Public display and civic identity. Antiquities in the Seggi of southern Italy, 14th to 18th...

Journal of the History of Collections

doi:10.1093/jhc/fhu054 © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Public display and civic identityAntiquities in the Seggi of southern Italy, 14th to 18th centuries

Fulvio Lenzo

From the fourteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century, almost every town of the Kingdom of Naples had one or more Seggi where the main families used to meet in order to take decisions about the city governement. The Seggi were also the preferred places for locating antiquities and ancient inscriptions of the towns. This paper analyzes the character of such collections, focusing on their meaning for the civic identity of the urban communities of southern Italy between the late medieval and the early modern period.

The Seggi form a particular building type which was widespread throughout southern Italy during the late medieval and early modern periods. They are not to be found outside this area, since they corresponded to a specific civic institution typical of the Kingdom of Naples and active from the thirteenth century until the very beginning of the nineteenth century, when it was abolished by King Ferdinand IV.1 The word Seggio designates both the institution and the building hosting it. As institutions, the Seggi were councils in which the members of the principal local families gathered for the purpose of administering the government of the city; even if their role dif-fered slightly from town to town and changed during the centuries, generally they operated also as lower courts of justice, enacted sumptuary laws and regu-lated the right of citizenship.2 As buildings, the typi-cal structure of a Seggio, defined in late Angevin and Aragonese times, was a square loggia, open on one, two or three sides, and covered by a dome or by a cross vault. Attached to the open loggia was a closed room used for restricted meetings, and as an archive. This article will consider the Seggi by analyzing their architectural forms and their function as sites for the display of antiquities, focusing attention for the first time on their role as privileged repositories of the first civic collections of such material in the Kingdom of Naples.

If the Seggi of Naples itself have for the most part been studied as institutions rather than as buildings, the edifices housing the Seggi in the other towns of the kingdom have mostly been overlooked completely: today there is neither a general survey nor even a full

list of buildings of this type. The main obstacle in studying the Seggi architecturally is the substantial alterations – not to say destruction – that such build-ings underwent after the abolition of the institution. This disadvantage for the researcher is made worse by the almost complete lack of documents,3 and by the fluidity in the historic name used both for the building and for the institution. This homonymy did not imply a perfect correspondence between the presence of the institution in a town and that of a Seggio building: usually the so-called Seggi del Popolo, which is where the town’s commoners held their assemblies, gathered under the porch of a church or inside a friary, and in some towns, such as Sarno, this was also the case for the Seggi of Noblemen.4

In order to reconstruct a map of the Seggi in south-ern Italy we must therefore compare and collate the traces of existing Seggio buildings alongside local his-tories, collections of civic statutes, written documents, visual sources, and the survival of their memory in topographical references. Such a detailed analysis has led to the identification of approximately 120 Seggio buildings throughout the ancient Kingdom of Naples, fifty of which still exist, even if in some cases they have been radically transformed.5

Form, function and meaning of the Seggio buildings

For the purposes of this paper, Naples is best repre-sented in the historical sources, for the reason that, since the sixteenth century, scholars interested in genealogical matters have devoted a great deal of

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attention to the Seggi of the capital city of the king-dom in emphasizing the ancient origin of such insti-tutions. In Naples (Fig. 1) there were six Seggi, one of the Commoners (Popolo) and five of Noblemen (Capuana, Nido, Montagna, Porto and Portanuova). While the Commoners had to gather in the clois-ter of Sant’Agostino alla Zecca,6 the five Seggi of Noblemen were housed in specific buildings founded in the Angevin period and rebuilt many times over the centuries. The Seggio di Montagna was rebuilt in 1409, during the reign of Ladislaus of Durazzo, thanks to the money the Cotugno family gave in order to be admitted into the Seggio.7 The older Seggio of Capuana was located under a tower near to the side door of the Cathedral, and it was rebuilt not far from there in 1443, at the beginning of Aragonese rule.8 Some years later, in 1455–6, the king himself, Alfonso the Magnanimous, commissioned a new building for the Seggio of Porto.9 The Seggio di Nido, or Nilo, changed its site four times, and was finally reconstructed between 1476 and 1507,10 while that of Portanuova was restored in 1586.11 Apart from a few vestiges of the second Seggio of Nido and those of Montagna and Capuana, which can still be recog-nized as parts of later buildings, none of the others survives today.

In order to understand the architecture of the Seggi we must therefore rely on those which still exist in other towns, while bearing in mind that not every-thing we know from Naples can be considered valid

also for the rest of the kingdom, since the Seggi of the capital were in many respects exceptional within the wide range of Seggi throughout southern Italy. The major difference was that each of the five Seggi of Noblemen in Naples was closely linked to a specific area of the city, so that in order to be admitted into a particular Seggio it was compulsory to possess a house (domus propria) in the corresponding city district.12 Outside Naples, on the other hand, the existence of multiple Seggi of Noblemen is documented only in Salerno, Trani, and Sorrento, while in the majority of the other urban centres in southern Italy the pres-ence of more than one Seggio was due to a distinction between social classes: noblemen (Nobili), commoners (Popolo) and on occasion also a middle class (mediani, or cittadini).13

In Sorrento the noblemen had two distinct Seggi. The Seggio di Porta, built in 1505, has been radically transformed,14 while that of Dominova survives in its original form (see Fig. 4). We have no documents relating to its construction; nonetheless its architec-ture suggests it can be dated to between the second half of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.15

In Sessa, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, there were three Seggi, all located along the main street, the ancient decumanus of the Roman town.16 The Seggio of Commoners, called dell’Apolita, stood near the cas-tle, but it was pulled down in the nineteenth century and its place is today − significantly − occupied by the

Fig. 1. Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aedita in lucem ab Alexandro Baratta, 1629 (Naples, Collezione Intesa Sanpaolo, Gallerie d’Italia - Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano). Detail of the Seggi of Nido, Montagna and Capuana.

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A n t i q u i t i e s i n t h e s e g g i o f s o u t h e r n i tA l y

modern town hall. From written descriptions we know that the Seggio dell’Apolita was not an open loggia, but a closed room, built within a palace that also housed the law court of the Bagliva and the local public school.17 Of the Seggio of the mediani, called Seggitiello di Piazza, only the open vaulted passage exists today, while that of the noblemen, the Seggio of San Matteo, still stands as an independent building. Despite being refashioned in the nineteenth century, the Seggio of San Matteo is one of the best-preserved buildings of its kind throughout the territory of the Kingdom: it is covered by a gothic cross-vault resting on ancient columns and still pre-serves along its interior wall the original stone benches typical of the Seggi and after which this kind of build-ing was named. It was built in the fifteenth century, but redecorated at the beginning of the following cen-tury and subsequently transformed in the nineteenth century, when the front arch was closed by a wall.18 Its previous appearance is however documented in an engraving from the mid-nineteenth century as well as by some earlier drawings (see Fig. 6).19

Also in Capua, as in Sessa, there were three Seggi:20 the Seggio of Antignano, incorporated into the pal-ace of the Antignano family in 1453;21 the Seggio dei Gentiluomini (the Gentlemen), also called dei Cavalieri or dell’Oliva, rebuilt after the earthquake of 1456;22 and the Seggio of Sant’Eligio, or dei Giudici, on the square of the same name, probably dating to the same period. All these three still stand as open arches crossing the streets, like the Seggitiello di Piazza in Sessa.

Apart from a few cases where the building con-sisted of a simple vaulted passage, as in the last-mentioned Seggitiello di Piazza in Sessa, the three Seggi of Capua, and the Seggio of Sant’Anna in Bitonto (Fig. 2), in general the Seggi took the simi-lar form of a square loggia in several widely scattered cities across the Kingdom and maintained such a structure over the centuries. Even if the architec-tural form of the Seggi of southern Italy may recall that of the loggias named after families and sites in Florence, Siena, and Genova, their social funtion was different. For instance, in 1444 an anonymous Venetian visitor remained deeply impressed that, whereas the noblemen of northern Italy used to gather in squares or inside palaces, those of Naples spent the whole day in the Seggi, ‘from Mass in the morning until the time of breakfast, after breakfast until lunchtime, and after lunch until dinner’.23

Frequenting the Seggi was a way of consolidating relations between members, who used them daily, for official assemblies as well as for informal meet-ings or to take advantage of the privilege pertaining to the Seggi of being able to gamble on the prem-ises without being obliged to pay tax.24 The local humanist Tristano Caracciolo recommended his son to go often to the Seggi, since only by doing so could he polish his education,25 and the new rules of the Seggio di Montagna in Naples, issued on 26 December 1500, stated that members were obliged to frequent the Seggio and to sit inside it.26 To be member of a Seggio could have an influence also on funerary practice by a family:27 for instance, a law issued at the end of the fifteenth century in Sorrento stated that only for men’s funerals could the family remain in the church to receive condolences, while at funerals for women this last part of the ceremony had to take place in the Seggio.28

The interior of the Seggi, detached from the outside but visible from the street through the open arches, was conceived as a theatre in which the members of

Fig. 2. Bitonto, Seggio di Sant’Anna with the arms of noble families of the city under the vault (photograph Author – histantartsi archive).



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the Seggio and the other inhabitants of the city played different roles in the same event. This was evident, for example, during religious processions,29 or even at political ceremonies such as coronations, triumphal entries and public executions,30 when these private buildings belonging to a restricted élite of families functioned as semi-public spaces.

The ambiguity of the juridical nature of the Seggi, a hybrid of private and public, was reflected in the decoration of these buildings, the interior walls of which displayed paintings and sculptures represent-ing the family arms of the members, alongside other subjects relating to a wider civic identity. Family arms sculpted in stone are still visible in the Seggio of Sant’Anna in Bitonto (see Fig. 2), and this practice was also common in Naples, where at the beginning of the seventeenth century the del Giudice family, just re-admitted to the Seggio of Nido, asked to have ‘their arms painted in the Seggio’ (l’arme dipinte nel Seggio), like the other families.31 In the same years the walls of this Seggio were painted by Belisario Corenzio with a set of frescoes representing the tri-umphal entry into Naples of Emperor Charles V.32 In the Seggio of Mesagne there were paintings repre-senting the mythical King Messapo, believed to be the founder of the town ‘many years before the war of Troy’, and the histories of other renowned citizens, such as the bishop St Euleterio, the patron saint of the town.33 Inside the Seggio Magno of Amalfi, also

no longer extant, there was originally a painting in which the town was personified as a young woman.34 From a seventeenth-century drawing in a manu-script in the National Library of Naples (Fig. 3) we know that the ‘nymph’ Amalfi was seated on a throne like a queen, and held a globe in her right hand and a compass in her left.35 The lion resting on her lap symbolized the Roman origins of the founders of the town. Beneath the fresco there was an inscription composed in the fifteenth century by the human-ist Antonio Beccadelli ‘Panormita’ celebrating the invention of the magnetic compass: ‘Prima dedit nautis usus Magnetis Amalphis’. According to other written descriptions, the female personification of the town also rested her feet on a book, identified as the Corpus Iuris Civilis of the emperor Justinian, which had been brought from Constantinople to Amalfi and was subsequently stolen by the Pisans from the town.36

In the Seggi throughout southern Italy paintings were used to celebrate the different families which belonged to a Seggio, to glorify local heroes, and to summarize the history of the town by displaying its glorious past. The interior decoration of the Seggi, as well as their architectural features and the uses to which they were put, made these buildings the place in the towns where their civic identities were most in evidence. Through the closer examina-tion of some further examples, the prominent role

Fig. 3. Inscription and painting formerly in the Seggio Magno of Amalfi, seventeenth-century (bnn, manuscript, x.a.42 fol. 50v).



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played by antiquities for such purposes can also be demonstrated.

The use of antiquities: architectural spolia, sculptures, and inscriptions

Between the fourteenth and the eighteenth century in many towns of southern Italy the Seggi housed small public collections of ancient statues and inscriptions, as happened in the town halls of other cities in Italy and southern France.37 There were different ways of re-using antiquities, the simplest of which was the inser-tion of architectural elements such as marble columns taken from Roman monuments in the fabric of modern buildings. The incorporation of ancient columns into the buildings of the Seggi is still apparent in what lit-tle remains of the second Seggio of Nido in Naples, partially preserved because it was incorporated in the Pignatelli Palace at the beginning of the sixteenth cen-tury.38 The reuse of ancient architectural elements in new buildings was widespread throughout Italy during the medieval period,39 but in the Seggi of the Kingdom of Naples it was not confined to medieval buildings. In 1569 four ancient marble columns were acquired for inclusion in the new Seggio of San Luigi in Aversa. The Seggio was finally built more than a century later, in 1692, according to a new design, and therefore the

columns, by then useless, were sold to the hospital of the Annunziata in the same town and used in the porch of the adjoining church.40

The Seggio of Noblemen of Saponara, in the south of Basilicata, incorporated an entire ancient arch, taken from the city gate of the nearby ruined Roman town of Grumentum. Unfortunately, in 1857 the Seggio was destroyed by an earthquake, and as a result we can no longer appreciate how it combined ancient and modern elements. However we can deduce that the old arch was transferred in order to create a vis-ible connection between the old and the new town, asserting that Saponara – not by chance later called Grumento Nova – was the heir of Grumentum, and that its citizens were the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the Roman city.41

The recourse to spolia as architectural elements was merely the first level in the use of antiquities. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the Seggi also became the preferred places for the collection and display of antiquities. From drawings, paintings and documents, we know that in front of the Seggio of Dominova in Sorrento there was a fountain crowned by an Egyptian sculpture dating back to the thirteenth century bc, later transferred to the town’s Correale Museum (Fig. 4). Another fragment of ancient

Fig. 4. Theodore Duclère, View of the Seggio di Dominova, mid-nineteenth-century (Sorrento, Museo Correale di Terranova).



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sculpture, now lost, is shown in a sketch by the French artist Abel Blouet dated 1824.42

Original Egyptian sculptures were extremely rare in Italy outside Rome. Less unusual were sculptures of Egyptian subjects made in the Roman period, like the statue representing the River Nile placed in Naples in the vicinity of the Seggio of Nido, where it still stands today, even if the building of the Seggio itself has been demolished. Its history is uncertain: the first reference to it is found in the Cronaca di Parthenope, a medieval text, the main part of which dates to around 1350, where the statue is described as already long lost.43 It was later rediscovered and mentioned again in 1549 by Benedetto di Falco, who wrote that it had been found a few years before ‘in the Seggio, during the work for paving the street’.44 The statue had no head, and was therefore believed to represent a woman nursing her children;45 it was restored as the River Nile only in 1657.46 Yet, from the time it was first put on display, this ancient work of art became a central object in the civic representation of Naples, so much so that it was called ‘the Body of Naples’ (Corpo di Napoli).47

Near the Seggio of Capuana, instead, there was an ancient statue representing a standing woman and believed to be a portrait of Parthenope, the mythical founder of Naples.48 In 1569, as recorded in contem-porary chronicles, this full-size marble statue was removed by the Viceroy Don Parafan de Ribera, Duke of Alcalà, for his own private collection in Seville; it never arrived there, as the ship carrying it sank during the voyage to Spain.49

Another interesting example of ancient sculpture displayed near a Seggio is that of the bronze statue of Heraclius called the ‘Colosso’ in Barletta (Fig. 5). This immense statue, about 5 metres high, is docu-mented as having been in the town from the beginning of the fourteenth century: in 1309, when it lay aban-doned near the harbour, King Charles II of Anjou ordered the arms and legs to be cut off and used for making the great bell of the Dominican church of Manfredonia.50 It was in the nearby of the harbour that Giovanni Pontano probably saw the ‘bronze statue of Heraclius’ (aenea Heraclii statua) which he mentioned in the fourth book of his De bello Neapolitano.51 The torso was later transferred within the city, giving its name to the weekly market granted by King Ferrante of Aragon in 1481, held ‘in the place of Heraclius’ (nel loco de Aracho).52 In 1491 the statue was restored by the Neapolitan sculptor Fabio Albano, who cast new

bronze legs and arms: the ‘Colosso’ was then placed at the entrance of the new Seggio del Popolo, and the event was celebrated with a poem.53

Antiquities had a symbolic value as documents of the past, or at least as trophies, as was the case with bronze statues in other cities of Italy, but in the many other instances of antiquities displayed near the Seggi of southern Italy, one can see a greater awareness in the choice of objects whose local provenance was indubi-table, and therefore useful in asserting the antiquity of the town. Ancient inscriptions, though less visually striking than statues, could be even more useful for this purpose, because they could be read and there-fore offered a deeper level of communication. An inscription (cil x 1484) naming Emperor Constantine the Great, his mother Helena and the ‘ordo et popu-lus Neapolitanus’ was placed in the corner pillar of the Seggio di Montagna in Naples.54 The inscription was regarded as a proof of the ancient division of the noblemen (the ordo) from the common people (the populus); moreover, the reference to Helena was evi-dence for the precocious Christianization of Naples.55

If small fragments of an ancient text sculpted in marble were seen as still capable of communicating

Fig. 5. Barletta, view of the Seggio del Popolo, photograph c.1925.



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glimpses of a town’s long-distant past, several inscribed slabs, taken together, could, centuries later, tell whole stories. In the Seggio of San Matteo in Sessa we are faced with a veritable collection of antiquities, that was gradually enriched, changing its meaning, with the addition of modern inscrip-tions and of a medieval statue (Fig. 6). Some ancient inscriptions described in the very last years of the fif-teenth century by Fra Giocondo, and in the following century by Antonio Augustín, Guillaume Budé, and Pirro Ligorio, are still in place. This is the case of the inscription (cil x 4744) naming Matidia the Younger, which Fra Giocondo saw ‘ante ecclesiam Sancti Matthaei apud Sessionem’ and which Augustín described ‘nel Seggio grande’. Matidia was a Roman woman married into the imperial family who restored the theatres of Minturno and Sessa Aurunca.56 In front of the same Seggio, we can also find another inscription described by Fra Giocondo and Augustín (Fig. 7). The ancient text (cil x 4756) names the ‘viam Suessanis municipibus’ and it would therefore have been a proof not only of the antiquity of the town of Sessa Aurunca, but also of its privileged sta-tus as a municipium under the Roman Empire. At the same time, the inscription makes an explicit genea-logical reference to the emperor Hadrian, creating a

connection with the just-mentioned inscription nam-ing his sister-in-law Matidia.

In the Seggio of San Matteo the imperial charac-ter of Sessa during Roman times was celebrated. And because of this it is easy to understand why the two new inscriptions composed in 1536 by the human-ist Agostino Nifo to mark Emperor Charles V’s tri-umphal entry into Sessa were placed there (Fig. 8). Both inscriptions, carved on two pedestals in very elegant lettering, are written in Latin and signed by ‘the Citizens of Sessa’ (Suessani), following ancient models.57 Ancient and modern inscriptions, placed side-by-side, made the connection between past and present in stating the city’s ancient and contemporary importance and, at the same time, created a connection between the ancient Roman Empire and the Spanish one. This became clearer in 1549, when the Spanish governor Lope de Herrera transferred a medieval statue dating back to the Swabian period from the tiny village of Valogno to Sessa, placing it at the entrance of the Seggio of San Matteo.58 The statue (Fig. 9) was placed upon a pedestal bearing a Latin inscription,

Fig. 7. Sessa, Seggio di San Matteo, slab with the inscription cil x 4756 (photograph Author – histantartsi archive).

Fig. 6. Antoine-Marie Chenavard, Seggio di San Matteo at Sessa, 1817 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France).



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probably copied from the original one, reading ‘Jacopo del Gaudio, knight, baron of Carinola, and citizen of Sessa, erected this statue in honour of the Holy Cross in 1272’.59 Jacopo del Gaudio belonged to the Capece, a family connected to the Hohenstaufen imperial dynasty; his grandfather had been the valet of Frederick II, and, when the Kingdom of Sicily was conquered by Charles of Anjou, his father and two uncles fought against the Angevins and were executed. In 1282, during the war of the Sicilian Vespers, Jacopo continued his family’s policy and supported Pedro of Aragon against the Angevins.60 We can therefore suppose that the Spanish governor of Sessa would have regarded Jacopo as a good example of a loyal man, who, through his loyalty, conferred legitimacy on the king of Spain as heir of the German emperor who had ruled southern Italy in the thirteenth cen-tury. Furthermore, in the inscription the three attrib-utes of Giacomo del Gaudio are ‘knight’, ‘baron of Carinola’ and ‘citizen of Sessa’: the members of the Seggio must have been proud that, even for a feudal lord, being a cives of Sessa had the same importance as being the absolute lord of Carinola. The celebration of an entire city in the Seggi was linked to direct or

indirect glorification of its members through the use of both modern and ancient inscriptions and works of art.

The specific meanings attributed to ancient ele-ments differed from town to town and also changed over the centuries. This is more evident when we look at the antiquities which were placed in the Seggi of Capua, whose history makes it possible to trace an evolution from the use of antiquity as an instrument for the self-representation of the élites to a more antiquarian awareness. Two inscriptions still placed at the base of the former entrance arch of the Seggio dei Cavalieri were of particular importance as they documented the past of the town that went back to Greek times and therefore pre-dated Rome. One (ig 885) was written in Greek (Fig. 10), while the other (cil x 3961), written in Latin, was the funerary inscription of Tiberius Claudio Laconius, a teacher of Greek (Fig. 11).61 The claim to a Greek past seems to be a common feature among several cities of southern Italy, and many of them claimed to have been founded by the Greek hero Diomedes shortly after the Trojan war, as in the case of Vasto, Venafro, San Severo, Arpi, Siponto, Canosa, Andria, Brindisi,

Fig. 8. Sessa, Seggio di San Matteo, stone pedestals with the inscription for Emperor Charles V (photograph Author – histantartsi archive).



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Benevento, Tricarico, and Venosa. Capua asserted it had been founded in the same remote past by the Trojan hero Capys, who fought on the opposing side from Diomedes in the War of Troy. This tradition was based on Suetonius (Caes. lxxxi), who wrote that during excavations undertaken in Capua for the building of new houses, the settlers sent by Julius Caesar discovered the tomb of ‘Capys, the founder of Capua’. Here there was a bronze tablet, inscribed with Greek words and characters recounting the murder of Julius Caesar, which read: ‘Whenever the bones of Capys are moved, it will come to pass that a descendent of his shall be slain at the hands of his kindred, and presently avenged at heavy cost to Italy’. The myth of Capys continued to be important in the fifteenth century, as can be seen in, for example, the illuminated portrait on the title-page of the Book of Privileges of Capua, a manuscript dating to 1480.62 And a century later a presumed portrait of Capys was placed on the keystone of the gate of the new Palazzo dei Giudici. During the Renaissance therefore it was clear that Capua had already been an ancient city at the time of Julius Caesar, that there were written

Fig. 9. Sessa, depository of the cathedral, statue of Jacopo Del Gaudio, formerly in front of the Seggio di San Matteo (photograph Elisabetta Scirocco).

Fig. 10. Capua, Seggio dei Gentiluomini, detail of inscription ig 885 (photograph Author –histantartsi archive).

Fig. 11. Capua, Seggio dei Gentiluomini, detail of inscription cil x 3961 (photograph Author –histantartsi archive).



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records of its antiquity, and that those records were written in Greek words and characters. The two inscriptions placed at the entrance of the Seggio dei Cavalieri served to underline such a history, but in the same place there were also many other antiq-uities. Manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries record several ancient inscriptions in the Seggio dei Cavalieri, most of them showing sculpted portraits of men in togas (Figs. 12–13).63 When one considers the small dimensions of the building, it is easy to imagine how these toga-wearing ancient inhabitants of the town must have crowded the space. Extensive displays of Roman stelae showing funerary portraits can also be found in Venosa and Benevento, where, however, they are disseminated troughout the cities, rather than concentrated in a single building as they were in Capua. In the case of the Seggio dei Cavalieri in Capua, no single object was given prom-inence over the others; the whole collection had the function of conveying the image that the citizens of

modern Capua had of themselves, similar to that of the ancient Roman cives. It was as if these sculpted portraits of men, portrayed in their official dress, could transmit some of their prestige to the modern members of the Seggio.

It is interesting to note that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while Capua gradually lost its actual political power, this wide representational apparatus based on ancient images and inscriptions increased and became even more important, but at the same time slightly changed its meaning. It was especially the Seggio of Sant’Eligio, which became the preferred place for collecting ancient marbles and preserving the historical memory of Capua. This was perhaps due to the fact that since the fifteenth century it had been used for the assemblies of the Consiglio dei Quaranta, as well as to its location between the public city hall, the Palazzo dell’Udienza, and the Governor’s Palace, the Palazzo dei Giudici, com-pleted in 1588 and decorated with ancient sculptures

Fig. 12. Capua, Museo Campano, stele with the inscription cil x 4150, formerly in the Seggio dei Gentiluomini (photograph Author).

Fig. 13. Capua, Museo Campano, stele with the inscription cil x 4174, formerly in the Seggio dei Gentiluomini (photograph Author).



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taken from the Roman amphitheatre of Santa Maria Capua Vetere.

In 1588 Marco Antonio di Maio, one of the Eletti of Capua, persuaded his colleagues to move an ancient inscription (cil x 3890) naming Lucius Magius, a sol-dier in the Tenth Legion of the Roman Army to the corner of the Theatine church of Sant’Eligio, under the arch of the Seggio.64 The city paid for moving the ancient inscription and also for carving a new one in golden letters, but Di Maio assured the other Eletti that, in the event of dispute, he would reimburse the city with his own money.65 Such a personal involve-ment in what should have been an entirely public matter may be explained by the strong resemblance between the names of the ancient soldier, Magius, and that of Di Maio. Collecting and also display-ing ancient inscriptions mentioning people whose names recalled those of modern families was a prac-tice found throughout Italy from the fifteenth cen-tury onwards.66 Generally, however, the inscriptions were placed within a private palace of the family, and not in a public space. This practice must have applied also in Capua since, some months later, the new Eletti of the town, following a proposal put for-ward by Pompeo d’Errico, decided to remove both the ancient inscription and the new one, and asked the Spanish government to oblige Marco Antonio di Maio to repay the town the sum it had disbursed for the installation of the two slabs. In the documents of the city archive we can read the three main rea-sons adduced by Di Maio’s opponents: first, Lucius Magius was not a citizen of Capua; secondly it was considered indecorous to place an inscription cele-brating a pagan man on the wall of a Christian church; and thirdly it was inappropriate that the new inscrip-tion for such a soldier was written in gold while the one celebrating King Philip II was written in simple black letters.67 The first reason shows the elevated degree of antiquarian awareness in Capua at the end of the sixteenth century, when classical sources could be used in a partisan way for modern political dis-putes. Pompeo d’Errico claimed that Lucius Magius could not have been a citizen of Capua because the ancient city did not have a Tenth Legion such as the one to which Lucius Magius belonged.68 He delib-erately omitted to mention the fact that the Magii family of Capua was famous thanks to references in many classical authors, significantly citing only a letter to Cicero (Fam. iv, 12, 2) where one Publius

Magius is mentioned on account of his shameful death. Pompeo d’Errico also omitted any reference to Decius Magius, a citizen of ancient Capua praised by Livy (xxiii, 10.11–13), Silius Italicus (xi, 170–187), and Marcus Velleius Paterculus (ii, 16) for his loyalty to Rome during the Second Punic War, which he paid for by being sent into exile once the town had passed into the hands of the Carthaginians.69 The his-tory was renowned in sixteenth-century Capua, such that the archibishop Cesare Costa decided to show the presumed house of Decius Magius in the map of ancient Capua that he had painted in the main hall of his palace in 1595. We have no information about the text of the new inscription written in golden letters, nor about what happened to it, but we do know that the ancient one remained on display in the same place near the Seggio dei Giudici, as recorded in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century epigraphic sylloges.70

The inscription of Lucius Magius was merely the first to be placed near the Seggio of Sant’Eligio; over the following centuries many others were added, thanks to the local scholar Camillo Pellegrino junior, a friend of Cassiano dal Pozzo and Luca Holstenius. In 1656 Pellegrino wrote to Cardinal Lorenzo Raggi in order to obtain the return of an ancient inscribed slab (cil x 3834) previously stolen from the pavement of the church of Sant’Angelo in Formis, near Capua, and then in the ownership of the priest Stefano Bovenzi.71 Pellegrino told this story to Cassiano dal Pozzo and mentioned his hope that the slab could be returned to the church, or otherwise displayed in the public square in Capua, that is, in the vicinity of the Seggio of Sant’Eligio, where, he wrote, other antiquities had already been placed thanks to his involvement.72 Finally the slab was positioned under the arch of the Seggio of Sant’Eligio.

In 1665, shortly after Pellegrino’s death, another ancient slab was placed in the Seggio (Fig. 14). It had been discovered during excavations undertaken in the area of the ancient Roman theatre of Santa Maria Capua Vetere between 1620 and 1640, and its inscrip-tion (cil x 3821) recorded the restoration of the frons scenae paid for by a public official of Roman Capua and showed a group of builders working in the presence of Minerva, Jupiter and other gods.73 The placement of this ancient stone was celebrated by a new inscription composed for the occasion and by the publication of a short book explaining the meaning of the relief.74



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During the eighteenth century many other antiq-uities, discovered during excavations or taken from modern buildings, were transferred to this Seggio. Two inscriptions (cil x 4190, 4260) originally placed in the Seggio of Antignano, where they were copied by Fra Giocondo at the end of the fifteenth century and by Matteo Geronimo Mazza at the end of the sixteenth century, were later transferred to that of Sant’Eligio. In 1726 it was the turn of the famous fragmentary inscription (cil x 3832) found in the amphitheatre of Santa Maria Capua Vetere and restored by Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi, who took inspiration from this inscription for his book on the amphitheatre published in 1727.75 A century later the Seggio of Sant’Eligio had the appearance of a veritable antiquarium urbis. An idea of what it must have looked like is given by the view of the Piazza dei Giudici published by Luigi Rossini in 1838, where also a keystone of the amphitheatre representing the river god Volturno, and today at the Museo Campano, is shown inside the Seggio.76 It was there, during his first travels in southern Italy, in 1844, that Theodor Mommsen copied the majority of the ancient inscriptions from Capua, which he collected in his Inscriptiones Regni Neapolitani Latinae, published in 1852.77 In 1870 many of the ancient inscriptions and sculptures in Capua were transferred into the new museum of the town, where Mommsen saw them again in 1873. Thus in several entries describing the inscriptions of Capua in the tenth volume of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, published by Mommsen in 1883, one can read ‘I saw it under the arch of

Sant’Eligio. It is now in the Museo Campano’ (ego vidi sub arco S. Eligi. Nunc in Museo Campano).78 The evolution from the use of antiquities for symbolic civic meaning to their preservation for scholarly pur-poses was thus complete, yet the creation of a local museum still reflected civic importance and pride.

Conclusion

The relation between the Seggi and antiquity had more than one aspect. It changed from town to town, depending on the quantity and quality of ancient remains, as well as on the social and political condi-tions of each city. Even if it is difficult to make direct connections between these several different histories, we have seen, however, some common features. The cities of the ancient Kingdom of Naples were subject to the same central government and often had paral-lel histories. Many of them could claim Roman – or even Greek or Italic – origins. Although the material evidence of their past differed, imitation and emula-tion led to the creation of a common attitude toward the public display of antiquities. The examples of the Seggio of Nido in Naples, the Seggio of San Matteo in Sessa and the first project for that of San Luigi in Aversa show us how sometimes ancient elements such as marble columns, as well as sculptures and inscrip-tions, seem to have been used mainly because of their material richness or as objects evocative of the past but, whose specific provenance was not so relevant. But gradually, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the local provenance of antiquities became

Fig. 14. Capua, Museo Campano, relief with the inscription cil x 3821, formerly in the Seggio di Sant’Eligio (photograph Author).



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more and more important for the self-representation of the urban élites ruling the town.

The inner decoration of the Seggi often combined the celebration of single families and that of the whole city, reflecting the hybrid nature of such buildings, which enjoyed a semi-public status. In the Seggi the members of the main local families gathered to take decisions about the government of the town, but also to discuss their private affairs, for gambling, and for celebrating official festivities. Unlike the town halls of northern and central Italy, the Seggi did not belong to the entire city, but only to a restricted group of fami-lies, such as the members of a particular social class or the noblemen resident in the same urban neigh-bourhood. However, the works of art and inscriptions chosen and collected by the élite of the Seggio mem-bers gradually became representative of the common shared memory of each town.

It is worthy of notice that the presence of anti-quarian collections in Seggio buildings cannot be understood without also taking into consideration the special attention directed toward the medieval past, as shown in the old-fashioned capitals of the Seggio di Dominova in Sorrento, and the statue of Jacopo del Gaudio at the entrance to the Seggio of San Matteo in Sessa. If fifteenth- and sixteenth-century human-ists stressed the contrast between antiquity, regarded as a Golden Age, and the Dark Ages of medieval times, in the small public collections on display in the Seggi of southern Italy we find no trace of such a conflict. Ancient, medieval and modern objects were set in a continuity celebrating the strong connection of the Seggi with the history of the city, and creating a visual parallel between their political role in civic govern-ment, based upon the maintenance of local traditions and the task of preserving the material remains of the past. What made these collections different from other private collections of the time, both within and beyond the Kingdom of Naples, was that the objects were cho-sen not for their artistic beauty, but because of their importance in the local history of a town, and therefore for the meaning they had in relation to the civic iden-tity of its inhabitants.

Address for correspondenceFulvio Lenzo, Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, erc-histantartsi, via Marina 33, Napoli 80133, [email protected]

AcknowledgementsThe research leading to this paper has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (fp7/2007-201 3) / erc Grant agreement n° 263549; erc-histantartsi project Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, P.I. Bianca de Divitiis. The first results were presented at the rsa Annual Meeting held in Washington dc (22–24 March 2012); subsequent research findings were presented and discussed during the seminar Antiquities and Local Identities in Southern Italy (London, Warburg Institute, 16 November 2012). I wish to thank Francesco Caglioti, Caroline Elam, Bianca de Divitiis, Lorenzo Miletti, Elisabetta Scirocco, Francesco Senatore, and William Stenhouse for their suggestions. I am also grateful to Stephen Parkin for revising my text.

Notes and references 1 The Seggi were abolished on 25 April 1800. See R. Guiscardi,

Saggio di storia civile del municipio napoletano (Naples, 1862), pp. 60–63; B. Capasso, Catalogo ragionato . . . dell’Archivio Municipale di Napoli (1387–1806), vol. i (Naples, 1876), p. viii; B. Croce, ‘I Seggi di Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, new ser. 1 (1920), pp. 17–19.

2 C. Tutini, Dell’origine e fundatione de’ Seggi di Napoli (Naples, 1644); M. Schipa, ‘Alcune opinioni intorno ai Seggi o sedili di Napoli nel Medioevo’, Napoli Nobilissima 15 (1906), pp. 97–9, 113–15; M. A. Visceglia, Identità sociali. La nobiltà napolet-ana nella prima età moderna (Milan, 1999); B. de Divitiis, ‘Die Seggi des Patriziats’, in S. Pisani and K. Siebenmorgen (eds), Neapels. Sechs Jahrhunderte Kulturgeschichte (Berlin, 2009), pp. 99–104; G. Vitale, ‘Vita di Seggio nella Napoli aragon-ese’, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 128 (2010), pp. 71–95; G. Muto, ‘Spazi urbani e poteri cittadini: i Seggi napoletani nella prima Età Moderna’, in G. Heidemann and T. Michalsky (eds) Ordnung des sozialen Raumes. Die Quartieri, Sestieri und Seggi in den fruehneuzeitlichen Staedten Italiens (Berlin, 2012), pp. 213–28; M. Santangelo, ‘Preminenza aris-tocratica nella Napoli normanno-sveva: i tocchi e il problema dell’origine dei sedili medievali’, Archivio storico italiano 171/3 (2013), pp. 273–318.

3 F. Trinchera, Degli Archivi napoletani (Naples, 1872), pp. 415–421; Capasso, op. cit. (note 1), pp. ix–x, 25–6; A. Gentile and I. Donsì Gentile (eds), ‘Archivio di Stato di Napoli’, in Guida generale degli archivi di stato italiani, vol. iii (Rome, 1986), pp. 1–143 (11, 110, 142).

4 A. Franco, ‘Il Sedile nobiliare di Sarno’, Rassegna Storica Salernitana 50 (2008), pp. 223–72.

5 The list of existing Seggio buildings includes those of Aversa, Bari, Bitonto (Seggio di Sant’Anna), Caiazzo, Capua (Seggio dell’Oliva, Seggio di Antignano, Seggio di Sant’Eligio), Carinola, Casarano, Galatina, Galatone, Giovinazzo, Lecce, Maddaloni, Matera, Modugno, Monopoli, Naples (Seggio di Montagna), Nardò, Oria, Pozzuoli, Rocchetta Sant’Antonio, Sessa Aurunca (Seggio di San Matteo, Seggitiello di Piazza), Sorrento (Seggio di Porta, Seggio di Dominova), Teano, Teggiano, Tito, Tricarico, Troia, Tropea, Vieste. I deal in greater detail with the matter in F. Lenzo, Memoria e identità civica. L´architettura dei seggi nel Regno di Napoli (xiii–xviii Secolo), Forthcoming.



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6 Tutini, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 170–71; M. Schipa, Contese sociali napoletane nel Medioevo (Naples, 1906), pp. 303–8.

7 M. A. Sorgente, De Neapoli illustrata (Naples, 1597), fols 102–3. G. A. Summonte, Historia della Città e Regno di Napoli, vol. i (Naples, 1602), pp. 206, 209; vol. iii (Naples, 1675), p. 557. Tutini, op. cit. (note 2), p. 134.

8 Summonte, op. cit. (note 7), vol. i, pp. 205‐6.

9 Tutini, op. cit. (note 2), p. 135; N. Carletti, Topografia univer-sale della città di Napoli (Naples, 1776), pp. 90–91; C. Minieri Riccio, ‘Alcuni fatti di Alfonso I di Aragona dal 15 aprile 1437 al 31 maggio 1458’, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 6 (1881), pp. 1–56, 231–58, 411–61 (441, 443, 452, 461); Croce, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 17–18; R. Mormone, ‘Documenti per la storia dell’architettura napoletana nel’ 700’, Napoli Nobilissima, 3rd ser. 3 (1963–4), pp. 119–24; C. De Falco, Giuseppe Astarita. Architetto napoletano 1705–1775 (Naples, 1999), p. 122, doc. 124.

10 Summonte, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 206–7; Tutini, op. cit. (note 2), p. 135; C. Celano, Notitie del bello, dell’antico e del curioso della città di Napoli (Naples, 1692), vol. iii, pp. 156–8; Carletti, op. cit. (note 9), p. 113; G. Sigismondo, Descrizione della città di Napoli, vol. ii (Naples, 1788), p. 47; Capasso, op. cit. (note 1), p. 25; L. De la Ville sur-Yllon, ‘Il corpo di Napoli e la “capa” di Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima 3 (1894), pp. 23–6 at p. 23; R. Middione, ‘Vicende del Nilo dal medioevo ai giorni nostri’, in M. Clemente, S. De Caro and N. Spinosa (eds), Lo sguardo del Nilo. Storia e recupero del ‘Corpo di Napoli’ (Naples, 1993), pp. 23–36 at p. 26; G. Guida, ‘La “Regio Nilensis”. Cenni stor-ici’, in Clemente, De Caro and Spinosa, op. cit., pp. 53–61 at p. 59.

11 Summonte, op. cit. (note 7), vol. i, p. 208; Croce, op. cit. (note 1); G. Ceci, ‘Il sedile di Portanova’, Napoli Nobilissima 2 (1893), pp. 77–8; T. Colletta, ‘Napoli. La cartografia pre-catastale’, Storia della citta 34–5 (1985), pp. 5–178 at pp. 131–2, a.vii-n.4); E. Ricciardi, ‘I Barnabiti a Napoli e la chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin a Portanova’, Arte Lombarda 134 (2002), pp. 116–26 at p. 117; M. Martone, ‘I sedili a Napoli e fuori la città’, in C. Cundari (ed.), Verso un repertorio dell’architettura catalana. Architettura catalana in Campania, province di Benevento, Caserta, Napoli (Rome, 2005), pp. 109–22 at p. 112.

12 Tutini, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 113–14. See G. Vitale, ‘Nobiltà napoletana dell’età durazzesca’, in N. Coulet and J.-M. Matz (eds), La noblesse dans les territoires angevins à la fin du Moyen Âge (Rome, 2000), pp. 363–421; G. Vitale, Élite burocratica e famiglia. Dinamiche nobiliari e processi di costruzione statale nella Napoli angioino-aragonese (Naples, 2003), pp. 109–10, 112–13 n. 66, 135–43; B. de Divitiis, Architettura e commit-tenza nella Napoli del Quattrocento (Venice, 2007), pp. 43–135. The boundaries of the city districts corresponding to each Neapolitan Seggio are described by Summonte, op. cit. (note 7), vol. i, pp. 152–3, and more in detail by F. de Petri, Dell’historia napoletana (Naples, 1634), pp. 78–84; see also Tutini, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 135–6.

13 B. Capasso, Il Tasso e la sua famiglia a Sorrento. Ricerche e narrazioni storiche (Naples, 1866); G. Beltrani and F. Sarlo, Documenti relativi agli antichi Seggi de’ Nobili ed alla Piazza del Popolo della città di Trani (Trani, 1881); G. Abignente, ‘I Seggi dei nobili e la platea dei populari a Salerno’, in Scritti scientifici e politici, vol. ii (Naples, 1930), pp. 61–99 at pp. 67, 83.

14 Capasso, op. cit. (note 13), p. 50; M. Venditti, ‘Sorrento, sedile di Porta’, in A. Gambardella and D. Jacazzi (eds) Architettura

del classicismo tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento. Campania. Ricerche (Rome, 2007), pp. 281–2.

15 R. Pane, Sorrento e la costa (Naples, 1955), p. 101; M. Venditti, ‘Sorrento, sedile Dominova’, in Gambardella and Jacazzi, op. cit. (note 14), pp. 283–4.

16 T. Masi del Pezzo, Memorie istoriche degli Aurunci (Naples, 1761), pp. 213–14. A. Broccoli, ‘Il codice municipale sessano’, Archivio Storico Campano (1889), pp. 243–60; (1889–90), pp. 251–80; (1891), pp. 193–202; (1893), pp. 221–40; (1893–1894), pp. 595–608; N. Borrelli, La nobiltà Sessana e le aggre-gazioni al Seggio di San Matteo (Maddaloni, 1917).

17 Masi Del Pezzo, op. cit. (note 16), p. 317; G. Di Marco, Sessa e il suo territorio (Marina di Minturno, 1995), pp. 26, 34; G. Fuscolillo, Croniche, ed. N. Ciampaglia (Arce, 2008), pp. 43, 88, 89, 102, 118, 139, 327.

18 G. Alisio, ‘Il sedile di S. Matteo a Sessa Aurunca’, in Scritti in onore di Roberto Pane (Naples, 1971), pp. 261–73; Di Marco, op. cit. (note 17), p. 58.

19 A.-M. Chenavard, Vues d’Italie, de Sicile et d’Istrie (Lyon, 1861), tav. 20. The original drawing by Chenavard, dated 1817, is preserved in Paris, École Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, num ms 703, iv, pl. 55.

20 F. Granata, Storia civile della fedelissima città di Capua (Naples, 1752–6), vol. ii, p. 327, p. 345 n. 21, wrote of the Seggio of Noblemen (Nobiluomini) and of that of Knights (Cavalieri) as two different buildings, but this is due to a misunderstand-ing of the information quoted by G. A. Manna, Prima parte della cancellaria . . . di Capua (Naples, 1588), fol. 220v. From the evidence of fifteenth-century epigraphers, it is clear that the building was called either Seggio dell’Oliva, Seggio dei Nobili or Seggio dei Cavalieri; see T. Mommsen, Inscriptiones Bruttiorum, Lucaniae, Campaniae, Siciliae, Sardiniae latinae, vol. ii (Berlin, 1883), entries of cil x 3961, 3978, 4150, 4174, 4229, 4344, 4411, 4425.

21 C. Robotti, Palazzo Antignano e l’architettura rinascimentale a Capua (Naples, 1983), p. 55.

22 Granata, op. cit. (note 20), vol. ii, pp. 327, 345 note 21; vol. iii, pp. 40, 116; G. Iannelli, Sacra guida della chiesa cattedrale di Capua (Naples, 1858), p. 66.

23 Descrittione de la cità e governo di Napoli, ed. C. Fouchard, ‘Fonti di storia napoletana nell’Archivio di Stato di Modena’, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 2 (1877), pp. 725–57, published with corrections and a new attribution by F. Senatore (ed.), Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, vol. i: 1444–1458 (Salerno, 1997), pp. 3–19.

24 Vitale, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 79–80.

25 Vitale op. cit. (note 12), pp. 107–11; Vitale, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 75–8.

26 Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’ (hereafter bnn), ms San Martino n. 441, p. 17: ‘che tutti li gentil’homini siano tenuti et debbiano venire a sedere dentro lo sieggio della Montagna.’

27 M. A. Visceglia, Il bisogno di eternità. I comportamenti aris-tocratici a Napoli in età moderna (Naples, 1988), pp. 143–7; T. Michalsky, ‘La memoria messa in scena. Sulla funzione e il significato dei sediali nei monumenti sepolcrali napoletani attorno al 1500’, in S. Romano and N. Bock (eds), Le chiese di San Lorenzo e San Domenico. Gli ordini mendicanti a Napoli (Naples, 2005), pp. 172–91; G. Vitale, Ritualità monarchica, cerimonie e pratiche devozionali nella Napoli aragonese (Salerno,



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2006), p. 138; Divitiis, op. cit. (note 12), pp. 137–69. See F. Caglioti and L. Hyerace, ‘Antonello Gagini e le tombe Carafa di Castelvetere’, in A. Anselmi (ed.), La Calabria del viceregno spagnolo: storia, arte, architettura e urbanistica (Rome, 2009), pp. 337–85 at p. 381, note 80; B. de Divitiis, ‘Giuliano da Sangallo’s 1488 sojourn in the Kingdom of Naples: archi-tecture, antiquities and patrons’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, forthcoming.

28 Capasso, op. cit. (note 13), pp. 241–4, Vitale, op. cit. (note 27), p. 137.

29 Visceglia, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 173–205; G. Vitale, ‘Il culto di San Gennaro a Napoli in età aragonese. Una rilettura delle fonti’, Campania Sacra 20 (1989), pp. 239–67; Vitale, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 167–74.

30 Notargiacomo, Cronica di Napoli, ed. P. Garzilli (Naples, 1845), p. 161; J. Leostello, Effemeridi della cose fatte per il Duca di Calabria, 1484–1491, ed. G. Filangieri (Naples, 1883), pp. 44, 45, 128; B. Capasso, La Vicaria Vecchia (Naples, 1889), pp. 33–34; Vitale op. cit. (note 12), p. 197; Vitale, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 61, 74–78, 88; Vitale, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 78, 80–82.

31 Muto, op. cit. (note 2), p. 218.

32 Belisario Corenzio painted the Entry of Charles V in two phases, in 1607 and in 1619. In the dome of the Seggio Francesco de Maria painted an allegory of Fame, while in the four spandrels Giacomo Cestaro and Fedele Fischetti painted the personification of the Virtues. See B. De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti Napoletani (Naples, 1742–5), vol. i, p. 297, ed. F. Sricchia Santoro and A. Zezza (Naples, 2003), p. 1013, n. 20; Carletti, op. cit. (note 10), p. 113; Sigismondo, op. cit. (note 10), vol. ii, p. 47; Guiscardi, op. cit. (note 1), p. 20; Croce, op. cit. (note 1), p. 17; Guida, op. cit. (note 10), p. 59; Muto, op. cit. (note 3), p. 218 n. 15.

33 G. B. Pacichelli, Il Regno di Napoli in prospettiva (Naples, 1703), vol. iii, p. 185.

34 Amalfi had two Seggi, the ‘Seggio Parvum et Magnum’, and the ‘Theatrum Magnum Nobilium’, neither of which now survives. See F. Pansa, Istoria dell’Antica Repubblica d’Amalfi (Naples, 1724); M. Camera, Memorie storico diplo-matiche dell’antica città e ducato di Amalfi (Salerno, 1876–81); M. Russo, ‘La trasformazione ottocentesca in caserma dei reali carabinieri del Seminario diocesano di Amalfi ’, Rassegna del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana 20 (2000), pp. 107–30.

35 bnn, ms x.a.42, fol. 50v.

36 G. Gimma, Idea della Storia dell’Italia Letterata (Naples, 1723), vol. ii, chap. 41, pp. 537–8; N. Aianelli, Delle antiche consuetudini e leggi marittime delle provincie napoletane (Naples, 1871), p. 69; M. Camera, Istoria della città e costiera di Amalfi (Naples, 1836), vol. i, p. 13.

37 W. Stenhouse, ‘Roman antiquities and the emergence of Renaissance civic collections’, Journal of the History of Collections 26 (2014), pp. 131–44. I wish to thank William Stenhouse for kindly allowing me to read his article in advance of publication.

38 R. Pane, Il Centro antico di Napoli (Naples, 1971), vol. ii, p. 230; Middione, op. cit. (note 10), p. 26.

39 S. Settis, ‘Continuità, distanza e conoscenza. Tre usi dell’antico. L’uso dell’antico nel Medioevo’, in S. Settis (ed.), Memoria dell’antico nell’Arte Italiana, vol. iii (Turin, 1986), pp. 375–486; J. Poeschke and H. Brandenburg (eds), Antike Spolien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Munich, 1996).

40 G. Fiengo and L. Guerriero, Il centro storico di Aversa. Analisi del patrimonio edilizio (Naples, 2002), pp. 414–15.

41 A. Lombardi, ‘Saggio sulla topografia e sugli avanzi delle antiche città italo-greche, lucane, daune e peucezie comprese nell’odierna Basilicata’, Memorie dell’Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica 1 (1832), pp. 195–252 at p. 238.

42 Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, num pc 7737, fol. 87. Perhaps the fragment was the Egyptian sculp-ture rediscovered in the twentieth century in a nearby pal-ace. See M. Savoia Aosta Habsburg, ‘I monumenti faraonici di Sorrento: la statua di Seti I e la recentemente ritrovata statua di Padimenemipet’, Studi classici e orientali 24 (1975), pp. 211–15.

43 S. Kelly, The Cronaca di Partenope. An Introduction to and a Critical Edition of the First Vernacular History of Naples, c. 1350 (Leiden and Boston, 2011), p. 181.

44 B. De Falco, Descrittione dei luoghi antichi di Napoli (Naples, 1549), fol. fv: ‘Una statua di marmo con una imagine d’una gran donna con molte poppe che lattava molti fantolini nova-mente ritrovata nel Seggio cavandosi la terra per amattonar la strada’. See De la Ville sur-Yllon, op. cit. (note 10); B. Capasso, Napoli greco-romana (Naples, 1905), pp. 159–61.

45 Summonte, op. cit. (note 7), vol. i, p. 206; D. Giampaola, ‘Da “l’immagine de la donna bellissima . . .” al Nilo’, in Clemente, De Caro and Spinosa, op. cit. (note 10), pp. 17–22; Middione, op. cit. (note 10), pp. 26–7.

46 T. De Rosa, Ragguagli storici della origine di Napoli (Naples, 1702), p. 32; E. Nappi, ‘I Viceré e l’arte a Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, 3rd ser. 21 (1983), pp. 41–57 at p. 51; E. Catello, ‘Il corpo di Napoli’, Napoli Nobilissima, 3rd ser. 30 (1992), pp. 31–2; Middione, op. cit. (note 10), pp. 28–9, 33–4.

47 De la Ville sur-Yllon, op. cit. (note 11); S. Adamo Muscettola, ‘Napoli e l’immaginario antico tra ’600 e ’800’, Prospettiva 39 (1984), pp. 2–10.

48 Summonte, op. cit. (note 7), vol. i, p. 205; vol. iv, p. 363.

49 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 461.

50 S. Loffredo, Storia della città di Barletta con corredo di docu-menti, vol. i (Trani, 1893), p. 72.

51 L. Monti Sabia, Pontano e la storia. Dal De bello Neapolitano all’Actius (Rome, 1995), p. 137.

52 Loffredo, op. cit. (note 50), vol. i, p. 435.

53 G. P. Grimaldi, Vita di S. Ruggiero vescovo et confessore (Naples, 1607), p. 129. See also T. Marulli, Discorso storico critico sopra il Colosso della Città di Barletta (Naples, 1816); H. W. Schulz, Denkmaeler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien (Dresden, 1860), vol. i, pp. 143–9; P. Testini, ‘La statua di bronzo o “Colosso” di Barletta’, Vetera Christianorum 10 (1973), pp. 127–52.

54 Mommsen, op. cit. (note 20), p. 174; E. Ziebarth, ‘De anti-quissimis inscriptionum syllogis’, Ephemeris Epigraphica 9/2 (1905), pp. 187–332 at p. 311.

55 De Falco, op. cit. (note 44), fol. f3; P. De Stefano, Descrittione dei luoghi sacri della città di Napoli (Naples, 1560), p. 188; M. Freccia, De subfeudis (Venice, 1579), p. 464.

56 M. G. Ruggi D’Aragona and S. Cascella, Memorie suessane di Matidia (Oxford, 2012).

57 The first inscripTions reads: ‘imp. caesari / carolo v avg. / svleymano / Tvrcorvm rege / pannonia pvlso / svessani’. The second inscription reads: ‘imp. caesari / carol. v avgvsT. /



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Fulv i o l en zo

philippi filio / TvneTo expvgnaTo / haciTer facienTi / svessani’.

58 Di Marco, op. cit. (note 17), p. 93.

59 L. Sacco, L’antichissima Sessa Pometia (Naples, 1640), p. 78; Schulz, op. cit. (note 53), vol. ii, p. 149.

60 N. Kamp, ‘Capece Corrado’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 18 (Rome, 1975), pp. 411–15; N. Kamp, ‘Capece Giacomo’, in ibid., pp. 419–29; N. Kamp, ‘Capece Marino’, in ibid., pp. 423–5; Di Marco, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 35–6.

61 S. Agusta‐Boularot, ‘Les références épigraphiques aux Grammatici et Γραμματικοì de l’Empire romain (ier s. av. J.‐C., ive s. ap. J.‐C.)’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité 106/2 (1994), pp. 653‐746.

62 F. Senatore, ‘Le scritture delle universitates meridionali. Produzione e conservazione’, in I. Lazzarini (ed.), Scritture e potere. Pratiche documentarie e forme di governo nell’Italia tar-domedievale (secoli xiv-xv), ‘Reti medievali. Rivista’ ix (2008), www.retimedievali.it, pp. 1–34.

63 cil x 3961, 3978, 4150, 4174, 4249, 4344, 4411; ig 885. See L. Forti, ‘Stele Capuane’, Memorie della Regia Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere ed arti 6 (1942), pp. 44–76, 300–330; M. Eckert, Capuanische Grabsteine (Oxford, 1988).

64 Mommsen, op. cit. (note 20), p. 374, n. 1; L. Chioffi, Museo Provinciale Campano di Capua: la raccolta epigrafica (Capua, 2005), p. 112, no. 115.

65 Archivio Comunale di Capua (hereafter acc), 24, Cancelleria 27, fol. 502r.

66 G. Clarke, ‘The Palazzo Orsini in Nola: a Renaissance relation-ship with antiquity’, Apollo 144 (1996), pp. 44–50; R. Bizzocchi, Geneaologie incredibili. Scritti di storia nell’Europa moderna

(Bologna, 2009); K. Christian, Empire without End. Antiquities Collections in Renaissance Rome, c. 1350–1527 (New Haven and London, 2010).

67 acc, 25, Cancelleria 28, fols. 1r-1v, 13v-14v.

68 acc, 25, Cancelleria 28, fols. 1r-1v, 13v-14v.

69 G. D’Isanto, Capua romana. Ricerche di prosopografia e sto-ria locale (Rome, 1993), pp. 164–5; L. Miletti, ‘Sulla fortuna di Livio nel Cinquecento. Le domus dei nobili capuani nella veduta di Capua vetus di Cesare Costa’, Bollettino di Studi Latini, forthcoming.

70 Mommsen, op. cit. (note 20), p. 390, entry of cil x 3890.

71 G. Lumbroso, ‘Notizie sulla vita di Cassiano dal Pozzo’, Miscellanea di storia italiana 15 (1874), pp. 131–388 at pp. 385–6).

72 Ibid.

73 Chioffi, op. cit. (note 64), p. 44, no. 5.

74 G. P. Pasquale, Memoria d’un fatto illustre di Capua antica ded-icata alla medesima Illustrissima, e Fedelissima Città (Naples, 1667). The new inscripTion, today in the Museo Campano of Capua, reads: ‘capvae TeaTri / rvinis modo ervTvs / lapis / veTvs praeclari facTi / memoria / hic s. c. rep. ad mdclxv’.

75 A. S. Mazzocchi, In Mutilum Campani Amphitheatri Titulum (Naples, 1727).

76 L. Rossini, Viaggio Pittoresco da Roma a Napoli (Rome, 1839), pl. 63.

77 T. Mommsen, Inscriptiones Regni Neapolitani Latinae (Leipzig, 1852), pp. 184–202.

78 Mommsen, op. cit. (note 20), pp. 365–442.



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