. While Stom likely died in Sicily at the end of the decade, a similarly named painter recorded in Venice raises the possibility of a northern Italian phase for Stom following his Sicilian sojourn.

AMERSFOORT CA. 1600-SICILY (OR VENICE?) CA. 1650

TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLIO)

SIMON VOUET

Tiziano Vecellio, anglicized as “Titian,” was the greatest Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian School. His genius was recognized in his own lifetime and his reputation since has never declined. Titian’s penetrating portraits, emotionally charged religious paintings, and sensual mythological works establish him as an artist with uncommon range. Trained under Giovanni Bellini, Titian wor-ked for the most illustrious patrons of the age including Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Pope Paul III Farnese. Titian’s style evolved throughout his long career, and the loose brushstrokes of his later period were one of his greatest innovations. Titian remains one of the most influential artists in the Western tradition.

Simon Vouet was the first major painter of Ancien Régime France. At twenty-one he left Paris to paint the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. He subsequently passed fifteen years in Italy, becoming the first foreigner to be elected a Prince of the Roman Academy of Saint Luke in 1624. A friend of Artemisia Gentileschi, he painted a celebrated portrait of the artist at her easel, and his Circumcision of Christ (Naples, Capodimonte, 1620-22) had a significant impact on Nea-politan artists. In 1627 he returned to France and assumed the title of Premier Peintre to Louis XIII.

PIEVE DI CADORE 1488/90-VENICE 1576

PARIS 1590-1649

154

SELECTEDREADINGS

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Abbate, Francesco. Storia dell’arte nell’italia meridionale. 5 Vols. Rome: Donzelli, 1997-2009.

Arcangeli, Letizia. “Feudatari e duca negli stati farnesiani 1545-1587.” Il Rinascimento nelle corti padane: Società e cultura. Bari: De Donato, 1977.

Baldassari, Francesca, ed. Artemisia Gentileschi e il suo tempo. Milan: Skira Editore, 2016.

Barker, Sheila, ed. Artemisia Gentileschi in a Changing Light. London & Turnhout : Harvey Miller Publishers, 2017.

Bile, Umberto. Capodimonte: da reggia a museo. Naples: Elio de Rosa Editore, 1995.

Blunt, Anthony. Neapolitan Baroque & Rococo Architecture. London: Zwemmer, 1975.

Bologna, Ferdinando. Francesco Solimena. Naples: L’Arte Tipografica, 1958.

Cassani, Silvia, ed. Civilità del Seicento a Napoli. 2 vols. Naples: Electa Napoli, 1982. 

Cassani, Silvia and Maria Sapio, eds. Caravaggio: the Final Years. Naples: Electa Napoli, 2004.

Causa, Raffaello. Opere d’arte nel Pio Monte della Misericordia a Napoli. Cava de’ Tirreni, Naples: Di Mauro, 1970.

Causa, Raffaello, “La natura morta a Napoli nel Sei e Settecento.” In Storia di Napoli. Vol. 5, Il Viceregno, 910-1055. Naples: Società Editrice Storia di Napoli, 1972.

Causa, Stefano. Battistello Caracciolo: l’opera completa. Naples: Electa Napoli, 2000.

Celano, Carlo. Notizie del bello, dell’antico e del curioso della citta di Napoli. Edited by Atanasio Mozzillo, Alfredo Preofeta and Francesco Paolo Macchia. 3 Vols.Naples: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane, 1970.

Cole, Michael. Ambitious Form: Giambologna, Ammanati, and Danti in Florence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

Civilità del ‘700 a Napoli, 1734-1799. 2 vols. Florence: Centro Di, 1979.

Colomer, José Luis, ed. España y Napoles: coleccionismo y mecenazgo virreinales en el siglo XVII. Madrid: Centro de estudios Europa hispánica, 2009.

Cropper, Elizabeth. The Domenichino Affair: Novelty, Imitation, and Theft in Seventeenth-Century Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Dallasta, Federica. Bartolomeo Schedoni: pittore emiliano; Modena 1578, Parma 1615. Colorno: Tipografia La Colornese Editrice, 1999.

Dallasta, Federica. Bartolomeo Schedoni a Parma 1607-1615: pittura e controriforma alla corte di Ranuccio I Farnese. Colorno: Tipografia Le Colornese Editrice, 2003.

Davies, David, and John Huxtable Elliott. El Greco. London: National Gallery Company, 2003.

De Dominici, Bernardo. Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani. Edited by F. Sricchia Santoro and Andrea Zezza. 4 Vols. Naples: Paparo Edizione, 2003-2014.

De Maio, Romeo. Alfonso Carafa: Cardinale di Napoli. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1961.

Dell’Acqua, Gian Alberto. Alessandro Bonvicino “Il Moretto.” Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1988.

Del Vecchio, Edoardo. I Farnese. Rome: Istituto di Studi Romani, 1972.

Dempsey, Charles. Annibale Carracci and the Beginnings of the Baroque Style. 2nd ed. Fiesole: Cadmo, 2000.

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