Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre

Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre

The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps

Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre

The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps

Under the Patronage of the City of Lugano

In collaboration with the Custody of the Holy Land

Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre

The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps

Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps Lugano, Canesso Gallery, 11 April – 1 June 2014

On cover Francesco De Mura, The Raising of the Cross, detail (cat. no. 4) Printed in April 2014 Š Galleria Canesso Sagl ISBN: 978-88-909787-1-5 Proceeds from the sale of this volume will go to the Custody of the Holy Land for the future conservation of The Angel Appearing to Zacharias by Mattia Preti (fig. 1 on p. 58)

Promoter Maurizio Canesso Scholarly supervision of the exhibition Manuela Kahn-Rossi Exhibition and catalogue under direction of Manuela Kahn-Rossi and Chiara Naldi Catalogue supervisor Manuela Kahn-Rossi Catalogue layout Manuela Kahn-Rossi and Chiara Naldi Coordination Chiara Naldi Copy editor Emanuela Di Lallo Secretarial assistance Susanne Michelutti Regli and Lorenza Senni Translation Frank Dabell and Lucia Prosino Graphic project, photolithography, printing and production Grafiche dell’Artiere, Italy Conservation of exhibited works and assistance during design Serge Tiers, conservation workshop, Paris Exhibition design at the Canesso Gallery and the Patio del Municipio, Lugano Pier Luigi Pizzi Production of exhibition design Giacomo Andrea Doria, OTT ART srl Photographic and video documentation Marie-Armelle Beaulieu, Giovanni Giardina Press agents Vilma Sarchi-Lemoine, MyStudio 75 in collaboration with Simona Salvini Press Office of the Department of the Cultural Activities of the City of Lugano: Anna Poletti and of the Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Lugano: Benedetta Giorgi Pompilio Security Protectas S.A. Insurance Artspec Shipping Transclal Fine Arts Ltd, Israel; Art Transit International, Paris; Bolliger & Tanzi, Lugano With the support of: for shipment of works into Switzerland: for granting a window space in Via Nassa, on the corner of Piazza Riforma:

With the benevolent assistance of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

Honorary Committee Marco Borradori, Mayor of the City of Lugano H. E. the Most Rev. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture H. Most Rev. Paternity Fra Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, Custodian of the Holy Land H. Beatitude Mons. Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem H. E. the Most Rev. Mons. Diego Causero, Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland Giovanna Masoni Brenni, Deputy Mayor of the City of Lugano and Head of Culture and Education Raoul Ghisletta, President of the Municipal Council of the City of Lugano H. E. the Most Rev. Mons. Valerio Lazzeri, Bishop of Lugano Rev. Fr. Gottfried Egger, OFM, Commissioner for the Holy Land in Switzerland Don Giorgio Paximadi, Parish Priest of the Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, Lugano Giovanni Puglisi, President of the Italian National Committee for UNESCO Rev. Fr. Stéphane Milovitch, OFM, Discrete of the Holy Land, Guardian of the Convent of Saint Saviour, Supervisor for Cultural Affairs Very Rev. Fr. Guy Tardivy, OP, Prior of the Convent of Saint-Étienne, Jerusalem Very Rev. Fr. Jean-Michel de Tarragon, OP, École biblique et archéologique française, Jerusalem Sebastiano Brenni, President of the Delegation of the Order of Malta, Swiss Giorgio Moroni Stampa, Deputy Governor-General of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem Marco Franciolli, Director of the Museo Cantonale d’Arte and of the Museo d’Arte, Lugano Béatrix Saule, Directeur général du Château de Versailles Pierre Rosenberg, de l’Académie française, Honorary President-Director of the Musée du Louvre Carlo Ossola, Director of the Institute of Italian Studies, Università della Svizzera Italiana James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Shlomit Steinberg, Hans Dichand Curator of European Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Antonio Paolucci, Director of the Vatican Museums Giuseppe Chiesi, formerly Head of Cultural Affairs for the Canton Ticino Mario Botta, architect Michele Fazioli, journalist Franco Felder, lawyer Guya Modespacher Moscatelli Simonetta Perucchi Borsa, lawyer Adrian Weiss, M.D., President of the Switzerland-Israel Association, Ticino

Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem for the kind loan of works. The organizers are grateful to the Custodian, Most Rev. Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM and to the Discrete, Guardian of the Convent of Saint Saviour and supervisor for Cultural Affairs, Father Stéphane Milovitch, OFM, for their invaluable willingness and collaboration.

For having supported the event, and for his contribution, thanks go to Marco Franciolli, Director of the Museo Cantonale d’Arte and the Museo d’Arte in Lugano.

For other institutions lending their precious support to the promoter of the exhibition, thanks are due to Béatrix Saule, Directeur général du Château de Versailles.

The contents of this project have benefited from the concurrence of Pierre Rosenberg de l’Académie française, Hon. President-Director of the Musée du Louvre, whom we would like to thank for his encouragement and appreciation.

The promoter is grateful for the great efforts of Manuela Kahn-Rossi in her role as scholarly director of this initiative, and of Chiara Naldi, coordinator and co-curator of the event.

The scholar Jacques Charles-Gaffiot has constantly shown willingness in guaranteeing his learned contributions, and the organizers of the exhibition are grateful to him.

A truly special role in this exhibition has been played by those working on recovering, restoring and re-locating works of art in the Holy Land. For his constant availability, professionalism, and spirit of involvement, warm thanks go to the conservator Serge Tiers. We are also grateful to the various colleagues in his conservation workshop, especially: Véronique Albaret, Raphaelle Bos, Hélène Dupérier, Floriano Cron, Agatha Graczyk, Virginie Khalfa.

We also thank: Christophe Hardouin, conservation coordinator Olivier Morel, metal conservator.

Special gratitude goes to Marie-Armelle Beaulieu, who has shown total willingness to carry out photographic and video documentation needed for developing various parts of the exhibition, and to assist some of the authors in researching documentary material.

For the production of video documentation we are grateful to Giovanni Giardina.

We are grateful for the generosity of Guillaume Benoit, photographer.

For the support of the Department of Cultural Activities in Lugano we thank its Director, Lorenzo Sganzini.

The Communications Agency of the City of Lugano is thanked for its collaboration.

For the help given by the Office of Cultural Affairs of the Cantone Ticino we thank Simonetta Biaggio-Simona.

The promoter wishes to express esteem and gratitude to his scholarly friends Jonathan Bober, curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and Professor Luigi Zanzi, for having shared and conveyed their enthusiasm on subjects and issues central to the conception of the project, namely the frescoed lunettes in Santa Maria degli Angioli and the Sacri Monti. Luigi Zanzi should also be thanked for his generous support in legal and contractual assistance for the loan of the works.

Thanks are given for the active assistance of GMM. Numerous individuals have made valuable contributions, in various ways, to the success of this exhibition.

Our warm thanks go to:

Nadim Asfour Valentina and Gilles Benedick Francesca Bernasconi Ilaria Bignasci Ulrich Birkmaier Elio Bollag Arthur Bolliger Claire Bonotte

Patrizia Gamberini Davide Garuti Ilaria Giaramita Benedetta Giorgi Pompilio Mauro Gottardo Very Rev. Fr. Mauro Jöhri, OFMCap François Junot Diana Kattan

Diana Segantini Alessandro Soldini Cristina Sonderegger Fabio Speranza Piera Tabaglio Antoine Tarantino Yohannes Teklemariam Bache Luigi Trolese

Irène Boschetti Eleonora Bourgoin Rev. Fr. Jean-Marie Burnod, OFM Alfonso Bussolin Lara Calderari Sergio Calvi Diletta Cassoli Elio Catello Maguy Charritat Heric Comastri Véronique Damian Franco De Martiis Rev. Fr. Marwan Di’des, OFM Federica Dubbini Lucio Fiorile Valentina Foni Franciscan Media Center Gianni Gamberini

Fernando Lepori Loredana Lorizzo Marco Maghetti Silvia Marconcini H. E. Ludovico Ortona H. E. Bernardino Osio Mimma Pasculli Ferrara Rev. Fr. Roberto Pasotti, OFMCap Anna Poletti Lucia Prosino Andrea Raffone Matteo Ricca Gerardo Rigozzi Riccardo Rinaldo Silvia Roman Ayelet Rubin Shibli Abou Saada Simona Salvini

Olimpia Valdivieso Carlo Vannini H. E. Mons. Luigi Ventura Denis Verdier-Magneau Stefano Vezzani Brigitte de Viguerie Fr. Artemio Vitores, OFM Paolo Zanzi Simone Zavatarelli

Foreword

Maurizio Canesso My interest, soon transformed into active involvement, in the phenomenal Western artistic legacy in the Custody of the Holy Land, goes back to a meeting that took place in Paris in the early Autumn of 2012. On that occasion I met the paintings conservator Serge Tiers and the scholar Jacques Charles-Gaffiot, who had both just been involved in starting the restoration of some important paintings from Jerusalem, prior to an exhibition on the treasures of the Holy Sepulchre planned for April to July of the following year at the Maison de Chateaubriand. This was when they urged me to become involved, and I was told that my direct contribution would not only enable the vital and indispensable conservation and safeguarding of that legacy but also allow for a reconsideration of the whole group of works, and (as far as might be possible) a plan for their future relocation once they were back in the Holy Land.

To the great satisfaction of Antoine Tarantino, a member of the organizing committee of the 2013 exhibition and one of the compilers of an inventory of works of art under the Custody’s wing, I had no hesitation in showing my enthusiasm; in fact I immediately sensed the appeal of something unique of its kind, and the chance to get fully involved in the rediscovery, study and re-assessment of paintings that are symbols of European sacred art. These had come into being in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and were of incalculable historical, artistic and spiritual value because they had been placed in the central, ultimate location of Christianity; and they were works that might be lost to our awareness today if they had not been selected for the exhibition in France.

Research has cast light on when these paintings were made – the period that saw the long-established links between the Kingdom of Naples and Jerusalem become even closer, through the donation of works of art destined to enrich the “treasury” of the Holy City. This luminous creative moment was defined by the presence of Neapolitan Baroque painters such as the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, Paolo De Matteis and Francesco Solimena, whose great school included Francesco De Mura and his workshop.

Looking at these pictures I was at once aware they were part of the grand figurative tradition of Baroque art, expressed through Christian subject matter. Over the years, through continuous, direct access to original works, my professional experience has led me ever closer to this kind of art. It has been an intense experience, and through it all I have trained my eye, drawn to the great Italian masterpieces of the seventeenth century, and to the quality of their light, itself derived from Caravaggio, who sought to dramatize the great mystery itself.

Parallel to this, thanks to the recent and almost contemporaneous establishment of my new gallery in the Ticino, the theme and original location of this group of paintings could not help but lead me to an investigation of how Jerusalem was depicted. This was further stimulated by two frescoed lunettes in Santa Maria degli Angioli in Lugano, with learned images of the Holy City and the Mount of Olives painted within the tramezzo of the church in about 1538–40, below the magnificent, unforgettable frescoes by Bernardino Luini. The idea for a new exhibition, a different one, focusing on treasures from the Holy Sepulchre and connected to the territory of the Canton Ticino, thus seemed more and more appropriate.

With the end of the exhibition at the Maison de Chateaubriand, these works were given the benefit of thorough and comprehensive conservation, previously applied only partially for reasons of time. The series of canvases painted in the workshop of De Mura now began to appear as a coherent group. Moreover, while it had already been agreed that this was a chance to return to these paintings the frames in which they had been shipped to the Levant in the eighteenth century, I felt it was just as necessary to proceed with the conservation of a final element that belonged to this cycle of subjects (and not included in the Paris exhibition), the Elevation of the Cross, a canvas hanging over the staircase of Saint Helen in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. The truth is that it was the opportunity of taking responsibility for the complete restoration of the cycle that gave me the idea of planning an exhibition; and I had in the meantime sought to involve the Custodian of the Holy Land, the Most Reverend Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who immediately demonstrated his sensitivity to my request, sharing my enthusiasm for the project and warmly encouraging me to bring it to completion. To him, and to Father Stéphane Milovitch, I am deeply grateful.

The goal of the exhibition presented here is to give the right attention to the cultural and artistic dialogue between two different traditions, that is, the close ties between Jerusalem, and how it was remembered in the heart of Europe (in the Sacri Monti, in the lunettes in Santa Maria degli Angioli, and in local private collections), and the presence in the Holy Land of the great iconographic tradition that evolved in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in both Italy and the continent.

Captivated by the project, I made several trips to Jerusalem last summer, as I felt this called for study and assessment of the great works in question, so that we could finally give a green light to the exhibition; and here I had the essential assistance of my colleague Chiara Naldi of the Canesso Gallery in Lugano.

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It was an exhilarating journey, during which I was able to understand the need to respect the Statu quo established in the late nineteenth century between one facet of the Christian faith and another as regards the Holy Sepulchre and the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and to have a proper awareness of bilateral questions arising from current relations between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

I have always understood my activity as art dealer as founded on a passion for research, its aim being both the stimulation of the most cultivated forms of collecting and the appreciation of the history and art we have all inherited. I therefore consider my Gallery as a place of study, but also a meeting-place for members of the public – for connoisseurs and all those who wish to share in aesthetic experience.

This purpose has led me to create this exhibition, here in Lugano, with the assistance and counsel of scholars such as Carlo Bertelli, Nicola Spinosa, Manuela Kahn-Rossi (in charge of the exhibition itself ), Jacques Charles-Gaffiot and Luigi Zanzi, and with the passion and rigour of the conservator Serge Tiers. Each of these esteemed colleagues joined me as “pilgrims” to Jerusalem last autumn, together with Marco Franciolli, as he sought to prepare a parallel and complementary exhibition on Jerusalem. We also benefited from the valuable collaboration of Jonathan Bober, Angela Catello and Vera Segre. The energy of a shared, team-like project ensured the support of the City of Lugano, and in particular that of its Mayor Marco Borradori and Deputy Mayor Giovanna Masoni Brenni, to whom I wish to express my gratitude for their trust and support.

It has been a true honour for me to be allowed not only to take part in situ, even at the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, but to be actively involved in the relocation of some of the rediscovered and restored works that belonged to the disparate locations of the Franciscan Custody such as the church of Saint Catherine ad Nativitatem, in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, and the projected museum at Ain Karem, near the church of Saint John the Baptist, in Israel. These sites, just a few miles from one another, are customarily visited within one day, even though they are divided by a frontier.

Long ago the Franciscan movement lent its support to the marvellous artistic inventions of the Sacri Monti, especially at Varallo, so as to intensify the sentiments rooted in these territories of Western Europe, and direct them towards the land of Jesus of Nazareth.

On the present occasion, hand in hand with other important participants, the Order of Saint Francis is once again acting as interpreter of that invisible but powerful thread of inspiration that has gradually woven itself into Pre-Alpine lands: not frontier lands but the crossroads of multiple cultural traditions.

Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre

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I am delighted to be able to express my sincere and utmost gratitude, speaking for myself and all the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land, for what you have achieved, dear Maurizio, in restoring, displaying and promoting the understanding of the Custody’s paintings, and supporting its cultural legacy.

I would also like to extend our acknowledgements to the Municipality of the City of Lugano and the Museo Cantonale d’Arte of your city, which have generously contributed to the exhibition now hosted at the Canesso Gallery.

I therefore wish this extraordinary display of art and spirituality the international success it deserves.

Fra Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM Custodian of the Holy Land

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A passion for art and research, and a willingness to share his wealth of knowledge and his ideas with scholars and art lovers, are the defining features of Maurizio Canesso, a true, committed professional who has devoted himself to the advancement of great art before an extensive and international public.

The exhibition Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps adds new cultural lustre to Lugano, the only Western European venue for the display of historic treasures housed for centuries by the Franciscan Order. I am particularly proud to welcome to our city these exceptionally valuable works of art from the Franciscan Custody in Jerusalem, a globally important centre of culture.

Thanks to the Canesso Gallery and the experts involved in the scholarly research and conservation of the treasures from Jerusalem, Lugano can now boast the temporary presence of six works of Neapolitan Baroque art – five paintings and one imposing silver relief.

The works represent the close relationship between the great European courts, the Holy Land and Jerusalem, and reveal the extraordinary efforts of the Franciscan Order with regard to sacred art from the Holy Land. In Lugano, the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, once the residence of the Franciscan friars, offers important evidence of how the city of Jerusalem was seen here.

The sacred images and artifacts presented by the Canesso Gallery also form part of a significant itinerary: a parallel event in the Museo Cantonale d’Arte will host a photography exhibition about the Holy Land, and the Patio of the Palazzo Civico will display large-scale photos and videos of the magnificent landscapes of Jerusalem and Lugano and its Pre-Alpine setting, comparing and contrasting the architectural qualities of the two cities.

This exhibition confirms Lugano’s role as a pioneering cultural platform and a meeting-place for artists and scholars. Thanks to this bold enterprise, and with the collaboration of public and private bodies, our city can affirm its role as an important centre for art.

Marco Borradori Mayor of Lugano

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For nearly seven centuries, faithful to the example set by their founder, the Franciscans have been in the Holy Land. Our presence thus follows the evangelical precept given by Christ himself to his Apostles after the Resurrection: “Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations!” (Matthew 28:19).

The preaching of the Gospel has, over the centuries, taken different forms in this outpost of Christianity: divine worship, accommodation of pilgrims who have come to venerate the Holy Sites, or assistance to the local Christian, Jewish or Muslim population in the domains of healthcare, teaching, schooling, professional training, and so on. More specifically, since coming here, the Friars have sought to announce the Gospel through word and deed, using the most varied and appropriate educational methods.

In fact, if “Man shall not live by bread alone”, and if people aspire to higher truths in their daily lives, their artistic inspiration can allow these truths to be expressed in the most intelligible way.

It is too often forgotten that Christian iconography rests on a canon established during the earliest years of Christianity, fashioned around a learnedly-constructed grammar and vocabulary, with images, numbers and symbols organized so as to create the most coherent and universally appealing discourse. This slowly-evolving elaboration also addressed aesthetic issues, with artists great and small invited to take part in the building of this immense edifice.

We may thus be able to understand that images (both two- and three-dimensional) were not introduced into Christian sanctuaries with the sole intention of adorning it but – far more – to use a more effective way than the spoken or written word to stimulate faith among believers. Indeed, one look is all that’s needed for a painted or sculpted image to convey its message immediately and entirely to the beholder, whereas speech and writing require a much longer passage of time for it to be understood – and, in the end, only uncertainly so.

The gifts offered to the Holy Sepulchre and other Holy Sites by European sovereigns, or by simple pilgrims, as is the case with the devout contributions of native Christian populations, reflect this profound phenomenon.

Through its upkeep of this exceptional artistic legacy to the present day, the Custody of the Holy Land thus not only accomplishes a commendable preservation of past memory but also ensures the continuity and passing on of this timeless language – a more efficient means of communication than any culture or local identity.

The restoration of the two series of canvases painted by Francesco De Mura, that of The Resurrection by Paolo De Matteis that adorns the entrance of the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre (to which it will be returned) or that of the Adoration of the Shepherds painted by the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, is doubly significant: not only does it provide an exceptional opportunity to appreciate these works of art, their youth and context regained (to be housed from now on in the church of Saint Catherine ad Nativitatem in Bethlehem), but it also offers the entire Church, and all “people of good will”, renewed occasion to hear the Gospel while contemplating the incarnation and life of the Son of God. Fra Stéphane Milovitch, OFM Discrete of the Holy Land Supervisor for Cultural Affairs

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SContents ommario Introduction Manuela Kahn-Rossi

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Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps A Closer Jerusalem Carlo Bertelli

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The Franciscans in Jerusalem Jacques Charles-Gaffiot

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Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre Neapolitan Paintings in the Holy Land Nicola Spinosa

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Precious Ornaments in Naples and Jerusalem, and a Note on the De Blasio Family of Silversmiths Angela Catello

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Catalogue of the Exhibited Works • Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Shepherds Nicola Spinosa

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• Paolo De Matteis, The Resurrection Nicola Spinosa

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• Francesco De Mura, $ISJTU JO UIF (BSEFO PG (FUITFNBOF t 5IF 3BJTJOH PG UIF $SPTT t 5IF -BNFOUBUJPO Chiara Naldi

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• De Blasio Workshop (attributed), The Resurrection Angela Catello

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The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps Jerusalem in the Pre-Alpine Territory Luigi Zanzi

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New Light on the Views of Jerusalem in Santa Maria degli Angioli, Lugano Vera Segre

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Appendix A Very Modest Neapolitan Franciscan: Padre Juan Antonio Yepes Jacques Charles-Gaffiot

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Map of the Holy Sepulchre

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Exhibition Itinerary

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List of Illustrations

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Scholars

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fig. 1

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The Franciscans supporting the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, 1724–44, from Elzéar Horn, *DIPOPHSBQIJBF -PDPSVN et Monumentorum Veterum Terrae Sanctae

Introduction Manuela Kahn-Rossi The dual title Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre and The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps reflects the concepts underlying the exhibition’s complex subject matter.

Alongside the spiritual and cultural stream passing through the hills of the Holy City, spreading westwards to the Mediterranean and reaching far beyond its shores to the gentle Pre-Alpine slopes, we find a parallel, inseparable flow of artworks, crafted in the West centuries ago and heading in the opposite direction, towards the Near East and specifically to the Holy Land and its heart, Jerusalem.

Works of art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, created by major artists of the Neapolitan Baroque and part of a larger, varied group of artefacts donated to the Holy Sepulchre by European monarchs or simple devout individuals, represent extraordinary facets of a whole body of work (mostly pictorial in this specific case, with the exception of one silver relief ) originally much larger and dispersed or destroyed over time, and still not entirely rediscovered, whose arrival in the Holy Land is recorded in the early eighteenth century. This historic ensemble, including the six key items in the exhibition, is part of the extensive artistic legacy cared for by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, a legally-constituted entity established by Clement VI in a Papal Bull of 1342;1 and the privileged position of the Custody as beneficiary of these extraordinary donations, of which it is still the consignee, derives from this custodial role, both for the Holy Sepulchre and other sites in the Holy Land (fig. 1).2 The five canvases and the grand silver relief presented in Lugano justify the fig. 2 Sigillum Guardiani Sacri Conventus primary concept of the exhibition’s title, Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. These Montis Sion, 1671. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land are exemplary works, reflecting the West’s ardent feelings about the Holy Land and its donations to the Levant, with each act of generosity and devotion also symbolizing a clear political and strategic concern of the monarchs involved. They knew what was at stake, in particular the prestige of every Catholic nation, and bore in mind the rivalries between Catholics and other Christian Churches for the possession of the Holy Sites, especially from the seventeenth century onwards.3 It was in this context, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and primarily from the 1720s onwards, that the custom of donating works of art by contemporary artists, or by those of the previous century, to the Custody of the Holy Land began in Naples, where Charles III became king in 1734.4 The subjects of such works, destined for the city of religious mystery that 1. The Order of Friars Minor, part of the so-called Mendicant Orders (including that of the Dominican Preaching Friars), was founded by Saint Francis in 1209 and immediately started its mission of evangelical ministry. In 1217 the Chapter-General divided the order into Provinces, and thus the Province of the Holy Land (also called the Provincia d’Oltre Mare) was born, extending to all the regions of the south-east Mediterranean, from Egypt to Greece. In 1263, the same Province, which included the homeland of Jesus and the sites where the Mystery of Redemption took place, was restructured into smaller entities named Custodies; hence the Custody of the Holy Land. At the end of the thirteenth century, when the city of Jerusalem fell into Muslim hands, the Franciscans found refuge in Cyprus, nonetheless remaining, with considerable effort, at the service of the Holy Sepulchre between 1322 and 1327. They owed their definitive return to the Holy Land to the Neapolitan monarchs Robert of Anjou and Sancha of Majorca, who in 1333 acquired the Holy Cenacle and the right to celebrate mass at the Sepulchre. Robert of Anjou, whose coat of arms proudly includes the Kingdom of Jerusalem (dating back, through the First Crusade, to Godfrey of Bouillon, “Defender of the Holy Sepulchre and Governor of Jerusalem”), was himself a Franciscan tertiary. Having established that the Friars Minor were granted such rights in the name of Christianity, and on its behalf (confirmed in 1342 by Pope Clement VI), a new entity was created. The Friars, serving the Holy Land, were and still are under the jurisdiction of the Father Custodian, “Guardian of Mount Zion in Jerusalem” (fig. 2). See Fra Pierbattista Pizzaballa, -B QSFTFO[B 'SBODFTDBOB JO 5FSSB 4BOUB, Jerusalem, 2008, and www.custodia.org . For a virtual pilgrimage, see the DVD Terra Sancta. Custodies of the Origins of Salvation. In this catalogue, see the introductory text by Father Stéphane Milovitch and the essay by Jacques Charles-Gaffiot.

2. The Custody now carries out its providential mission in favour of fifty Holy Sites in Galilee, Judaea, Syria and Jordan. The works shown refer to some of them: the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (paintings of The Resurrection and The Raising of the Cross, and the relief of The Resurrection) and the Church of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist in Ain Karem (Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and The -BNFOUBUJPO; The Angel Appearing to Zacharias, not on display but under restoration).

The Franciscans also have in their care the parishes of the Holy Sites with a Latin rite, such as the Church of Saint Catherine ad Nativitatem in Bethlehem, where the Annunciation to the Shepherds is to be re-housed.

3. The relationship between the Custody of the Holy Land and the Catholic West was also an economic one because of the presence of the Franciscans.

Enormous support came from the Kingdom of Naples as early as the seventeenth century, expressed through the creation of the Commission in Naples, active from 1621; in 1636 a separate one was established for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

4. For donations of paintings and goldsmith’s work, see the essays in this catalogue by Nicola Spinosa and Angela Catello, respectively. Works coming from the Kingdom of Naples are already mentioned at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the city was governed by a Spanish Viceroy. Further gifts came with Austrian rule (1707–34) and increased under Charles of Bourbon (sovereign of Naples, King of Sicily and, from 1759, King of Spain with the name of Charles III).

His son Ferdinand IV succeeded him and reigned over Naples from 1759 to 1806.

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fig. 3

The Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, seen from the northwest, 1898–1914

fig. 4

Ain Karim [Karem], 1934–39

witnessed the decisive events of Salvation, of the Death and Resurrection of Christ (and, in Saint Luke’s view, in the Acts of the Apostles, also of Pentecost), are thus entirely pertinent to sacred art.5 More specifically, scenes such as the Adoration of the Shepherds (cat. no. 1), Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (cat. no. 3), The Raising of the Cross (cat. no. 4), DzF -BNFOUBUJPO (cat. no. 5), and the two Resurrections (cat. nos. 2 and 6) reflect an iconographical pertinence appropriate to Franciscan spirituality, which is Christocentric, but in which devotion to Mary also takes on a prominent role.

It is precisely in these subjects, and their representation in the Baroque style, that we can find the connection with the other thematic component of the exhibition. This centres around the dynamic that moves from East to West – a mirror-image of the first – with Jerusalem ideally “transferred” and “transplanted” elsewhere, starting in the last decades of the fifteenth century.

Its taking root in other locations occurs in geographical areas with landscapes similar to those of the Holy Land, with their connotation of ascent (figs. 3 and 4), and materializes either through a topomimetic depiction of the city and its Sacred Hills, or the actual construction of a Nova Jerusalem. In times of turbulent historical and political periods, these could offer the option of safer pilgrimages, sustained by indulgences. The other title, The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps, is centred around this subject, epitomized by two frescoes from the sixteenth century painted in the arch of the tramezzo in the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli in Lugano (discussed thoroughly in this catalogue and viewable in situ through the exhibition itinerary). Also addressed (in this case only in the catalogue and in some of the exhibition’s side events) is the subject of the Sacri Monti, the devotional complexes that began to spread in the late fifteenth century in Lombardy and Piedmont – and thus in what was then “Swiss Lombardy”, the present-day Ticino; these later developed in the Borromeo-inspired cultural climate of the Counter-Reformation.6 The representation of sacred scenes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which developed according to changes and shifts in the iconographical repertoire that succeeded each other since the thirteenth century, can be considered here with a dual assessment. On the one hand, the paintings of the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, Paolo De Matteis and Francesco De Mura hark back to the fundamental theme of the impact of Franciscan thought, which paved the way for astonishingly innovative sacred images in the thirteenth century. These are exemplified in the pictorial poetics and the changes wrought by Giotto, especially as regards subject matter, in the Greccio Nativity frescoed in Assisi.7 We can follow a thread that begins with that art and its fundamental and revolutionary features, the transformation of tragedy into drama and the uniting of divine and human, and then mentally cross the subsequent evolutions by way of the great masters of the fifteenth century (without forgetting Beato Angelico, who believed that, following the words of Saint Antoninus, the “doorway of the eyes” was the “doorway of Jerusalem”), through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (looking first and foremost at Caravaggio) to directly reach – in this exhibition – the Baroque sacred images of Neapolitan artists, who were also the authors of the gifts that were later dispatched to the Holy Land.8 On the other hand, the exhibition, touching upon diverse but intrinsically related themes, especially focuses on the Order of the Friars Minor, emblematic of a dual movement – from West to East and, vice versa, from Jerusalem towards Western Europe – thanks to its acting as a fruitful contact point ever since the Poverello from Assisi landed in the ancient port city of Acre during the Fifth Crusade and made pilgrimages through Egypt, Syria and Palestine. Saint Francis sojourned in the Province of the Holy 5. Works donated to the Holy Land were destined for the Holy Sites, and objects were made for liturgical use. This is still valid today: “Les franciscains entretiennent avec ce patrimoine et, dans la mesure du possible, continuent de faire vivre ces objets in situ lors des fêtes solennelles”, in the words of Father Stéphane Milovitch, “Saint-Sépulcre: la singularité au service de l’universalisme?”, in Trésors du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited

by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013, Cinisello Balsamo, 2013, pp. 106–07. As far as the wide-ranging considerations on the foundations of sacred art are concerned, this connection remains fundamental. “Religious art becomes sacred when it is consciously aimed at the sacred – not to be understood as an empty or all-embracing category, but rather as sacred worship, sacred ritual, sacred place”: R. Papa, “Riflessioni sui fondamenti dell’arte sacra”, in Euntes Docete, Rome, 1999, III, p. 8. Regarding the close scrutiny of the category of “sacred art” in the context of the history of aesthetics and of art, see L. Grassi and M. Pepe, Dizionario dei termini artistici, Turin, 1994, pp. 78–79.

6. The event starts with the exhibition at the Canesso Gallery, and has various other elements. Its itinerary winds through the city centre and develops its theme in various stages. From Piazza Luini, with the two lunettes representing Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, frescoed in the church of the Madonna degli Angioli, one moves on to Piazza Riforma, where the core of the event is to be found: the exhibition Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps.

A short distance away is the Patio of the Palazzo Municipale, where a photographic display (with multimedia facilities) shows the Holy City as it is today. From here, the visitor can proceed to the Museo Cantonale d’Arte, where an extensive exhibition (conceived autonomously by this institution) of photographs from the collection of the École Biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem presents Jerusalem in rare images from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A series of lectures helps to develop various subjects, such as the Sacri Monti.

7. “Giotto’s system possesses an ethical structure which derives from the other source of religious life in the Duecento, Saint Francis”: G. C. Argan, Storia dell’Arte italiana, Il Trecento e il Quattrocento, Florence, 1968, vol. 2, p. 3.

8. For Jerusalem and its role in Western culture, see the essay by Carlo Bertelli in this catalogue. Regarding Caravaggio and sacred themes, Mina Gregori comments: “In the Borromean cultural climate, which imposed a rethinking attitude towards sacred subjects and their simplification at a human level, the distinct contribution of Caravaggio is seen in his subjective rendering of these themes. In particular, he exudes a rediscovery of emotions, thus revealing the human and vital participation to the event. The sacred theme is profoundly renovated, although stemming from ideas that had been followed by devotional painters as well. Caravaggio is, however, much more than a devotional painter … He invents, in fact, diverse and existential situations, where the emotional presence is newly revisited each time” (C. Fornasieri, -B 7PDB[JPOF EFM $BSBWBHHJP, interview with Mina Gregori, in www.centroculturaledimilano.it/wp.../05/920101FornasieriLitterae.pdf ).

23

fig. 5

Saint Francis of Assisi Preaches the Gospel in Syria [The Arrival at Acre], in Saint Bonaventure, -FHFOEB .BJPS, 1457

Land between 1219 and 1220 and, in a supreme gesture of humility, met the Sultan of Egypt, the nephew of Saladin the Great, who granted him safe conduct (fig. 5).

The history of millennia-old Jerusalem – a city of three religions,9 each further divided into various confessions, and a disputed site, evolving through the centuries with extraordinary construction and continuous destruction – is often considered through the lens of rupture, drastic change and spectacular come-backs, and therefore tells a story laden with never-ending ups and downs. If one forgets the tormented past and present, and an excessively rigid view, as depicted through Jerusalem’s history, the City of Sanctuary offers the opportunity, for whoever wishes to seize it, to see it in a new light, thus discovering unusual perspectives in a context marked by unexpected vigour. This cultural enterprise is a case in point, conceived by the Canesso Gallery with an open-minded attitude.

It should first be pointed out that the idea of investigating the artistic legacy of the Custody led to initial research a few years ago, which later led to the 2013 exhibition in Versailles and the Maison de Chateaubriand. The result of considerable effort, that show allowed exceptional liturgical ornaments, as well as items crafted in gold and silver, precious stones and rare silks – all gifts from the whole of Europe to the Holy Land – to be brought to light.10 Once the French exhibition was over, Maurizio Canesso decided to carry on independently and with an entrepreneurial approach, with research, recoveries, restorations (only partly carried out on the occasion of the 2013 exhibition) and studies related to this field of interest and offering potential for a separate exhibition, pertinent to the programme promoted by his Gallery in Lugano.11 Aware of the extraordinary meaning of a highly symbolic legacy, perceived as open to probable further discoveries, the stimulus for creating a new significant chapter relating to the legacy of the Holy Sepulchre and other Holy Sites took shape; and 9. The three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

10. Trésors du Saint-Sépulcre, cited in note 5. Regarding the events which led to the 1980 rediscovery, through Alvar González-Palacios, of the objects sent to the Holy Sepulchre by monarchs and devotees, see A. González-Palacios, “Il tesoro segreto di Gerusalemme”, in Il Sole 24 Ore, 14 April 2013. On this latter subject, see the catalogue of the Versailles exhibition and, in this catalogue, Angela Catello’s contribution.

11. During the French exhibition, some paintings donated by the Kingdom of Naples were shown at an intermediate stage of restoration and conservation recovery.

24

this is now bearing fruit after considerable eort was put into a multi-faceted project that has the Italian part of Switzerland as its heart. After all, the title encompasses near and far lands and the conceptual independence of the exhibition in Lugano with respect to the French one is immediately perceived: the starting points are dierent. In France, it was oered by the memory of the French viscount, scholar and diplomat François-RenĂŠ de Chateaubriand who, after having visited “la terre des prodiges et les sources de la plus ĂŠtonnante poĂŠsieâ€?, published his ItinĂŠraires de Paris Ă JĂŠrusalem (1811), where he expressed his wish for the restoration of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre following the fire in 1808. The theme of the Crusades could be grasped in the pictorial depictions of the majestic rooms in Versailles.12 In the Lugano exhibition, the Jerusalem background is provided by a pictorial element, as opposed to a literary one: two rare frescoes showing the City of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, painted back in the sixteenth century in a famous church on the shores of Lake Lugano.13 These two dissimilar contextual backgrounds bring about two dierent readings of the cultural phenomenon that the Latin legacy of the Holy Land represents; it should also be noted that the exhibition in Lugano only presents paintings and silversmith’s art coming from Naples14 and that it gives added weight to the role of the Franciscan Fathers, not only in the Holy Land but also, through the rare frescoes of Santa Maria degli Angioli, in the Pre-Alpine territory starting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.15 All this happened when the “Lombard-Swissâ€? society was strongly permeated by religious values, and where preaching and the concrete actions of the Order of Friars Minor had a strong influence on cities or provincial territories at the foot of the Alpine

fig. 6

Scotti workshop (?), 4DFOFT GSPN UIF -JGF BOE 1BTTJPO PG $ISJTU, 1513–15. Bellinzona, church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

12. This spectacular exhibition was set up in the Rooms of the Crusades, restored for this purpose, in Versailles.

13. See the essay by Vera Segre in this catalogue.

14. Research has shown that, in the pictorial field, only works originating in Naples play a relevant part in the patrimony of the Custody received at the time.

15. The studies reveal the presence of the Franciscans in the Ticino area as a rather precocious and multi-faceted one, although limited to the most important hamlets. Their presence in the parish churches of the Ticino was already well established in the thirteenth century. The Conventuals are mentioned in Locarno and Lugano around 1230. The activity of the Observants developed in the fifteenth century: in Bellinzona, they promoted the convent, church and fresco of the Madonna delle Grazie starting in 1480. They settled in Lugano between 1472 and 1490, when the convent next to the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli was being built, started in 1499 and consecrated in 1515. The Ticino region, between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, went through historical changes linked with the end of the Duchy of Milan of which it was a part, and with the French military attacks, as well as those from Switzerland, to the north. The plague struck several times. See G. Vismara, A. Cavanna and P. Vismara, 5JDJOP NFEJFWBMF 4UPSJB EJ VOB UFSSB -PNCBSEB, Locarno, 1990; P. Ostinelli, *M HPWFSOP EFMMF BOJNF 4USVUUVSF FDDMFTJBTUJDIF OFM #FMMJO[POFTF F OFMMF 7BMMJ BNCSPTJBOF 9*7 97 TFDPMP , Locarno, 1998.

25

fig. 7

26

Bernardino Luini, Scenes from the Passion of Christ, 1529. Lugano, church of Santa Maria degli Angioli

fig. 8

Sanctuary church of the Madonna del Sasso, Orselina

chains. The small town of Bellinzona is a case in point, with the Franciscan building of the convent and church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and the execution, in the early sixteenth century, of the monumental fresco of the 4DFOFT GSPN UIF -JGF BOE 1BTTJPO of Christ, most probably painted by the Scotti workshop, on the tramezzo16 (fig. 6). This setting reflects a pattern that served Franciscan preaching well, widely representing the Mysteries following catechism and “popular� memorization, and becoming a natural iconographic precedent for the Mysteries of the Sacri Monti.17 In this context, Bernardino Luini made use of a format started

by Vincenzo Foppa, merging the twenty-one episodes of the Mysteries into a single scene18 (fig. 7) in the large fresco he painted in 1529 on the tramezzo of Santa Maria degli Angioli, set just above, and chronologically slightly before, our Jerusalem lunettes.

The creation of the monastic complex of Bellinzona saw the possible involvement of the Blessed Bernardino Caimi, the founder of new convents who had visited many sites in the Pre-Alpine regions a few years before, searching for a suitable spot for founding an initial monumental complex.19 The agreement made by Caimi with Varallo Sesia (1481) took place a year after the vision of Fra Bartolomeo from Ivrea, a member of the Minor Conventuals of Locarno – a miraculous event that was to result in the creation of the Sacro Monte in Locarno, whose close relationship with those in Varallo and Varese has been confirmed by extensive research20 (fig. 8).

The contextualization of the Sacri Monti should be related to the spiritual and cultural history of their makers, the Franciscan Friars, whose travels to and from the Holy Land across the centuries enabled an influx of pilgrims, faithful, works of art, and most probably maps of Jerusalem, too.21 16. See L. Calderari, “Bellinzona. Santa Maria delle Grazieâ€?, in Il Rinascimento nelle terre ticinesi, exhibition catalogue, Rancate, Pinacoteca Cantonale Giovanni ZĂźst, 10 October 2010 – 9 January 2011, pp. 54–65.

17. See S. LangÊ and A. Pensa, Il Sacro Monte. Esperienza del reale e spazio virtuale nell’iconografia della Passione a Varallo, Milan, 1991, p. 38.

18. On Franciscan tramezzi, see A. Nova, “I tramezzi in Lombardia tra XV e XVI secolo: scene della Passione e devozione francescana�, in Il Francescanesimo JO -PNCBSEJB 4UPSJB F BSUF, Cinisello Balsamo, 1983, pp. 197–215.

19. His presence in Bellinzona in 1498 should not be dismissed. P. G. Longo, “Bernardino Caimi francescano osservante: tra ‘eremitorio’ e ‘città ’â€?, 2000, in http://www.sacromontedivarallo.it/BeatoBernardinoCaimi.pdf, based on the information in a biographical entry by A. Morisi in the %J[JPOBSJP CJPHSBmDP degli italiani, Rome, 1983, vol. 16, pp. 347–48. Caimi was sent to the Holy Land in January 1478, and a second visit between 1487 and 1490 is not certain.

When he came back he started toying with the idea of creating a complex of buildings which would recall the Holy Sites, something which was to happen in Varallo. Regarding the Sacri Monti, see the essay by Luigi Zanzi in this catalogue, and his Sacri Monti e dintorni, Milan, 1990.

20. “We had always suspected that the Sacro Monte in Locarno was a sort of replica taken from the models of Varallo and Varese and we now have further evidence�

(V. Gilardoni, -PDBSOP F JM TVP DJSDPMP .POVNFOUJ E BSUF F EJ 4UPSJB EFM $BOUPOF 5JDJOP, Basel, 1972, p. 421).

21. An interesting case (Fondo Fossati, Archivio di Stato, Bellinzona) is a book of recipes against the plague from the first half of the sixteenth century written

27

fig. 9

FÊlix Bonfils, Door of the Holy Sepulchre, 1870–90

Following Franciscan preaching, in 1767 the region saw a new Sacro Monte being erected in Brissago, whose origins date back to 1709. The period also witnessed the activity on the Naples–Jerusalem axis of another Franciscan, Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes, Commissioner-General for the Holy Land in Naples at that time, who crossed the Mare Nostrum in 1714 to Jerusalem. The shipment to the Holy Land of prestigious pieces of Neapolitan goldsmith’s art and paintings, such as Francesco De Mura’s cycle of canvases (recorded in 1730), is owed to him.22 With the themes touched upon in this exhibition, the Canesso Gallery explores the basis of figurative sacred art, a genre that often features in its exhibitions, alongside works of a dierent nature, such as still lifes, genre paintings and secular iconography. In the exhibition planning of the Gallery, sacred and secular are often presented alongside one another, illustrating obvious or more obscure connections, which then pave the way for further insight into the Gallery’s philosophy and subsequent exhibitions. A more careful observation reveals further connections that contribute to creating an original, carefullyconceived planning of exhibitions. Dipinti del 4FJDFOUP *OnVTTJ DBSBWBHHFTDIJ USB -PNCBSEJB F /BQPMJ (2013) had anticipated the climate of the Neapolitan Baroque, which plays a pivotal role in the discussion of Jerusalem, illustrated through the analysis of Caravaggio’s influence on two artists, Jusepe de Ribera, a Spanish painter in Naples from 1616, and Francesco Fracanzano, his disciple, active in the city from 1622.23 The former is a clear point of reference for the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, one of the main characters in Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. The second painted a Saint Andrew 24 showing by a Neapolitan doctor upon his return from Jerusalem: “The arrival of this document in Morcote can be explained if one thinks about the intense migrations of artists from Lake Lugano; for this reason, these recipes may well have been used in our lands, too. This recipe was brought from Jerusalem by a Jewish astrologer and excellent philosopherâ€?: cited in G. M., “Ricette del 500 contro la pesteâ€?, in Rivista storica ticinese, vol. 2, no. 4 (10), August 1939, p. 238. For direct evidence of friars who made the pilgrimage from Ticino to Jerusalem, see for instance “Un frate bellinzonese in Terra Santa negli anni 1471 e il 1473â€?, in Bollettino storico della Svizzera italiana, vol. 4, 1882, p. 238.

22. See, in the “Appendixâ€? section of this catalogue, the entry by Jacques Charles-GaďŹƒot, as well as the essays by Nicola Spinosa and Angela Catello.

23. Chiara Naldi (ed.), %JQJOUJ EFM 4FJDFOUP *OnVTTJ DBSBWBHHFTDIJ USB -PNCBSEJB F /BQPMJ, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Canesso Gallery, 26 April – 15 June 2013.

24. Francesco Fracanzano, Saint Andrew the Apostle. Oil on canvas, 124.5 97.5 cm. Private collection.

28

fig. 10

Luigi Fiorillo, Religious ceremony at the Holy Sepulchre, 1880–1900

brushwork and a dramatic play of light that draw attention towards the changes occurred around 1635, represented by the so-called clear or neo-Venetian manner coming from Rome and Emilia, adopted by other Neapolitan artists, especially the ones more sensitive to naturalism. Among these, the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (mentioned above), who is present today with a key work, the Adoration of the Shepherds; with this canvas he contributed to the thematic thread that connects Neapolitan Baroque art and the Holy Land.

From last autumn’s exhibition Cinquecento sacro e profano, just preceding Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre, other threads appear in the exhibition projects of the Gallery: it’s the topos of ut pictura poĂŤsis that provides a common theme. The painting by Simone Peterzano Angelica and Medoro (c. 1575), where the scene (derived from a Canto in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso) is “presented as a treatment of the PietĂ in ‘chivalric’ modeâ€?,25 is also closely connected, through its links with 3BCJTDI, to the PreAlpine cultural territory and the idea of associating painting and poetry.26 Moving on from the sixteenth and seventeenth towards the eighteenth century, and focusing on Naples, we find artists who claimed connections with the poem by Torquato Tasso, (FSVTBMFNNF -JCFSBUB: Luca Giordano, Francesco Solimena, Paolo De Matteis and Francesco De Mura all embraced Tasso’s iconographical repertoire, in a Naples where “the idea of ut pictura poĂŤsis is so deeply-rooted as to go beyond the boundaries of theoretical discussion and move into the field of poetical experience, being embodied in compositions aiming at celebrating the fine arts through the praise of its protagonistsâ€?.27 25. V. Damian, entry on Simone Peterzano, Angelica and Medoro. Oil on canvas, 154.8 194 cm (private collection), in Chiara Naldi (ed.), Cinquecento sacro F QSPGBOP 6OB TFMF[JPOF EJ EJQJOUJ JUBMJBOJ EFM 97* TFDPMP, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Canesso Gallery, 18 October 2013 – 11 January 2014, pp. 36–43, no. 6, cit. on p. 41.

26. See M. Kahn-Rossi and F. Porzio (eds.), 3BCJTDI *M HSPUUFTDP OFMM BSUF EFM $JORVFDFOUP - "DDBEFNJB EFMMB 7BM EJ #MFOJP -PNB[[P F M BNCJFOUF NJMBOFTF, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Museo Cantonale d’Arte, 28 March – 21 June 1998, Milan, 1998. The exhibition evolved from Dante Isella’s critical edition of G. P. Lomazzo’s 3BCJTDI (Turin, 1993). It is interesting to note here that Isella, consistent with his interest in seventeenth-century art, was subsequently to write the preface to the second edition (2005) of Luigi Zanzi’s book Sacri Monti e dintorni, cited in note 19 above.

27. V. Lotoro, -B GPSUVOB EFMMB (FSVTBMFNNF -JCFSBUB OFMMB QJUUVSB OBQPMFUBOB USB 4FJDFOUP F 4FUUFDFOUP, Rome, 2008, p. 8.

29

Solimena and De Matteis were both active as poets, and the latter, considered by his biographer as an erudite and extremely eloquent painter who was happy to recite Tasso’s Gerusalemme by heart, was the dedicatee of sonnets and poems by various authors. In his Rime, Domenico Andrea de Milio celebrates De Matteis’ talent in using sacred images to explain the mysteries of faith: “che non seppe mai narrar gl’inchiostri, rivelava [De Matteis] ciò che oscoso fu sempre agli occhi nostriâ€?.28 This reflects the dominance of painting over poetry, which seems to shine out in the artist who carried out the later Resurrection for the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre. In the debate about supremacy among the arts, this painter’s works are considered superior to Nature itself, which has become the disciple of Art in a reversal of terms used in the theory of imitation.

Following this brief excursus on the underlying connections among the various exhibitions taking place at the Gallery, a picture illustrating the Sacro Monte di Varese, displayed in 2013, further confirms the fact that art may lead to renewed visions, in addition to being both tribute and contribution, as this exhibition clearly illustrates.29 The Lugano event therefore aims at giving sense to the act of exhibiting works of art. Its preparation saw the involvement of a series of scholarly interests focused on a legacy of excellence; it avoided the perils of temporary dispossession, shortening the time needed for removal and restoration and considering temporary alternatives.30 What is spectacular is the provenance of the items and the work of identification and reconstruction, which has been carried out going beyond boundaries. In the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre a decree of Statu quo is in place since 1852: the rights of property and access of the Christian communities inside the church are strictly regulated and there is no question of change. This regulation (which may well be overlooked by visitors) can be seen in a small external ladder, placed under one of the windows on the façade31 (fig. 9). This item bears witness to how delicate the question of intervening in this Holy Site may be. A second ladder, this one always visible, is used twice a day by a member of a Muslim family to open and close the only entrance door to the Basilica, with a centuries-old ritual. Entering these spaces means entirely respecting this situation and facing “upwardâ€? paths. In the past, the exterior has oered the faithful improbable bases (fig. 10). In a city defined by hills, the art that harks back to the Mysteries of the Life of Christ and the stages of the Via Dolorosa leading one step by step up to Golgotha, seems to make these features its own, placing itself inside the Basilica in elevated places.

In the Basilica itself, one can reach several areas (the Calvary Chapel, the Chapel of the Crucifixion, the Chapel of Saint Helen and the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross) by going up various steps. Two paintings in the exhibition, The Resurrection displayed on the upper part of the Edicule, and The Raising of the Cross, hanging from the wall leading to the Chapel of Inventio Crucis, defy any act of removal; yet the power of this exhibition project, precisely in connection with the Franciscans’ responsibility as defined by the Statu quo, has enabled these works to be explored, scrutinized and temporarily removed for conservation, so as to remove soot from the incense and oil emitted by the candles in the Sepulchre (fig. 11), and thus enact a dynamic process regarding cultural assets.

Pierre Loti’s vision of Jerusalem was of an ever more remote city, with Christianity indierent to a now distant splendour: “JĂŠrusalem!‌ Oh! l’Êclat mourant de ce nom!‌ Comme il rayonne encore, du fond des temps et des poussières‌â€?.32 In Christian symbolism, the ladder stands for the union between Heaven and Earth,33 and this is intensified in the theatrical setting of the Sacro Monte di Varese, where its use in The Raising of the Cross in one of the chapels is deliberately hyperbolic. In its earthbound simplicity, it enables those with a positive outlook to see Jerusalem as a city of possibilities, removing centuries-old dust from the paintings and objects that the Franciscan community seeks to restore to their initial splendour and colour, steeped in gold and lapis blue.

p. 31 fig. 11 5IF )PMZ 4FQVMDISF UIF 5PNC, 1898–1914

28. Ibid., p. 61.

29. Rudolf Johannes BĂźhlmann, View of the Sacro Monte di Varese, 1843. Oil on canvas, 61 85 cm. Private collection.

30. In view of the forced removal of two paintings, the Gallery planned the temporary display of life-size reproductions.

31. The ladder is probably the consequence of a practice suspended when the Statu quo came into force. For the ladder on the façade of the Basilica, see J. E. Lancaster, The Church and the ladder: frozen in time, 1998–2011, http://coastdaylight.com/ladder.html 32. JÊrusalem (1894), part of a three-section work with -F %�TFSU and -B (BMJM�F. 33. Jacob’s Ladder, the fairly well-known visionary dream of a ladder with ascending and descending angels, is found in Genesis 28:11f.

30

31

fig. 1

32

French School (fifteenth century), Egerton Ms 1070, f. 5, The Crusades: View of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, from the Book of Hours of René d’Anjou

A Closer Jerusalem Carlo Bertelli The ancient world had some significant shrines such as Delphi or Olympia, but none of its cities were accorded sacred status.

Rome was called SFHJOB VSCJVN, even “eternal city”, but never “holy city”. Jerusalem was another thing. It was a “holy city” for all the monotheistic religions, so much so that in Islam, until the predominance of Mecca, the RJCMB (direction of prayer) was towards Jerusalem. Numerous events and presages of the future made the city a constant presence in the lives of the three faiths. Jews wait for the Day of Judgement to take place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, while Muslims expect it to happen on the rocky spur that rises in the centre of Jerusalem, a site enclosed within a circular structure under a golden mosaic-covered dome – a sacred place because it was believed that Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac there, and also, subsequently, because it was from this stony mount that a winged horse with a human face bore Mohammed up to the Third Heaven.

In the year 70 the young Roman commander Titus Flavius Vespasian (later Emperor Titus) destroyed the temple erected

by Solomon and rebuilt by Herod, carried out mass killings and had its great cult objects brought to Rome, where he had them displayed in his triumphal procession: a scene eternalized in marble in the arch erected in his honour. With extreme brutality, Titus had prompted the most radical reform in Judaism. There would no longer exist a material location for carrying out sacrifices to the only God. Jerusalem would no longer be an earthly place, but a place of the spirit. Rooms for prayer and assembly – that is, synagogues – would now be dominated by the Torah.

In 135, Hadrian (Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus), convinced that it was necessary to totally eradicate Judaism from Galilee, reduced Jerusalem to a colony, “Colonia Aelia Capitolina”. For a certain time the Arabs, too, designated Jerusalem as Ilya, from “Aelia”, later adopting the current name of al-Quds, the Holy City. In the church of Saint George at Madaba, Jerusalem is represented in a sixth-century mosaic featuring a “Map of the Holy Land” (fig. 2).

fig. 2

Jerusalem, detail of the “Map of the Holy Land”, sixth century. Madaba, church of Saint George

33

fig. 3

Mantuan artist (fifteenth century), View of Jerusalem. Mantua, Castello di San Giorgio

Third-century mural paintings in the synagogue at Dura Europos are a moving lament for the lost Jerusalem. Next to the story of how the Ark, stolen by the Philistines, had destroyed their idols with its magic power, there appears an image of the pagan temple erected by Hadrian – the ultimate profanation of the holy site.

John the Evangelist’s Apocalypse promised Christians the descent from the sky of a New Jerusalem, enclosed within golden walls studded with topaz, beryl, sapphires and emeralds, but the city remained the one Hadrian had wished for, crossed by the cardo maximus, the great porticoed street that would become the Via Dolorosa of our era. A high column surmounted by a gilded bronze figure greeted those who entered the city by what is now known as the Damascus Gate; the statue was the sign of Rome’s power, and we see it painted in the Flagellation by Piero della Francesca.

However, Jerusalem was not merely a city. The last days of Jesus had radically changed how it weighed on Christianity. In that predestined city, the Word made Flesh had been acclaimed, brutalized, tried and crucified – and finally resurrected. He was to return to it to judge the quick and the dead.

Constantine honoured the Christian Jerusalem with new building, among which stood out the Basilica of the Anastasis, or Resurrection, known from the Middle Ages onwards as the Holy Sepulchre. This was a complex that included a five-aisled basilica separated by a courtyard from a colossal centrally-planned building erected on Christ’s burial site, following the model of imperial mausoleums. Carved ivories of the fifth century simplify its form as a cylindrical tower consisting of a tall central structure surrounded by a lower ring. The Mausoleum of Constantina Augusta (the so-called Mausoleo di Santa Costanza) in Rome corresponds fairly well to this idea of the tomb.

It was in Rome, again in the fifth century, that the first religious edifice inspired by the Holy Sepulchre arose. In order to honour the protomartyr Stephen, who was killed in Jerusalem, Pope Leo the Great gave order in about 440 to build an immense martyrium on the Celian Hill, over twenty metres high and with a central structure surrounded by a double ring of ambulatories and gardens.

The example set by Pope Leo was not imitated, but especially during the period of the Crusades, Europe saw the construction of churches with a circular plan dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre in cities such as Cambridge, London and Pisa. But 34

in any case Jerusalem’s own Constantinian building had suffered profound changes – partly demolished (and thus diminished) by the construction of a mosque in 935, struck by an earthquake on 24 May 966, devastated in 1009 by the Caliph al-Hakim, and restored, but only in part, by the Emperor Constantine Monomachos between 1042 and 1048.

In Bologna, set in a complex of considerably older buildings, the Basilica of Santo Stefano offers an imitation of the Basilica of the Anastasis as it presented itself after the restructuring by Constantine Monomachos. What corresponds to the Holy Sepulchre is an octagon surmounted by a dodecagonal cupola. Within, there are twelve columns, seven of which, made of Karystian marble, come from a preceding Roman building, formerly identified with a temple of Isis. One of the columns is made of black cipollino marble and is believed to be the column of the Flagellation. In 1141, the remains of Saint Petronius, the founder of the Bolognese Church, were placed in the aedicule imitating the Sepulchre of Christ. Around the Basilica there evolved the Sancta Jerusalem Bononiensis, a complex of buildings that evokes the sacred sites of Jerusalem.

The Bolognese Jerusalem was so renowned that it prompted the euergetism of the Longobard King Liutprand, who donated the marble bowl of a fountain in the courtyard (known as the Cortile di Pilato), a vessel believed to have been used in the Last Supper.

If the city of the Passion of Jesus was sacred, then so were the stones with which it was built. The Tuscan city of Borgo San Sepolcro (now Sansepolcro) actually owes its name to a fragment of rock believed to have been brought there from Jerusalem by two legendary pilgrims.

The lid of a case made to contain relics, once in the Lateran Treasury and now in the Vatican Museums, bears a view, from the inside, of the dome of the Anastasis, while its divided compartments contain what amounts to a small litoteca – a stone sampler – of Jerusalem. This dates to the seventh century, that is, the same period in which people in Bobbio and Monza collected silver flasks containing a little oil from the lamps used in the churches of the Holy Sites. The impressions of images on their outer parts conveyed something of Eastern iconography, such as the foliate cross surmounted by a roundel with the Saviour’s face. The material reality of the oil and the viewing of images thus found their point of conjunction.

In about 680 the Frankish Bishop Arculf, having returned from a journey to the Holy Land, was shipwrecked on the Island of Iona in Scotland. He was taken in by the Abbot Adamnan, to whom he gave a careful description of the sites he had visited, especially Jerusalem, and this later provided a source for Bede the Venerable (672–735), from whom it has come down to us.

Arculf ’s description fits into an early tradition of itineraries, and generated the outlines for a schematic map of the city. Mediaeval maps show Jerusalem as the centre of the world – indeed it was the navel of the world, from which the world was formed.

Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites had alternating phases. Its golden age was during the first centuries of the Christian Empire, and another during the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which ended in 1295 with the fall of Acre. Otherwise the journey was very arduous, and since pilgrimage could be not only an act of devotion but of penitence and expiation, it became the custom to choose substitute pilgrimages, less dangerous and not as costly – above all, to the shrines of the Western world, including those to which Crusaders had brought relics of the Holy Land, or where other relics had ended up after the Sack of Constantinople by the Crusade of 1204. Buildings containing relics were considered sacred, loaded as they were with the mysterious power of the relics themselves; and lamps, gifts from pilgrims’ offerings and incense smoke only increased their spell.

Jealously guarded above all other treasures in papal custody was the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran. Placed in a vaulted chamber covered in frescoes and mosaics, it contained the monumental image of Jesus known as Acheropita (not made by human hands), a true Palladium of the city, surrounded by other important relics such as the images of Saints Peter and Paul that had healed Constantine and persuaded him to enact his famous Donation.

One reaches the Sancta Sanctorum by a long staircase of twenty-six steps, known as the “Scala Santa” because tradition holds that these are the same stairs ascended by Jesus when he was received by Pontius Pilate. Saint Helena, Constantine’s mother, is believed to have brought the structure to Rome from Jerusalem in 326 and set it in the Papal Palace at the Lateran. It was placed in its current location by Sixtus V, who had it assembled from the top downwards so as to avoid profanation of the steps by the workmen. To this day, pilgrims ascend the staircase on their knees. The Roman Scala Santa was the prototype for thirteen imitations in Italy, including one at the Sacro Monte at Varallo.

The hesitant Pilate, to whom it was believed we owe the exact description of the face of Jesus in a famous apocryphal letter written to Tiberius, was the subject of profound fascination. Returning in 1519 from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Fadrique Enríquez de Ribera, first Marquess of Tarifa, was delighted to discover that his house in Seville (already begun by his parents Pedro Enríquez de Quiñones and Catalina de Ribera) stood at the same distance from the Cruz del Campo, outside the walls of the city, as Pilate’s ruined house was from Calvary. Thus, starting in 1529, employing the Genoese architect Antonio Maria Aprile, he continued the building of his palatial home, turning it into the splendid Casa de Pilatos, a marvel of Iberian sixteenth-century work in the 35

fig. 4

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Hans Memling, The Passion, c. 1470. Turin, Galleria Sabauda

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mudéjar style. The Praetor’s Room leads to the rooms of the Flagellation, of the Crowning with Thorns, and so on, and the palace is set among charming geometric gardens, exuding a calm atmosphere and containing busts of Roman emperors and other historical figures. A Via Crucis originally linked the Casa de Pilatos to the Cruz del Campo.

The realistic depiction of the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre makes a sudden appearance in 1437 (fig. 1). This involves a revealing detail: a small fig tree emerging from a gap in the stone blocks. Only someone who had actually seen the site could have transmitted an image of it, and it is thus believed that the model for this miniature is a drawing made on the spot by Hubert or Jan van Eyck. The miniature appears on a sheet inserted in the psalter that King René of Anjou had with him during his imprisonment in Dijon. The view faces the coat of arms of the King, who was also titular King of Jerusalem.

The same observation of detail recurs in Erhard Reuwich’s woodcut of Jerusalem in the Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam by Bernhard von Breydenbach, published in 1483–84, a true best seller that was printed in eight incunabula and twelve editions up to 1522. Breydenbach makes an addition to the view included in René d’Anjou’s psalter: among the paving-stones of the square we can see one, marked with a cross, where Jesus had fallen. In the print, three pilgrims are shown adoring it.

It was around this time that a fresco (hastily attributed to Pisanello) was painted in Mantua, in which a bird’s eye view of Jerusalem bears the indications of the most important buildings (fig. 3). Such a careful depiction can be explained by the devotion to Longinus and the Most Precious Blood, which linked Mantua and the City of David. In 1433 the newly-created Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga had a silver grosso minted, its reverse bearing the pyx of the Most Precious Blood set against an ideal view of the Italian city: the relic made Mantua another Jerusalem.

But however many indulgences were promised by a relic, these could never equal the spiritual and moral benefits of pilgrimage, which one could also approach through narrative accounts that were printed and read in public. The edifying nature of these narratives is clearly indicated in the dedicatory preface addressed to the nuns of San Bernardino in Padua by Gabriele 38

fig. 5

Hans Memling, The Seven Joys of the Virgin, c. 1480. Munich, Alte Pinakothek

Capodilista, whose description was written “first to move every heart, however hardened it might be, to piety and sweetness in serving God, then to become openly aware of the immovable truths of our faith” (“prima per commover ogni core, se ben fusse indurato, a pietà et a dolcezza de servir a Ideo, poy per conoscere apertamente la ferma verificatione de la fede nostra”).

The pair of lunettes in the tramezzo of Santa Maria degli Angioli in Lugano, which contain representations of Jerusalem (fig. 1 on p. 114) and the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the latter with the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives (fig. 8 on p.

125), correspond to this sort of ideal pilgrimage, inviting those who walked from the nave to the altar (possibly to partake in the Eucharist) to pause. It was as if, moving towards the altar, one were covering the itinerary of the Passion.

Was pilgrimage impossible because of objective difficulties? Or could it be substituted with an authentically profitable experience for the soul? Bernardino da Siena had denied the efficacy of pilgrimage, as it took one away from other social and charitable duties, and involved not only dangers but far from edifying distractions. A profound and sincere identification with the sites in which Jesus had lived was surely more effective, he maintained, than a risky voyage. This was a pilgrimage of the soul, which suffered with Jesus or shared in Mary’s joy: a true itinerarium cordis in deum.

In about 1470, the manager of the Medici bank in Bruges, Tommaso Portinari, sent to his family chapel in the hospital church of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, which his family had founded, a spectacular painting now in the Pinacoteca Sabauda, Turin (fig. 4), by Hans Memling – also the author of The Seven Joys of Mary in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (fig. 5) – in which Jerusalem appears as the grand theatre of the Passion. There is no trace of documented references to how the buildings were supposed to look, but the entire city reveals – in the interiors of its houses, palaces and temple – the most moving episodes of the last days of Christ on Earth, up to the Resurrection and the subsequent appearances to the Magdalene and the Apostles.

The time was ripe for participation in the life of Jesus, Mary and the Apostles to become more affecting than the experience of paintings, frequent theatrical events, liturgy and relics. Since Saint Francis had instituted the Nativity scene, people collectively 39

began to seek the memory of Jesus through objective reality (fig. 6). The grotto of Bethlehem became the subject of countless, continuously updated paintings, and from the grotto one’s eyes were led into the distance, to the chilly shepherds awoken by angels and the magnificent caravan of the Magi making its way across the hilly landscape.

In 1486, having been created Custodian of the Holy Land by Sixtus IV in 1478, Fra Bernardino Caimi (Milan [?], 1425 – Milan, 1500) conceived an ambitious plan: on his return to Lombardy after a difficult sojourn in Bosnia, which had been converted to Islam, he promptly began the building of the Sacro Monte at Varallo.

The Sacro Monte was not planned as an imitation of Jerusalem, but as a veritable Nova Jerusalem in which the sites made sacred by the Passion would each become a “mystery”, as the Bishop of Novara Carlo Bascapé declared in his Brevi considerationi sopra i Misteri del Sacro Monte di Varallo, published in Milan in 1611. By that date, the first chronological itinerary, given visual form by Gaudenzio Ferrari between 1507 and 1528, and consisting of a few chapels illustrating Nazareth, Bethlehem fig. 6 Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo, Adoration of the Shepherds (Nativity), 1540. Brescia, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo and Jerusalem, had been amplified by Galeazzo Alessi through a more monumental approach in 1565–69. 1614 saw the building of the imposing Basilica of the Assumption, designed by the architects Giovanni d’Enrico and Bartolomeo Ravelli, and this became the new focus of devotion.

Given its flexibility, Bernardino Caimi’s project soon spread through the Alps and the Pre-Alps, offering an interesting parallel to other less conspicuous ones, still in Italy and within the context of the Franciscan Observant movement.

Thus it was, in 1500, following the example of his fellow-friar Bernardino, that Fra Tommaso of Florence conceived the Sacro Monte of San Vivaldo in the Diocese of Volterra, with the collaboration of another friar, Cherubino Conzi. Set in a forested area (the wood of Camporena) granted in 1487 to the Franciscans, who had built a convent and church there to venerate the Tertiary friar-hermit Vivaldo Sricchi (his body had been found in 1325 in a chestnut tree), the Monte is known as “Gerusalemme in Toscana”, or “La piccola Gerusalemme”. Seventeen chapels (of an original thirty-four) are spread across almost even ground, where the wood (akin to the Valley of Jehoshaphat) and the slight rises in the ground recall the Mount of Olives, the open space of the Temple and Mount Calvary. Each chapel houses groups of life-size figures made of pigmented terracotta and integrated by frescoed backgrounds by the workshops of Benedetto Buglioni and Giovanni della Robbia. These are very compact spaces in which visitors find themselves very close to figures from the Gospels. Yet the fidelity to conventional iconography, combined with a wish for perfection of craftsmanship, markedly separates the experience of these Tuscan groupings from that of their Lombard brothers.

As in a prayer, the appeal is to memory rather than to the flavour of the act itself. Another point of contrast is significant: the Tuscan Sacro Monte is entirely introverted, neither looking at the surrounding landscape nor seeking to create scenic situations in the juxtaposition of buildings or their architecture. Unlike this, even the most modest “sacred mountain” in Lombardy functions as part of the landscape, perhaps responding to the sacred quality of the peaks themselves – something found, for example, as early as the Roman shrine at Martigny.

The creation of the Sacro Monte at Varallo, from which the others are descended, was the fruit of collaboration between Bernardino Caimi and one of the great artists of the Renaissance, Gaudenzio Ferrari. To him – and naturally to their collaboration – we owe the bold evolution of the Lombard tramezzi towards greater breadth of space, an element ultimately derived from Leonardo da Vinci, just as the psychological power of the actors in the frescoes and statues is indebted to Leonardo’s teachings.

Comparing the Crucifixion painted by Gaudenzio on the tramezzo of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Varallo (fig. 7) and the one he executed in the thirty-eighth chapel has long been a standard exercise; the latter has countless points of view within a wide-open space punctuated here and there by details such as the face of the Good Thief, lit up with hope and faith, or the innocent laugh of the baby in the arms of his mother.

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fig. 7

Gaudenzio Ferrari, Crucifixion, 1513. Varallo, church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

The tramezzi were the high walls that, according to a plan attributed to Saint Bernardino, separate the friars’ choir from the congregation in the single-aisled Observant Franciscan churches of Lombardy and Piedmont. Starting with the lost tramezzo of San Giacomo in Pavia (as reconstructed by Alessandro Nova), frescoed by Foppa with twenty scenes between 1475 and 1476, the wall that shielded the choir from view placed the salient chapters of the Gospel narrative before the eyes of the faithful. These painted sermons, too, were probably tied to circumstances specific to Northern Italy and the Alpine and Pre-Alpine area. Suffice it to consider the walls of small Alpine churches, packed with contiguous scenes that amount to billboards for preaching. San Giovanni al Monte in Quarona provides one example, and we can add the chapel of Saint Sebastian in Lanslevillard, in the Haute Maurienne, created as an ex voto after an episode of plague, with fifty-three scenes from the lives of Christ and Saint Sebastian, and (not far from there) the catéchisme illustré of Saint Anthony in Bessans.

In 1529, in the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli in Lugano, Bernardino Luini was to transform the list of Biblical episodes of the tramezzi into a single event, set within a grand landscape framed by columns and with a clear division between the crowded scene of the Crucifixion and the scenes relegated to the background (see fig. 7 on p. 26). But by now the Sacri Monti already existed.

Gaudenzio Ferrari had learned from Perugino the secret of conveying sentiment with simplicity. In the Varallo project, he did not seek the literal mimesis of Holy Sites, but an evocation of them, something that would lend honour and majesty to the actors of the sacred story; and when he painted the Meeting at the Golden Gate in Santa Maria della Pace, Milan, in 1545 (a fresco detached and transferred to the Brera Gallery), he depicted an imaginary Jerusalem, crowded with tall buildings inspired by the ideal cities of Bramantino (fig. 8).

What followed, with the growth and multiplication of these sacred mountains, was quite different, as Giovanni Testori rightly saw in defining them as one of the foundations of Counter-Reformation sentiment. Gaudenzio had created a narrative structure capable of enriching and modifying itself, so as to embrace and sublimely interpret the new religious fervour of Charles Borromeo, as well as comforting the Catholic population of these Alpine peaks, threatened as it was by the penetration of the Reform movement.

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fig. 8

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Gaudenzio Ferrari, Meeting at the Golden Gate, scene from Stories of Joachim and Anna, 1545. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera

fig. 9

Giotto, -BNFOUBUJPO, 1303–05. Padua, Scrovegni Chapel

The great success of what Bernardino Caimi had projected in the full flowering of the Renaissance also depended on what the Alps had come to mean in the long-established relationship between people and mountains along the margin that joined the Mediterranean and the North. “Jerusalem in the Alps” could therefore not be repeated elsewhere, and it was to endure as a unique instance of interpreting landscape in the light of emotional involvement in the sacred narrative that was proper to Catholic tradition.

The long gestation of this phenomenon could only have found its outlet in Lombardy – not only because of its particular sites, among woods, lakes and the not-so-distant view of glaciers, but precisely because it was Lombard art that had prepared this unexpected event, which remained unique in Europe. We should not fail to recall the profound emotions prompted by the -BTU 4VQQFS painted by Leonardo in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. As late as 1788 Goethe noted how the furnishings of the scene introduced such an explicitly quotidian element that one felt that “Christ must have celebrated his last supper in Milan, among the Dominicans”.

The temptation to translate such a realistic scene into three dimensions was irresistible. Having abandoned the initial project of building “twenty-four chapels of the Mysteries of the Passion for the exercise of adoration” (“24 cappelle de misteri de la passione per qualche esercitio de adoratione”) in the Milanese Basilica of San Sepolcro, Saint Charles Borromeo commissioned two striking figure groups for the lateral apses of the church, perhaps after a design by Pellegrino Tibaldi: these were life-size painted terracotta statues, one with the Washing of the Feet, the other with the Denial of Saint Peter, the Flagellation and Caiaphas Tearing IJT 3PCF. Bernardino Caimi’s project already existed at this point, but Borromeo was thinking of a shrine of Jerusalem in the very heart of his own city, in the basilica dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre by Milan’s crusader Archbishop Anselm IV of Bovisio, who had the existing church remodelled into an unusual three-lobed basilica inspired by the Anastasis in Jerusalem. At the centre 43

of the lower church (it had two levels), in mysterious penumbra and protected by grating, stood the open sarcophagus containing holy earth. On its sides appeared carved images of the Holy Women in prayer, while the soldiers on guard have put aside their weapons. This was the miracle of the Resurrection, its emotional impact heightened by the earth placed there, which gave a fascinating reality to the fourteenth-century sculptures.

In the seventeenth century, the terracotta statue of Saint Charles in prayer was placed beside the sarcophagus.

Thus the fervour of the Sacri Monti bathed Milan. Only after 1514, with the institution of two confraternities dedicated to the Passion, did Agostino de Fondulis create the dramatic group of terracotta figures assembled around the dead Christ, a scene in which the swooning of the Madonna disturbs every bystander. But already in 1483 Agostino had given shape to the -BNFOUBUJPO in San Satiro. Deep emotions connect the figures, shaped with angular folds recalling the drapery of Mantegna, each defined by a subtle variety of expressions ranging from the feverish embrace of Mary by one of the Holy Women, who can barely support her, to notes of high drama, as in the representation of the solitary anguish of John (the “son”, in the words of the dying Jesus on the Cross), the tender head of Jesus next to one of the women whose eyes gaze heavenward, and finally the fig. 10 Antonio Allegri, called Correggio, Nativity (-B OPUUF), 1528–30. truly unexpected presence of a woman holding a child in Dresden, Gemäldegalerie her arms, inviting immediate empathy. p. 45 fig. 11 Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio, The Conversion of Saul, 1601.

It is not easy to establish the relative chronology Rome, Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, Cerasi Chapel of the celebrated -BNFOUBUJPO groups by Guido Mazzoni and Niccolò dell’Arca, given the uncertainty of their dates, but we may recall that the -BNFOUBUJPO by Guido Mazzoni at Busseto, with its figures isolated and petrified by pain, their faces streaming with tears, is believed to date from 1472–73.

In the present context, it is in any case interesting to note how the spreading of -BNFOUBUJPOT in Lombard churches (Adalgisa Lugli has counted thirty-two of them, including five in Milan and its environs) coincides chronologically with the laying of the first stones of the Sacro Monte at Varallo. One of the first chapels there, known as the Chapel of the Stone of Unction, included a wooden -BNFOUBUJPO (now in the picture gallery) attributed to Giovanni Pietro and Giovanni Ambrogio De Donati.

The origin of images of the -BNFOUBUJPO is found in the story told in the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, a narrative that deeply inspired Byzantine painting and reached one of its zeniths in the well-known fresco by Giotto (fig. 9) in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (the city Agostino de Fondulis had come from). Supporting the success of its popularity in Lombardy, and indeed in the Alps, is the culture of an image associating the Lombard experience of the fifteenth century with devotional customs of the areas beyond the Alps, which combined the carved object of veneration with narrative. As early as 1433 we find a -BNFOUBUJPO in the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in the church of Saint-Nicolas in Fribourg (Switzerland).

The recent exhibition at the Castello Sforzesco of wooden sculpture in the Duchy of Milan clearly revealed the nature of an unmistakably common approach; masters such as Giovanni Angelo Majno and the Donati brothers were especially active in the provinces, creating grand works such as the architectural, multi-figured Morbegno altar, painted by Gaudenzio Ferrari and Fermo Stella.

Moving ourselves from the invention of the Sacri Monti, or “Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps”, to the Neapolitan canvases of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries exhibited here involves a true leap of faith. Too much took place between these two extremes.

In Varallo, the popular festivities of Gaudenzio gave way to the tragic sense of adherence to the sacred narrative by Tanzio and 44

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Enrico, its own citizens. The militant insurgency of the Counter-Reformation was succeeded by the total victory of the Church in Italy. Europe was no longer the theatre of wars of religion. Other struggles ensued, with their trail of mourning and misery, plague-infested cities and famine-ridden countryside. The very perception of society had changed, and the world was a place where disease and wretchedness, loss and death were constantly at hand.

During this long period, great things happened, in music as in poetry. Gesualdo da Venosa and Claudio Monteverdi gave life to the affections in their overlays of voices and instrumental sounds; Palestrina inaugurated a new mode of hearing and singing mass; and groups of players cultivated a form of music more openly expressive of sentiment. In painting, Federico Barocci and the Carracci took the lessons of Correggio to their next level, reaching new depths in the ever-rolling sea of emotions (fig. 10).

Saint Augustine had declared that “the ear enjoys the harmonious song of the psalms just as it enjoys the song of the nightingale”. Centuries were to pass before reaching the fusion between religious sentiment and the voluptuous perception of the senses. One of the peaks of this evolution of the affetti was the poetry of Torquato Tasso, in whose verses religious agitation melds into a melancholy and absorbing sensuality.

The Adoration of the Shepherds, the work of a great anonymous painter in Spanish Naples, active in the second quarter of the seventeenth century and known as the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (thus named after a painting of his in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), belongs to the same period that saw Tanzio an Enrico da Varallo active in the Sacro Monte of their city. The light generated by the figures, which makes them emerge from the background, shows the profound debt to Caravaggio (figs. 11 and 12) owed by the painters of his generation, while the accentuated realism of detail (for example, the lamb, which alludes to sacrifice) is indebted to Jusepe de Ribera, the great Spanish master active in Naples. Yet Caravaggesque realism has been infiltrated by an attention to devotion that was the sign of a new age. The attitude of Saint Joseph reveals the new mellowing of piety. Traditional iconography, in depictions of the adoration of the Christ Child, had placed him to one side, to underline that he is not Jesus’ natural father. Here, instead, Joseph is in the foreground, his presence emphasized by the light that strikes his yellow and blue clothing, two colours that remind us of his dual role as husband of Mary but non-father of Jesus.

His devout gesture is accompanied by the pointing index finger that leads from his chest to the flowering staff, a recollection of the moment he was miraculously designated as the spouse of Mary. The Child is displayed more to the onlooker than he is to the shepherds, and a silent dialogue takes place between Child and Mother. A young shepherd turns to the older one, kneeling, as if their task was to comment on the mystery they are contemplating. Finally, there is a novelty here – a woman among the shepherds, at upper left, bringing two doves as a gift. The traditional isolation of the shepherds, to whom the angel had announced the birth, is now surpassed by a new civic-minded vision of the event in which the role of women was recognized. The time had become ripe both for this Neapolitan Nativity – a social representation – and the appearance of the Sacri Monti; but with a basic difference.

With its gaze directed to an entire society, the Neapolitan scene gives expression to the rejoicing prompted by Christmas, whereas the realism of the Lombard Monti accompanies every stage of the lives of Jesus and Mary, never ignoring the most painful ones.

Another sound, quite distinct, can be found in the expansive canvases of Francesco De Mura (Naples, 1696–1782), executed in about 1730, when the young and promising pupil of the famous Solimena was gaining his independence. Clear, evenlydistributed light brings out precious colours, with olive greens and ashen azures, midnight blues and wine reds running along the silken wings of the angels. The figures move with harmonious rhythm across the rectangular surfaces of these canvases, filling spaces defined by diagonals crossing the entire height of the composition. One can sense the experience of grand mural painting (in 1731 De Mura executed the fresco in the apse of the Nunziatella in Naples), and thus of the concordance of architecture and painting: set within the Baroque setting, painting becomes lighter and (in the best sense of the word) decorative. But this does not mean that faces and figures are any less noble, nor sentiment any less deep. The novelty here is that emotional expressions no longer break the unity of the scene, but interact reciprocally, within a harmony of echoes we could define as musical, if we compare them to the choral responses in an eighteenth-century sung mass. Seventeenth-century exegetical harassment is overcome by the new context of European Catholic doctrine. De Mura’s canvases, originally fifteen in all, were ordered from the painter by the Franciscan Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes in 1730 for shipment to the Holy Land (cat. nos. 3–5 and figs. on pp. 96–97). It really was a grand, unified project.

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fig. 12

Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio, Saint Francis in Ecstasy, 1594. Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

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The Franciscans in Jerusalem Jacques Charles-Gaffiot

In the footsteps of the Son of Man, have the sons of Saint Francis ever had a stone to lay their heads in Jerusalem?

Dating back to 1219, perhaps (when the Poverello of Assisi and a few companions reached the shores of the Holy Land), and certainly to 1333, followed nine years later by papal approval, the presence of the Friars Minor in Jerusalem now appears – like the Vatican City in Rome – as an imposing demonstration of an immemorial and inescapable existence within the Holy City, one suited to the dimensions of Saint Saviour’s Convent, a formidable Latin ship moored by Suleiman’s ramparts, near the New Gate.

History shows that it was not always thus. The Custody of the Holy Land had long resembled a fragile little boat, though it was able to avoid the reefs after an often tumultuous crossing. Setting foot in Jerusalem in response to their founder’s summons to evangelize the Muslim world, Francis’ disciples also aimed, in settling there, to serve the most significant Holy Sites of the message conveyed by the Gospels. It was hardly fortuitous that when they returned in 1333, the friars sought to establish themselves at the site of the Last Supper, the very place where the sacrament of the Eucharist and Christian priesthood had been instituted, and where, fifty-three days later, the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin and Apostles had generated the birth of the Church, prior to the missionary departure of these eye-witnesses of the Resurrection.

Here is what enables us to understand the personal motivations of the disciples of Saint Francis – these minores, burning with the same evangelical zeal – as they gave almost secondary consideration to Christ’s Sepulchre and its adjacent sanctuaries, or to the Grotto of the Nativity and the Basilica in Bethlehem, or even to the Tomb of the Virgin Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and later, to the Garden of Gethsemane, the church of the Ascension, and so on. Their preference for the distinguished site of the Cenacle was to remind them on a daily basis of the Apostolic needs assigned by their founder.

But, however desirable it was, the Franciscans’ settlement in this exalted place, blessed by the effusion of the Holy Spirit, did not come about without hardship.

The study of documents housed both in the archives of the Custody of the Holy Land and other important collections such as the Vatican Archives reveals not only the extreme difficulty in obtaining the rights to the Cenacle, and, gradually, to the other Holy Sites in Palestine, but attests to how the friars regarded the respective value of each of these emblematic sanctuaries.

However, unlike the Cenacle, to which we shall return, these other havens were never the object of an official concession, either by the Sultans of Egypt or (later) by Ottoman rulers. Considered inalienable properties of the state, these buildings, even when they were more or less ruined, were assigned in whole or in part, not without secret political scheming, to the various Christian communities, with a unilateral imposition of rules and customs. But we should point out that to the Latins alone was granted the right to exercise some specific rights that would express the recognition of a tangible pre-eminence over the other confessions tolerated in the Muslim world: Greek Orthodox Christians, Armenians, Ethiopian Copts, Nestorians, Gregorians and Maronites.

But if these pieces of property could never have been the object of purchase, the toleration of the presence of Christian communities meant – apart from the payment of a very substantial Koran-based tax (the jizya reserved for Dhimmis1) – more or less regular supplementary payments consisting of taxes, city tolls, multiple tributes (in kind or in cash), all emblematic, on every occasion, of a special and inferior social status. The friars then did their utmost to get rescripts, warrants (hogget) or firmans (decrees issued in the name of the Sultan) from the political authorities of Cairo or Constantinople with the aim of obtaining written justification for their presence. Detailing the rights accorded to the holders of sanctuaries and other Holy Sites, these certificates allowed their holders protection, as far as possible, from regularly taken arbitrary measures, or from the “uncontrollable greed”2 of the governing Vizirs of Damascus or the Qadis3 of Jerusalem.

1. Non-Muslim subjects who were followers of a monotheistic religion (Judaism or Christianity). A non-public religion could only be tolerated through the payment of a “protection” tax (Koran, Sura IX, verse 29).

2. The expression used by Sultan Osman III in 1757 to define the character of the Qadi of Jerusalem in a firman issued in Constantinople, 15 September – 15 October.

3. Muslim civil judges who enforced Koranic (sharia) law.

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In Western eyes, this right of usage – not being exercised privately, but by members of a religious order sent (in the case of the Latin clergy) by the Roman Church – gradually entered the public domain, ultimately taking on international status, recognized and guaranteed by diplomatic accords made by the Christian powers and Egyptian or Ottoman sultans; these Western powers included the Republic of Venice, and more especially the Kingdom of France, after the “impious alliance” contracted by the French King Francis I with Suleiman the Magnificent. Thus some of these treaties (known as Imperial Capitulations) contributed to theoretically giving these rights a judicial value superior to those granted to the native Christian nationals, often more favoured, who subsequently became subjects of Egyptian sovereigns, and then of Constantinople. However, as we shall see, this body of laws, sometimes including false, fraudulently-obtained firmans, which the friars would have to re-purchase at extortionate rates before they were carried out, could be unilaterally revoked by the sultans, influenced by intrigues and greed; what is more, they were the object of (paid) confirmation at the beginning of each new reign.

The Cenacle According to the oldest New Testament sources, the residence in which Jesus asked the Apostles to gather on the evening of Holy Thursday to celebrate Passover was located on Mount Sion. This was also the place where the disciples shut themselves away from the following day until Pentecost, for fear of reprisals from the Jews, and it was here too, finally, that the first Christian community flourished around the Apostles Peter and John and the Virgin Mary.4 Modern archaeology appears to confirm this long tradition: excavations carried out in the present-day church of the Dormition attest to the existence of a Byzantine basilica, Hagia Sion, built in 415, and – even more clearly – the small synagogue that currently holds the putative tomb of David could have an early Christian origin, because contrary to the usage of the time, its ark is not oriented towards the Temple of Herod but towards the Anastasis of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre that houses the tomb of Christ.

In 1212, a monastery occupied by the Canons of Saint Augustine stood next to the ancient Byzantine basilica. Eighty years later, the complex of buildings was no more than a ruin. A Dominican, Fra Riccoldo da Monte Croce, who visited the site in the years 1292–94, also mentions the existence of a minaret near this place of desolation. But the Cenacle, rebuilt by the Crusaders, was still standing, with its ogival upper chamber held by tradition to be the site of the Washing of the Feet, the Last Supper and (in the adjacent room) Pentecost (figs. 1 and 2). When it was acquired in 1333 for the Franciscans, it was specifically mentioned in Arab texts with the name Êllîat Sahiûn (the upper room of Sion).

After the conquest of the city by Saladin in 1187, the Christian shrines of Jerusalem swiftly fell into total abandon. While a truce reached five years later between the Islamic victor and King Richard I of England allowed for the arrival of some Latin priests, a traveller describing the Holy Sepulchre in 1217 noted the absence of any worship within, and concluded that the monument, deprived of all its lamps, must be abandoned. However, in 1229, a ten-year respite agreed between Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and Sultan Melek-el-Kamel allowed for some Franciscans to return briefly, though this all ended with the Fall of Acre in 1291.

Only the very rare pilgrim ventured as far as the Holy Sepulchre during the second half of the thirteenth century. The beginning of the new century was marked by the arrival of the Dominicans and Franciscans, who took gradual possession of the Holy Sites and more specifically of the Holy Sepulchre – where, according to the account of an Irish friar written in 1323, only two Georgian monks habitually resided.

Starting in this period, the increase in pilgrimage was sufficient to warrant the diplomatic mission of two Aragonese envoys, who were sent to Egypt to persuade the ninth Mamluk Sultan, al-Nâsir, to officially protect the Latins, both pilgrims and regular clergy. Consequently, it became possible to found a hospital with two hundred beds, thanks to the generosity of a wealthy Florentine man, and, through papal privileges accorded to the Provincial Minister for the Holy Land, to start the dispatching of friars to serve at the Holy Sepulchre.

In this specific diplomatic context, the year 1333 marked a decisive step in the history of the Franciscan presence in Jerusalem.

The King of Naples, Robert of Anjou (1277–1343) and his second wife Queen Sancha of Majorca (1285–1345) succeeded in purchasing the Cenacle, with the agreement of the same sultan, who was ruling for the third time over Egypt and the Middle East (1309–41). The transaction was carried out through the payment of an exorbitant sum: some sources refer to 20,000 gold ducats, while others, such as the Dominican friar Felice Fabri, estimate it at 32,000, adding that this included payment for the privileges conceded to Latins at other shrines (the Holy Sepulchre, the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, the Grotto of the Nativity and the Convent in Bethlehem). In the same period, with regard to the Custody of the Holy Land, the Neapolitan monarchs undertook the perpetual 4. Acts of the Apostles 1:13-14.

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p. 48 fig. 1, fig. 2

Jerusalem, view of the twelfth-century Upper Room of the Cenacle

support of twelve friars at the Cenacle by promising to send 1000 gold ducats a year for their maintenance! Finally, nine years later, these agreements were sanctioned by the Avignon Pope Clement VI (1291–1352) through the official bull Gratias agimus.

The generosity of Robert of Anjou must have been followed by a number of other European sovereigns who were concerned to show their own financial engagement for the support of the friars in Jerusalem, for the hosting of pilgrims and for giving new lustre to Latin liturgical celebrations at the Holy Sepulchre and other Holy Sites under the friars’ custody. The gathering of funds soon became a crucial stake in the maintenance of the Custody. Obliged to live under arbitrary authority that coveted more and more of the wealth and goods sent from the West, the religious community had to face a number of difficulties, exacerbated by arrogant surveillance and even espionage of the friars. However, it was in the interest of the authorities in Cairo and Constantinople to put limits on the greed of local administrators if they wanted to avoid “killing the hen that laid the golden eggs”, whose presence in Jerusalem alone brought in revenue which the Ottoman Empire could not afford to do without.

Reading the six hundred firmans housed in the archives of the Custody reveals an impressive list of complaints addressed by the brothers to the Sublime Porte to denounce the injustices and misdeeds of which the Franciscan community was a victim throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule (and we are speaking of that period alone). We may thus note that orders from Constantinople responding to repeated interventions before the Divan by Venetian or French diplomats never aim to settle damage from theft, requisitioning, confiscation or even threatened imprisonment or exile improperly inflicted by local authorities. The sums of money taken by extortion and confiscated goods remained the property of the authors of these misdeeds, who never appear to have been punished. Even in the best cases, most of the official replies conclude with formulas such as “in accordance with Imperial decrees, there is to be no interfering with or harassment of the religious Franks residing in the Holy Jerusalem and its environs, nor with their holy sites, their churches, and all the Frankish nations that come and go on their visits…”.5 But in spite of the reiteration of this imperial injunction, any pretext was considered good for appropriating money from these religious men: in one year alone, 1623, the arrival of barrels of salted fish from France;6 the imprisonment in Malta of 5. Firmans ottomans, 1521–1902 (3 vols. in 1), translated by J. Hussein, F. Sciad and N. Gosselin, Jerusalem, 1986 (reprint of the 1934 ed.), p. 195.

6. Ibid., p. 193.

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fig. 3

52

Cope worked in silver thread donated by King Louis XIII in 1619

Mevlevi Dervishes;7 and the excessive dimensions of the entrance-door to Saint Saviour’s Convent8 each became a grievance that led the authorities to “interfere” once again in the affairs of the Custody and demand compensation in cash. In 1624, among the ever-recurring reprimands addressed to the Latins by the Qadi of Jerusalem, one of them singles out the use of “magnificent vestments” during holy office celebrated at the Holy Sepulchre. This new incident probably arose in connection with a splendid vestment sent by King Louis XIII, embroidered in silver thread by Anne of Austria’s embroiderer, the Parisian Alexandre Paynet, in 1619 (fig. 3).9 It was hardly by chance that the denunciation came to the attention of the Muslim authorities. In fact, it was during this period that Sultan Murad IV (1623–40) agreed, at the request of the Greek Patriarch Theophanes, to place all Christian shrines under the custody of the Orthodox Church by authorizing the expulsion of all the Franciscans from the Holy Sites in which they had settled. The CBJMP of Venice (a judicial officer) intervened in the latter’s favour, proving that in order to justify his request, the Patriarch had presented a false document of privilege that was supposed to have been accorded to the Orthodox Church by Mohammed himself!

Furthermore, the Ottoman Porte could clearly see the risks entailed by the enactment of the decisions made at the 17th Ecumenical Council held in Florence (1439–55), which formally declared the end of the Great Schism of 1054 that had officially started the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches. Assembled in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Greek and Latin fathers each accepted the Decree of Union of the Eastern and Roman Churches (16 July 1439), leaving some months later for their respective folds so as to put into effect the directives adopted in Florence. However, if this decision was delayed until 1452 in Constantinople because the local population was hostile to the project, the Middle East saw the Jacobites, Syrians, Chaldeans and Maronites accepting the proposed union. Ottoman rulers would thus always look very unfavourably at any Christian unification that might be advantageous to the Western Church; and, with the backing of the self-appointed Orthodox clergy, so as to impede this union, they would not hesitate to support or even encourage the quarrels that the various religious communities had between themselves and the government of Jerusalem.

The conditions which led – in spite of the established seniority of the Latins’ possession – to their eviction from the Tomb of the Virgin Mary located in the Kidron Valley are indicative, for example, of the intrigues that emerged at the end of the fifteenth century and lasted for several centuries, culminating in the painful events that occurred in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in 1757, during Palm Sunday celebrations. On that day, the “schismatic Greeks”, who were present in great number, sacked the Latin altar erected before the door of the Edicule, blocking access to Christ’s Tomb and the sumptuous decoration (on this occasion placed around the walls of the Anastasis) and beating the Franciscans with sticks as they pursued them back to Saint Saviour’s Convent.

For the first time, protestations to the Sultan from European courts, and reminders of early Imperial decrees giving rights to the Latins, led nowhere. The Catholic clergy lost its rights to possession of the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary for good.

This was not the first attempt of its kind, and is a sharp reminder of the calumny skilfully propagated by the Greeks, starting in 1656, as they sought to persuade Sultan Mohammed IV to expel the Franks from the Holy Site near the Garden of Gethsemane that had been in their possession for 360 years. The firman issued in the same year (25 April – 25 May)10 brings to mind the strange quibbling, so far removed from Orthodox theology and from its customary teaching on the subject of the Dormition of the Virgin, assumed body and soul into Heaven: “Now the Greek Patriarch and others in the Greek community, following a path of malice, wish to take the above blessed shrine by force from the hands of the Frankish monks, contrary to usage, relying on calumny and saying: DzF 'SBOLJTI NPOLT IBWF TUPMFO UIF CPEZ PG .BSZ – may God be satisfied with her – and have sent it to Europe”!11 The Orthodox clergy was doing no more than adopting a means (adapted to current circumstances) used earlier to serve the cause of a certain Jew, and of some Muslims, so as to expel the Franciscans for good from the Cenacle, notwithstanding its legitimate purchase by Robert of Anjou. Quietly enjoying their title to ownership, the Franciscans ultimately rebuilt the ruins of the site and constructed a modest convent; the galleries of its cloister, adorned by gentle Gothic arches, still stand today. The possession could have continued indefinitely had it not been for the covetous attitude of a man described as “an obstinate Jew” who was denied entry to the Convent of Mount Sion in about 1429 when he asked to visit the sacristy containing the putative tomb of the Prophet David, or according to other sources, “to perpetuate the malice of his ancestors who had also sought in their

7. Ibid., p. 203. These were the famous whirling dervishes whose brotherhood goes back to the thirteenth century.

8. Ibid., p. 205.

9. Ibid., p. 215.

10. Ibid., p. 315.

11. Ibid.

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54

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own times to usurp this place”.12 He managed to persuade a Turkish Santon (a Muslim Epicurean) from the Temple of Solomon (sic) that the “great treasure” kept by the brothers in the Cenacle was none other than that of King David, buried therein. He added that since the friars paid no attention to this sacred tomb they should be moved out. The Santon duly followed this cunning counsel, daily provoking the brothers with questions and insults. Exasperated, the Father Guardian consulted the city’s Mufti, hoping to obtain a fatwa so as to settle the matter once and for all.

This was one of the most fatal errors of judgement, serving only to fuel a conflict already based on groundless allegations. The chapel of the putative tomb was finally lost in 1452 and passed into the hands of the Muslims. This voracious action did not end there, as the whole convent became the target of expropriation and in 1522, it was even rumoured to the Sultan of Constantinople that the Franks intended to steal the body of the Prophet David to send it to the West. Fortunately the good relations between the Doge and the Sublime Porte enabled Venice’s special envoy Pietro Zen to dispel these accusations and keep the friars in possession of the site for a few more months. But it was only a brief respite: in the following year, the “Upper Room” was transformed into a mosque, and bit by bit the brothers were expelled from a property purchased at great cost two centuries earlier. Ultimately they moved into the present-day Saint Saviour’s Convent, but the property of the Cenacle was never returned to them.

If, since their expulsion, the Franciscans have been able to obtain the right to celebrate holy office there once or twice a year, they still wish to maintain their moral rights to this inestimable site. Thus the Custodians of the Holy Land jealously guard their title of “Guardians” of Mount Sion, a title none of them has wanted to renounce.

In 2013, the “Lower Room” of the Cenacle, turned into a synagogue (the room containing the putative tomb of David), has been the object of conservation by the Israel Antiquities Authority; but the establishment of a yeshiva (rabbinical school) in the buildings forming the cloister will no doubt impede the restitution – envisaged in 2005 – for some time.

Between the end of the eighteenth century and the fall of the Emperor Napoleon, the Franciscans of the Holy Land lived through another very precarious period, following the revolutionary events that shook France. In fact, the habitual source of income for the Custody, namely the alms regularly sent by French sovereigns and the even more generous ones offered annually by the Kingdoms of Spain, Naples and Portugal, and by the Italian principalities, almost completely dried up. In order to survive, the brothers were forced to sell some of their sacred vessels, as mentioned by Chateaubriand during his visit to the Holy Land in 1806.

It was then that the Greeks deliberately set fire to the Anastasis. Finding themselves without sufficient financial resources to rebuild the ruins and carry out the urgent repairs needed after this disaster, the Franciscans grudgingly had to accept Greek financing of most of the work, while yielding new rights to them, and, notably, ownership of the Edicule.

However, the weakening of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century was to allow the various Christian communities supported by European powers to consolidate their truly fragile positions. Squeezed between France, its traditional ally since the time of Francis I, and Russia, which was able to exert influence on the Orthodox population of its Empire, the Sublime Porte sought to keep its hold on Jerusalem in the years around 1850 by setting up a commission to establish and verify the rights of all its people, and to seek new agreements. Its conclusions, which remained very favourable for the Greeks, were made known on 8 February 1852 in a firman sent to the Russians and the French Ambassador La Valette. While the text failed to address the request for the restitution of twelve shrines taken from the Latins and mentioned in the Imperial Capitulations of 1740 as given to the ambassador of Louis XV, it did put in place the principle that in the future nothing in the established order could be modified, and that it would therefore be advisable to maintain the Statu quo.

A century and a half later, these arrangements still stand, having been the object of preliminary international recognition of the State of Israel. They also justified the creation in Jerusalem of a Consulate General of France charged with protecting the Latins and ensuring that the detailed and complex plan is strictly applied.

Today, sharing the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre with the Orthodox Greeks, Syriacs, Armenians and Copts, the Franciscans have full use of the old Byzantine Patriarchal Palace in which, early on, they had been able to set up a small convent. In the Basilica, they still have possession of the Chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene and the Chapel of Saint Helen, as well as the right side of Calvary. In the Christian Quarter of the city, they gather in Saint Saviour’s Convent, the seat of the Custody of the Holy Land, around which they have been able to acquire a number of buildings now used as schools and residences for pilgrims (the Casa nova) or rented to the local Christian population at modest rates. In the Muslim Quarter, along the Via Dolorosa, they own the Convent of the Flagellation, which has been turned into a Franciscan university. Beyond the walls built by Suleiman the Magnificent and across the Kidron Valley, they can be found in the Gardens of the Mount of Olives and near the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, as well 12. G. Golubovich, Croniche ovvero annali di Terra Santa del P. Pietro Verniero di Montepiloso, 1304–1620, vol. 1, Florence, 1929: “Quando, come e per qual causa furono scacciati i Frati Minori dal convento del Sacro Monte Sion”, p. 124, note no. 2.

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as in the small Convent of Dominus Flevit, which stands half way up the Ascension Mount. On Mount Sion, a small Franciscan convent stands a few steps from the Cenacle. In modern Jerusalem, on the West side, the State of Israel has just returned to the brothers the imposing buildings of the College, confiscated by the Jewish State after the Six-Day War. In Bethlehem, the Franciscans own a part of the Grotto of the Nativity (the altar of the Manger and that of the Magi), the Basilica of Saint Catherine ad Nativitatem, its mediaeval cloister and the adjacent convent, as well as the grottoes where Saint Jerome lived. Not far from there, the small shrine of the Milk Grotto, and down below, in the valley, the Shepherds’ Field.

As in Jerusalem, the Custody of the Holy Land has carried out considerable charitable work in Bethlehem for several decades, not only creating comfortable social lodging but schools, specialized institutions, and hotel and sporting complexes, helping the ancient city of David to support itself economically.

Present in the Holy Land since 1333, the disciples of Saint Francis have for centuries accumulated a series of diplomatic treasures, as we have only imperfectly summarized. Let us trust that they will always be faithful to their special vocation, and that even as dark clouds once again gather over the Holy City, they will continue to bear witness to the vitality of the Gospel.

pp. 54–55 fig. 4

Procession of the Latin Church to the Holy Sepulchre

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fig. 1

58

Mattia Preti, The Angel Appearing to Zacharias. Ain Karem, church of Saint John the Baptist

Neapolitan Paintings in the Holy Land Nicola Spinosa We have known for some time – reading early sources, archival documents and notes made by bold travellers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – about the considerable quantity of precious items and splendid works of art in the Holy Land. Most of these, together with a less substantial and less well-known group of paintings of sacred subjects, were donated by some of the most prestigious courts in Europe, or by individual communities in Italy, Europe or Central or South America, and were destined for the decoration and liturgical and devotional needs of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and other churches and monastic institutions; and most of these – in Bethlehem, Ain Karem and other locations in the Palestinian Territory – are mostly within the custody of the Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans).

Unfortunately, various political and religious events have conspired, in presumably fairly recent times, to disperse and perhaps even destroy significant portions of this patrimony. Yet it has been possible – thanks to the constant supervision of the Franciscans, after extensive local investigation and felicitous archival discoveries, followed by recent thoroughgoing study – to rediscover some of these groups of works, mostly consisting of liturgical objects in gold, silver and precious stones, wall-hangings and other splendid sacred items, with provenances in most instances (and in different periods) from Spain and Portugal, Mexico, France and Austria, Venice and Naples, Lombardy, Liguria and Sicily. Carefully selected and in some cases skilfully restored, and thus returned to their original splendour, these objects were spectacularly displayed in the recent exhibition held in the sumptuous setting of the Château de Versailles, with an opportunely-arranged section at the Maison de Chateaubriand, in the Parisian suburbs, comprised above all of various paintings from churches and convents of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.1 Without belittling the quantity and variety of the many items displayed in that exhibition, created in different periods both in Europe and overseas, it was clear to anyone visiting the Versailles section that what may have been the most substantial group of pieces, qualitatively speaking, consisted of works in gold and silver painstakingly created by Neapolitan craftsmen and sent to the Holy Land in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These were sent above all to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre as gifts either of the monarchs who succeeded one another on the thrones of Naples and Sicily (the Spanish Hapsburgs until 1707, the Viennese branch until 1734, and then the Bourbons until the mid-nineteenth century), or – through the Franciscans – of local communities.2 The exhibition of treasures from the Holy Sepulchre was not only an occasion to study and admire objects crafted in gold, silver and precious stones in Naples, but also to become directly acquainted for the first time with a group of paintings that arrived in the Holy Land at different times and were then scattered through churches and monasteries in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ain Karem and Ramleh: these were exhibited in the section held at the Maison de Chateaubriand at Châtenay-Malabry, and constituted another no less significant artistic manifestation of seventeenth-to-eighteenth-century Naples – in particular, of some of the principal movements emerging between the age of naturalism and the Baroque.

Certainly, these works form a smaller group than the gold and silver objects rediscovered thus far (however, it is likely that more extensive local research will eventually yield further art-historical discoveries), but as far as we can tell, they are also the sole and most notable group of paintings reflecting the various schools and trends of Italian and European sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury painting in the Holy Land.

The catalogue of the exhibition mentioned above provides a sufficiently broad account of this surviving ensemble of Neapolitan pictures, some restored for that event and others since then, thanks in part to the generous contribution by Maurizio Canesso: in particular, this includes the canvas (already known to scholars) of the Nativity or Adoration of the Shepherds by the so-called Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (cat. no. 1), a gift of Spain housed since the mid-nineteenth century in the Franciscan convent of Ain Karem,3 and the series of eight canvases illustrating episodes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin 1. Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013.

2. For the presence of Neapolitan gold and silver in the Holy Land, see the richly-documented essay by A. González-Palacios, “Les présents napolitains en Terre sainte au XVIII siècle”, in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre, cited in note 1, pp. 152–63, followed by entries on individual objects by González-Palacios, M. Bimbenet-Privat and D. Véron-Denise, pp. 170–81.

3. The Nativity in the convent of Saint John at Ain Karem was first published in 1955, when it was included in the Spanish exhibition on the Holy Land (Father Sabino Muñoz, “El arte español en Ain Karem, patria de San Juan”, in Revista Geográfica Española, no. 32, 1955, p. 98) and contemporaneously published by Jesús Hernández Pereira (“Entorno a Bartolomé Passante”, in Archivo Español de Arte, 1955, pp. 266–73); subsequently it was also published by A. E. Pérez Sánchez in Pintura italiana EFM TJHMP 97** FO &TQB×B, Madrid, 1965, p. 374. These bibliographical references escaped the notice of both Giuseppe De Vito in 1998 (see note 10 below) and Antoine

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fig. 2

Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Shepherds. Geneva, collection of Francesco Valerio

Mary, ascribed (in part on the evidence of documents) to Francesco De Mura (cat. nos. 3–5 and figs. on pp. 96–97); the latter are the surviving elements of an original fifteen paintings, stated by Bernardo De Dominici to have been sent to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem,4 commissioned from the painter and paid to him, fully or in part, in 1730 by the Franciscan Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes, likely of Spanish origin, who was Commissioner-General for the Holy Land in Naples at that time.5 In addition to the canvases by the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds and Francesco De Mura, but also confirming that new research can still contribute to the identification and rediscovery of other Neapolitan paintings (not only in the Holy Land), I should like to point out that the church next to the convent of Saint John the Baptist in Ain Karem also Tarantino, in the catalogue entry for the exhibition cited in note 1 above, pp. 144–55, no. 18, where it is stated, however, that the picture was mentioned in the 1849 Condotta di Spagna as by Ribera, together with the Saint John the Baptist displayed in the choir of the convent church of the Baptist in Ain Karem, the saint’s native village, and included in the same exhibition (also catalogued by Tarantino, p. 148, no. 20) as by an anonymous Caravaggesque painter active in Rome in about 1620–30.

4. B. De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, Naples, 1742–45 (critical edition by F. Sricchia Santoro and A. Zezza, II, Naples, 2008, p. 1337).

In his account of De Mura’s works for the Holy Land, the Neapolitan biographer singles out a Nativity painted for the eponymous church in Bethlehem (untraced), and for what he generically calls the “chiesa di Gerusalemmeâ€? (perhaps identifiable with the church of the Saviour rather than that of the Holy Sepulchre) he states that the artist painted twenty-two pictures “di grandezza in circa di otto palmi l’unoâ€? with “varie istorie della vita e Passione di Nostro Signore e della vita della beata Vergineâ€?. Based on the documentary research of V. Rizzo in 1980 (“La maturitĂ di Francesco De Muraâ€?, in /BQPMJ /PCJMJTTJNB, XIX, 1980, p. 41; cited by Sricchia Santoro in her critical notes to the Vite by De Dominici, 2008, p. 1337, note 427), we learn that in 1730 De Mura was paid 150 ducats “a conto per lavorarli quindici quadri, che il medesimo deve dipingerli, per li Santi Luoghi di Gerusalemmeâ€?, consisting of six Marian episodes, seven Passion scenes, a Saint Christopher and a Nativity (maybe the one cited by the biographer for the church in Bethlehem), the last two untraced.

5. V. Rizzo’s catalogue entry in TrÊsor du Saint-SÊpulcre, cited in note 1 (pp. 164–69, no. 26, ill.) for the eight surviving canvases (restored thanks to the involvement of Maurizio Canesso; one, The Raising of the Cross, not included in the exhibition at the Maison de Chateaubriand, had remained on the wall at the Holy Sepulchre, and – now restored – is presented here in Lugano at the Canesso Gallery, cat. no. 4) is in error: it is inexplicably stated that De Dominici had referred to twentythree, not fifteen, canvases sent by De Mura to the Holy Land, as the biographer in fact says, and as found in the archival documents published by Rizzo himself.

As stated above, De Mura was paid for these canvases in 1730 by Commissioner-General Yepes, who on 15 October 1734 also paid 100 ducats for twelve vases (six with silver flowers) sent to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but still untraced: V. Rizzo, Un capolavoro del gusto rococò a Napoli: la Chiesa della Nunziatella B 1J[[PGBMDPOF /VPWJ DPOUSJCVUJ B 'SBODFTDP %F .VSB DPO EPDVNFOUJ JOFEJUJ, Naples, 1989, p. 46, doc. 71. At various points in time this group was divided between the Holy Sepulchre and the Franciscan convents of the Saviour in Jerusalem, Saint John the Baptist in Ain Karem, and the one in Ramleh. Further details can be found in the catalogue entry, below.

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contains a hitherto unpublished work by Mattia Preti, The Angel Appearing to Zacharias (fig. 1), painted shortly after the artist moved permanently to Malta from Naples in 1661.6 However, the most interesting recovery in these recent months, and which truly increases our current knowledge of Neapolitan pictures in the Holy Land, was the study – finally close at hand – of a Resurrection (cat. no. 2). This canvas – set in a finely-wrought silver frame unquestionably made in Naples between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – stood, almost illegible (partly owing to its condition, darkened by candle soot), in the uppermost part of the monumental Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre. It was brought to public attention by Fra Agustín Arce in an article published in 1959 by the journal of the Custody, which (beyond mentioning that the canvas was then generically ascribed to pupils of Raphael) provided information on its presumed provenance and original setting, though with some inaccuracy (compare the entry in this catalogue).7 Examined close-up, and notwithstanding the presence of more than a few areas of damage and repainting in the lower part of the picture surface, this Resurrection immediately revealed itself as an autograph work by Paolo De Matteis, another protagonist of painting in Naples between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the late Baroque gave way to the early Rococo.8 The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds’ Adoration of the Shepherds; Mattia Preti’s Angel Appearing to Zacharias (albeit from his Maltese period); Paolo De Matteis’ sumptuous, unpublished Resurrection; and Francesco De Mura’s eight surviving canvases from the cycle with stories of Christ and the Virgin – here is a group of paintings that together with works crafted in gold and silver, enable us to document some exceptional moments of the long and splendid period of flourishing of the arts in Naples

fig. 3

Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Shepherds. Naples, Museo di Capodimonte

6. We may recall that the same subject (with variations) was painted by Mattia Preti in oil on stone in the first bay of the vault of the Co-Cathedral of La Valletta in Malta, between 1661 and 1662. For the Maltese activity of the master, who died there in 1699, apart from J. T. Spike (Mattia Preti. Catalogo ragionato dei dipinti, Florence, 1999), who documents the various phases of the artist’s career, from Rome and Modena to Naples, see K. Sciberras (ed.), Mattia Preti: the Triumphant Manner, with a Catalogue of his Works in Malta, La Valletta, 2012.

7. A. Arce, OFM, “El Cuadro Tricentenario de la Resurrección en el Santo Sepulcro (1659-1959)”, in Tierra Santa (Revista Mensual Ilustrada de la Custodia de Tierra Santa), vol. 34, nos. 362–63 (March–April 1959), pp. 94–97.

8. My thanks to Friar François and the other Franciscans of the Custody in Jerusalem for having made possible a first-hand and close-up examination of the painting, overcoming various obstacles and difficulties. I am equally grateful to Maurizio Canesso for encouraging and financing conservation, entrusted to Serge Tiers, who also carried out work on the canvases by De Mura cited above.

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between the early seventeenth and later eighteenth centuries, in the context of the Holy Land. As we have said above, the range of styles takes us from the onset of Naturalism through the late Baroque and into the emergence of the Rococo.

The Adoration of the Shepherds by the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, datable to about 1630 – of which we know other versions with variants, more or less from the same period9 – reflects specific and significant aspects of some of the trends in Neapolitan painting, which was marked from the 1610s to the mid-1630s by the dry, vigorous naturalism of Jusepe de Ribera, who had left Rome in late 1616 to settle forever in the Viceregal Spanish capital and great metropolis of the South. The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds – whether he may be identified as Bartolomeo Passante or Juan Do10 – was, from the mid-1620s, among the major figures of the second fig. 4 Luca Giordano, Resurrection. Naples, church of Santa Maria del Buonconsiglio phase of Neapolitan naturalism. Coinciding with Caravaggio’s presence in Naples (1606–07 and 1609–10) and his extraordinary and enthralling examples of authentic, suering humanity, this phase saw the emergence of a luminous, Caravaggesque style that evolved in 1607 with Carlo Sellitto and above all Battistello Caracciolo, who was followed by the young Filippo Vitale, but which ended as early as 1614–15. Among the known, highly important (and presumably first) works of the still anonymous master are the following: the Annunciation to the Shepherds (fig. 3) and the first version of the Return of the Prodigal Son in the Museo di Capodimonte, the Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, from which the author’s enduring and conventional name derives, the other Prodigal Son in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Christ among the Doctors in the MusĂŠe des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, and some half-length figures of ancient philosophers painted with a more dense impasto of pigments and tarry tonalities.11 These are all works in which the anonymous master distinguished himself, as in the Ain Karem Adoration of the Shepherds exhibited here, though he was essentially following Ribera’s most recent footsteps, like other local painters of both older and younger generations: Filippo Vitale, mentioned a little earlier, and Giuseppe di Guido, formerly referred to as the Master of Fontanarosa, both still under the spell of Battistello; Aniello Falcone until about 1630; and subsequently, until 1635 or shortly thereafter, the younger painters (some very young) Francesco Fracanzano, Hendrick van Somer, known because of his origins as Errico Fiammingo, Francesco Guarino, Bernardo Cavallino and Antonio de Bellis. His style can be defined by vigorous handling, a markedly realist 9. Geneva, Valerio collection, 149 197 cm (fig. 2); Florence, Fondazione Roberto Longhi, 178 230 cm (a replica, 180 235 cm, perhaps painted with some “workshopâ€? collaboration, and erroneously regarded as a copy by De Vito in 1998, p. 12, appeared in a 1988 sale at MaĂŽtre Kohn in Bourg-en-Bresse: N. Spinosa, “Qualche aggiunta e alcune precisazioni per il Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastoriâ€?, in Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Raaello Causa, Naples, 1988, pp. 184–85, fig. 1, erroneously indicated as owned by the Fondazione Longhi and considered by De Vito in 1998 as a DPQJB iEJ CPUUFHBw ); Rimini, Pinacoteca Civica, 123 178 cm; Sao Paulo, Museo de Arte, 177 266 cm; Valencia, church of San TomĂĄs, chapel of the Holy Communion, 135 210 cm, the pendant of the Adoration of the Magi (see Pintura napolitana de Caravaggio a Giordano, exhibition catalogue, edited by A. E. PĂŠrez SĂĄnchez, Madrid, 1985, p. 68) – the latter being another subject replicated several times by the anonymous master.

10. The critical debate regarding the identity of the anonymous master continues, and still lacks incontrovertible evidence. He has been identified as either Bartolomeo Passante (distinct from the near-homonymous Bartolomeo Bassante, the author of a few compositions fluctuating between moderate naturalism and tempered classicism), recorded in early sources and collection inventories, or more recently the Valencian painter Juan Do, documented in Naples from 1626 to the middle years of the century, and whose only secure work is in Granada Cathedral – a copy, signed and dated 1639, of Ribera’s youthful .BSUZSEPN PG 4BJOU -BXSFODF now in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. See, also for the extensive prior literature, J. T. Spike, “The Case of the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, alias Bartolomeo Passanteâ€?, in Studi di Storia dell’Arte, no. 3, 1992, pp. 203–16; G. De Vito, “Variazioni sul nome del Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastoriâ€?, in Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano (Saggi e ricerche 1996-1997), Naples, 1998, pp. 7-62; Idem, “Juan Do riconfermatoâ€?, in Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano, 2004, pp. 85-91; and N. Spinosa, “Aggiunte al Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastori, alias Bartolomeo Passante o Juan Doâ€?, in A. Henning, U. Neidhardt and M. Roth (eds.), Mann LĂšOOU WPN 1BSBEJFT OJDIU BOHFOFINFS USĂŠVNFO 'FTUTDISJGU GĂ S 1SPG %S )BSBME .BSY [VN 'FCSVBS , Dresden, 2009, pp. 84–91.

11. For this painting and others by the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds – to which the Ain Karem Adoration appears to relate closely, in its stylistic resemblance, though with a slightly later dating – see the following, also for photographic documentation: G. De Vito, “Variazioni sul nome del Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastori�, cit. in note 10, figs. 1, 18, 20, and pls. V and IX; and N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli. Da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples, 2010, pp. 326–40.

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style and powerful visual eects, as seen in his saints and Madonnas, philosophers and personifications of the senses, and his chosen models: these were not so much (or not solely) the sort of people used by Ribera – men and women, young and old, wretches and beggars crowding the dark alleyways or sunny openings of the most rundown, poor areas of the Viceregal capital – but rather the proud shepherds and rough peasants of the Campanian hinterland, lying between the Agro Nolano and the hills of Irpinia or the Sannio, which he then depicted on his canvases with “tremendo impastoâ€?, as Bernardo De Dominici would acutely note a century later.

After 1635, in the wake of Ribera, things changed.

The Spanish painter had been receptive to recent developments – the result of what may be called neoVenetian influence in Genoa, Rome and Palermo – and modified his style, as is clear in paintings ranging from the Immaculate Conception for the nunnery church of the Discalced Augustinians in Salamanca, the -BNFOUBUJPO and Prophets for the Certosa di San Martino in Naples, and the Martyrdom of Saint Philip in the Museo del Prado, to the last canvases before his death in 1652 (including the $MVCGPPU in the Louvre and the Communion of the Apostles for the choir of the Certosa in Naples). These works reflect a shift towards naturalism and a pursuit of the picturesque imbued with a mellowed, more communicative mode of expression, in the depiction of both states of mind and fig. 5 Luca Giordano, Resurrection. Formerly art market, London sincere emotion and sentiment. Similarly, the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, like other Neapolitan painters steeped in naturalism (including Aniello Falcone, who was attentive to Poussin’s adoption of neo-Venetian classicism in Rome), gradually mitigated the vigorous, tarry and austere brushwork of his earlier paintings. Now his pigments were laid on less densely, with lighter hues, and while his subjects were still shepherds, peasants and residents of suburban Naples, the artist now used a more controlled, contained idiom, giving greater emphasis to human, quotidian truths and a calmer, more intimate sense of domestic life. Meanwhile, especially during the 1640s and in Massimo Stanzione’s wake, other painters of earlier and varied training, ranging from Andrea Vaccaro to Francesco Guarino, were gradually reviving and reworking past examples of Reni-influenced classicism, though with distinct results, and seeking to reconcile them (as in the almost isolated case of Bernardo Cavallino) with aspects of the neo-Venetian classicism of Simon Vouet at the end of his Roman sojourn, before returning to Paris.12 We have now reached the middle of the century: and now, in Naples too, where Giovanni Lanfranco had worked for years, creating enthralling and contagious visual illusions, there began to appear the first and increasingly clear signs of a move towards a decidedly Baroque style, even if these emerged later than they had in Rome, for a number of reasons, religious and doctrinal as well as political and social.13 The stimulus here came above all from the presence in Naples, from 1653 to 1660, of Mattia Preti and his 12. For the early period of naturalism in Naples, following Caravaggio’s two sojourns there, see the wide-ranging contribution of Ferdinando Bologna, “Battistello Caracciolo e gli altri. Il primo tempo della pittura caravaggesca a Napoli�, in Battistello Caracciolo e il primo naturalismo a Napoli, exhibition catalogue, edited by F. Bologna, Naples, Castel Sant’Elmo, winter 1991–92, Naples, 1991, pp. 15–180: this is not an easy read, and some of its hypotheses and attributions should be revised, but it was an essential point of reference for subsequent discussions of the subject. For Ribera’s activity in Naples, see N. Spinosa, 3JCFSB -B PCSB DPNQMFUB, Madrid, 2008. For a summary of how Neapolitan painting moved towards a neo-Venetian and picturesque direction from the mid-1630s, and on the tempered classicism of Massimo Stanzione and what might be termed his circle, see the introductory essay by N. Spinosa in Pittura del Seicento a Napoli, cited in note 11, pp. 44–50, with earlier literature. For the direction taken by Cavallino after about 1640, and for his almost isolated role in Naples, see the recent monograph on the painter: N. Spinosa, (SB[JB F UFOFSF[[B iJO QPTBw #FSOBSEP $BWBMMJOP F JM TVP UFNQP , Rome, 2013.

13. For the combination of political, social and religious motivations that made the world of Neapolitan painting impervious to the Baroque trends that had been brewing in Rome, see N. Spinosa, “Baroque and Classical Tendencies in Neapolitan Painting 1650-1700�, in Painting in Naples 1606-1705: From Caravaggio to Giordano, exhibition catalogue, edited by C. Whitfield and J. Martineau, London, Washington, Paris and Turin, 1982–83, London, 1982, pp. 49–54.

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fig. 6

Paolo De Matteis, Meekness. Naples, Certosa di San Martino

sumptuous examples of Baroque art, conveyed through a kind of UFOFCSJTNP that was still rooted in naturalism, and aspirations to a neo-Venetian (and in particular, what we may call neo-Veronesian) manner of painting. But there was also the special impact of the young Luca Giordano, who after an early start marked by Riberesque naturalism, had directed himself emphatically towards a revival of Rubens’ Roman works, and who after subsequent Venetian sojourns had sought the dazzling revival, in a modern key, of the essentially pictorial, sunny and Mediterranean style of Titian and Paolo Veronese.

If the presence of works by Mattia Preti in the Holy Land is limited to the single canvas with The Angel Appearing to Zacharias in the church of Saint John the Baptist, Ain Karem (though it dates from the beginning of his period of progressive decline, compared to prior works in Naples),14 unfortunately – and inexplicably – not a single painting by Luca Giordano has 14. For Mattia Preti’s activity in Naples starting in 1653 and in Malta from 1661, apart from scholarly texts cited in note 6 above, the reader should also consult Mattia Preti tra Roma, Napoli e Malta, exhibition catalogue, edited by M. Utili, Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, March–June 1999; M. Utili in Ritorno BM CBSPDDP %B $BSBWBHHJP B 7BOWJUFMMJ, exhibition catalogue, edited by N. Spinosa, Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, winter 2009–10, I, pp. 240–47;

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yet been traced, if indeed such a work existed; nothing of his illusionistic and fantastic Baroque style, with a provenance from either Naples or Spain, where he worked tirelessly from 1692 to 1702.15 On the other hand, it is fortunate that our recent ability to better examine the canvas of the Resurrection, set in the upper part of the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, and identify its author as Paolo De Matteis, enables us to compensate (at least in part) for the absence of pictures by Giordano, and of the Baroque in general, in the Holy Land. Indeed the Resurrection is an important example of De Matteis’ work from the beginning of the eighteenth century, when, after his apprenticeship in Giordano’s Neapolitan workshop and a subsequent experience in Rome with Giovanni Maria Morandi (who was close to Maratta), he returned to Naples. There he sought to emulate Giordano in his most Titian-inspired phase, and, especially in the early 1660s, found inspiration in Caravaggio and Mattia Preti,16 reconciling this all with recent trends of moderate classicism and pre-Rococo style. This is documented in several works: De Matteis’ fresco of 1691 with the Assumption in the vault of the chapel in Palazzo Tirone in Naples; the canvas, signed and dated 1692, with the Triumph of Galatea, in the Brera Gallery, Milan; the frescoes of 1693–97 (especially those with Virtues) in the Neapolitan church of San Ferdinando; those of 1699 in the Pharmacy in the Certosa di San Martino (fig. 6); and the canvas of 1696 with The Virgin of Mount Carmel Consigns the Scapular to Saint Simon Stock, painted for the church of Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, also in Naples.17 These are paintings in which the artist (fig. 7), seeing the new classicizing trends coming out of Rome – themselves spreading through Naples with the new Arcadian cultural climate – set out to reconcile (as Francesco Solimena would do, with a dierent outcome) the models of Carlo Maratta with the airy, luminous and illusionistic art of Luca Giordano, who had in the meantime (1692) moved to Spain. Eventually De Matteis’ painting fluctuated between elegant classicism and refined Rococo, and was much appreciated internationally, which led him to be able to work successfully in Paris between 1703 and 1705, and then in fig. 7 Paolo De Matteis, Resurrection.

Naples, where during the time of the Austrian Viceroys, and until his death in Naples, church of Sant’Anna di Palazzo (demolished) 1728, he achieved success as a brilliant illustrator of subjects drawn from both the sacred and secular canons: a Miracle of Saint Nicholas of Bari for the church of that name in Naples, 1712; the Glory of the Immaculate Conception in 1717 for the cupola of the GesĂš Nuovo in Naples, destroyed in 1776, but of which two preparatory models have survived, respectively in the Museo di Capodimonte, on loan to the Museo Duca di Martina, and in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; celebratory allegories, such as the radiant modello for a unidentified ceiling decoration with Aurora and the Chariot of the Sun in the SchĂśnborn collection at Schloss WeiĂ&#x;enstein in Pommersfelden (fig. 8); and myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and episodes from Torquato Tasso’s (FSVTBMFNNF -JCFSBUB.18 and *M $BWBMJFS DBMBCSFTF .BUUJB 1SFUJ USB $BSBWBHHJP F -VDB (JPSEBOP, exhibition catalogue, edited by V. Sgarbi and K. Sciberras, Turin, Reggia di Venaria Reale, May–September 2013, Milan, 2013.

15. For the long career and vast output of Luca Giordano, see the various monographs by O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi (most recent edition: Naples, 2000), the catalogues of the exhibitions in Naples, Vienna and Los Angeles in 2001–02, and, for his work in Spain, the Madrid catalogue of 2002, edited by A. E. PÊrez Sånchez.

16. For Giordano’s revival of compositions by Caravaggio in Naples, including the Flagellation formerly in San Domenico Maggiore (now at Capodimonte) and the lost Resurrection once in the church of Sant’Anna dei Lombardi – of which we know two derivations by the artist, respectively in the Neapolitan church of the Buonconsiglio at Capodimonte (fig. 4) and in the Santuario del Monte Berico (housed in the Museo Civico, Vicenza), which appear to have provided De Matteis with a direct precedent for the canvas in the Holy Sepulchre discussed here – see the entry for the second version in N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli. Da Mattia Preti B -VDB (JPSEBOP, Naples, 2011, pp. 181–82, no. 94, with earlier literature. Another precedent appears in a Resurrection on the London art market (fig. 5 and cit. on p. 88).

17. For these paintings see N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento. Dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples 1986 (second ed., 1993), pp. 129–32; and N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli, cited in note 16, pp. 159–61.

18. For this phase of De Matteis’ career and the paintings mentioned here see the two publications cited in note 17, pp. 31–35 and 132–38; and pp. 162–64. On his whole oeuvre see also the recent monograph by L. Pistilli, Paolo de Matteis: Neapolitan Painting and Cultural History in Baroque Europe, Aldershot, 2013. With respect to the Resurrection in the Holy Sepulchre, see also his Resurrection in the church of the Pietà dei Turchini in Naples (fig. 9 and cit. on p. 88).

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66

I have just mentioned Francesco Solimena, an artist who gained recognition throughout Europe, and who was, after (or together with) Luca Giordano, the most highly-regarded and successful exponent of painting in Naples in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the wake of the various local trends of the Baroque style. Unfortunately, none of Solimena’s work has been identified in the Holy Land, either.

Yet in my opinion there is an indication of his high standing in the late eighteenth century, in both the major European courts and among illustrious patrons, on the one hand, and with the Franciscans who were involved in various ways with the adornment of the Holy Sepulchre and other sites in Palestine; and this reputation became stronger and more widespread especially after the early works of about 1680, with his initial study of Giordano and Pietro da Cortona, and then after 1690, when he revived the tenebrist, Baroque aspects of Mattia Preti’s Neapolitan work in a modern key. Solimena met with similar success and international esteem in the period in which Naples passed from Viceregal rule to that of the Viennese Hapsburgs (1707–34), when – touched by the idealism of Arcadian poetic culture – the painter first produced canvases and frescoes reflecting a sumptuous, bright classicism, as in the altarpiece of the Resurrection in the Belvedere Palace Chapel in Vienna, of which the preparatory sketch survives in the Österreichische Galerie in Vienna (fig. 10); after 1720, he created more complex compositions that were rigorously purist in form.19 The significant point here is that shortly before 1730, when (as Commissioner-General for the Holy Land in Naples) the Franciscan Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes planned the shipment of a cycle of fig. 9 Paolo De Matteis, Resurrection. Naples, canvases with Stories of Christ and the Virgin to Jerusalem and the Holy church of the Pietà dei Turchini Sepulchre, he turned not to the great master – now elderly, still very p. 66 fig. 8 Paolo De Matteis, Aurora and the Chariot of the Sun. busy, and above all, notoriously tight-fisted – but to the painter most Pommersfelden, Schloss Weißenstein receptive to his recent oeuvre, the young Francesco De Mura. According to Bernardo De Dominici, Solimena regarded De Mura as his most keen and sensitive pupil, and in any case the latter had recently provided notable proof of his qualities, and was earning a growing reputation through some prestigious commissions.

After a brief apprenticeship with the modest Domenico Viola, De Mura had moved to Solimena’s crowded workshop in 1708, distinguishing himself within a few years by his adoption of the master’s style and standing out with respect to many other pupils and pedestrian followers. His success led him – perhaps on Solimena’s recommendation – to receive his first important undertakings, in 1713 and 1715 (Naples, churches of San Girolamo delle Monache and San Nicola alla Carità), followed between 1725 and 1728 by further work that was always marked by a careful, intelligent emulation of Solimena: he painted for the Collegiata dell’Assunta in Castel di Sangro, in Abruzzo (large canvases with Christ Shown to the People and Christ Falling on the 8BZ UP $BMWBSZ CFGPSF 7FSPOJDB, fig. 11, of which the sketches survive in the Bob Jones University Museum in Greenville, South Carolina, and the Molinari Pradelli Collection at Marano di Castenaso, respectively); for the church of the Annunziata in Airola, in the province of Benevento, and once again for the church of San Nicola alla Carità in Naples; and, notably, for Santa Maria Donnaromita in Naples he painted an Adoration of the Magi (fig. 12) with iconography and composition that look forward to his fresco in the apse of the Jesuit church, known as the Nunziatella, in Naples. Almost at the same time, probably after completing 19. Solimena’s lengthy career and prolific oeuvre was marked by his inclinations (as one phase succeeded the other) towards a Baroque style midway between Luca Giordano and Pietro da Cortona, a revival of Mattia Preti’s Neapolitan manner, then of aspects of Maratta-inspired classicism, and a subsequent position between academic art and formal purism, before his final evolution towards a renewed Baroque intensity. Ferdinando Bologna’s monograph of long-ago 1958 is still valid, together with addenda (including Bologna’s own subsequent scholarship) outlined in N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento, cited in note 17, pp. 21–27, 51–55, 97, and 101–24; in 3JUPSOP BM CBSPDDP, cited in note 14, I, pp. 273–90; and in N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli, cited in note 16, pp. 28–31 and 217–35.

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fig. 10

68

Francesco Solimena, Resurrection. Vienna, Ă–sterreichische Galerie Belvedere

fig. 11

Francesco De Mura, $ISJTU 'BMMJOH PO UIF 8BZ UP $BMWBSZ CFGPSF 7FSPOJDB. Marano di Castenaso, Molinari Pradelli collection

(with some evident workshop assistance) the sizeable group of pictures ordered by Father Yepes – including The Raising of the Cross, painted for the Holy Sepulchre and presented here for the first time (cat. no. 4) after conservation – Francesco De Mura obtained further and ever more prestigious commissions (1730–34). Among these were works on canvas and frescoes for the Abbey church of Montecassino, destroyed by bombardment in 1944 (Stories of Saint Bertario in the chapel dedicated to that saint, of which three preparatory oil sketches survive in the Molinari Pradelli Collection, including the Saint Preaching, fig. 13); the frescoed Adoration of the Magi in the Nunziatella in Naples, mentioned above; and other canvases in the early Christian church of Santa Restituta, incorporated into Naples Cathedral.

It must be said, though, that De Mura’s growing, unstoppable success around 1730 – which may ultimately have prompted more than a little envy from Solimena – was that of an artist whose aim (as in the canvases for the Holy Sepulchre) was solely to render the compositions he had derived, sometimes entirely, from the old master’s oeuvre, less purist, and clearer, especially through brighter, more brilliant colours. This success was to culminate in 1737 with the commission for various allegorical subjects to celebrate the new Bourbon monarchy: together with Solimena himself, Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, Nicola Maria Rossi and Leonardo Coccorante, De Mura was engaged to paint the vaulting and ceiling of several rooms in the Palazzo Reale in central Naples, which had to be partly renovated for the forthcoming wedding of Charles of Bourbon and Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Immediately thereafter he received commissions for large-scale frescoes and canvases in the Benedictine church of Santi Severino and Sossio in Naples, begun in 1738 but only completed in 1746 after a break between 1741 and 1743, when he went to Turin.

There, at the request of Victor Amadeus of Savoy, and again because he was considered the most reliable interpreter of Solimena’s latest style, he painted frescoes and canvases in the Palazzo Reale. At this point, when De Mura’s maturity was at its zenith, and 69

fig. 12

70

Francesco De Mura, Adoration of the Magi. Naples, church of Santa Maria Donnaromita

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his prestige was fully established – comparable only with that of Solimena, who died aged ninety in 1747 – his combination of elegant classicism and moderate rocaille best exemplified the era of grand decoration in Naples.20 An era that had begun in the early seventeenth century with Battistello Caracciolo and was soon to end, in the later eighteenth, with Giacinto Diano and Pietro Bardellino (who had been trained alongside De Mura) and Fedele Fischetti’s refined CBSPDDIFUUP, as it sought to reconcile the moderate Baroque idiom of Paolo De Matteis and the nuovo classicismo of Anton Raphael Mengs and Angelika Kauffmann, each of the latter using a distinct voice, even in Naples.21 However, by now – with respect to De Mura, and especially bearing in mind his canvases in the Holy Land – the situation, and the style, were of course quite different.

20. On Francesco De Mura, see N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento, cited in note 17, pp. 50–51, 55–57, 92, 156–68, also for the extensive earlier literature; and K. Fiorentino in 3JUPSOP BM CBSPDDP, cited in note 14, I, pp. 305–14.

21. For the followers of the tradition of Neapolitan grande decorazione in the later eighteenth century – Giacinto Diano, Domenico Mondo, Pietro Bardellino, Fedele Fischetti and others – see N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento, cited in note 17.

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fig. 13

Francesco De Mura, Saint Bertario Preaching. Marano di Castenaso, Molinari Pradelli collection

73

74

Precious Ornaments in Naples and Jerusalem, and a Note on the De Blasio Family of Silversmiths Angela Catello In the realm of Baroque art, Neapolitan silver- and goldsmiths’ work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a fundamental link between the fine arts – painting, sculpture and architecture – and the so-called decorative arts, and for many years it played a key role in the definition of form, modelling and language of ornament.

In Naples the working of precious metals had very ancient origins, but it was only in the early seventeenth century that a set of favourable conditions emerged – ranging from greater availability of silver and gold from Latin-American mines to urgent requests for furnishings by an ever-expanding category of patrons – that led to an extensive development of this artistic genre.

Thus it was that in the seventeenth century the value for silver furnishings alone in places of worship amounted to eight million ducats; and in the century that followed the estimate for altar decorations and liturgical furnishings was twenty million ducats.1 The rich items of silver decoration for high altars or chapels dedicated to various saints included crosses, candelabra, vases with floral motifs, tabernacles, and cherubs for placement over altars, as well as altar frontals, architectural canopies and reliquary busts – all items that gave church interiors a resplendent and extraordinarily unified appearance in which the magnificence of ornament in precious metal existed in harmony with the overall decorative project, punctuated by the layout of precious materials such as polychrome marble, pietra dura, wood and stucco.

Moreover, the Counter-Reformation period had seen a great renewal of church decoration, in accordance with the observance of religious regulations that governed established and new liturgy and the various feasts of the church year.

Costly gifts of silver by the aristocracy and a very rich clergy underlined a level of generosity that bordered on ostentation and became a symbol of established power and economic prestige.

A more than secondary role was played by widespread popular devotion, which used the collection of funds to contribute to modernizing church decoration, dealing with its maintenance and restoration, and commissioning new works, the tangible signs of religious sentiment directed with great fervour to patron saints and especially to relics – sacred fragments of their existence on earth – which became objects of extraordinary veneration.2 When in 1734 Naples became the southern capital of Charles of Bourbon’s kingdom, it did not escape the monarch’s notice that a privileged relationship could be established with the city’s principal patron (Saint Januarius, or San Gennaro), and indirectly with its devout population, through the symbolic value of a precious object; and on his arrival in Naples in 1734, Charles’ first gift to San Gennaro was a small cross studded with diamonds and rubies. This was followed by other gifts, made on various occasions by the Royal Family, destined to enrich the extraordinary pectoral of the saint.3 Again as homage to San Gennaro, Charles of Bourbon made a personal donation of 2000 ducats for the creation of the large-scale Splendori of the Chapel of the Treasure, executed by the master silversmith Filippo Del Giudice, who left his mark there in 1744.4 The most important places of worship in the provinces were also the object of gifts of silver: after a visit to Puglia in 1741 the sovereign commissioned the Roman architect Antonio Canevari to create a sumptuous silver Baldacchino with a gilded monstrance studded with gems; and the Queen added two emerald pendants.5 These are now untraced, and we do not even know whether a monstrance by Luigi Vanvitelli was completed – a work he was designing in 1758 and that is discussed in his letters; the project was brought to the Queen’s attention p. 74 fig. 1

Andrea De Blasio, 5BCFSOBDMF, 1729. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Museum

1. E. and C. Catello, "SHFOUJ OBQPMFUBOJ EBM 97* BM 9*9 TFDPMP, Naples, 1973, pp. 37–38, 62 and passim. See also the same authors’ “Argentiâ€?, in CiviltĂ del ’700 a Napoli, exhibition catalogue (Naples), Florence, 1979–80, II, p. 217.

2. A. Catello, “Santi protettori tra devozione e spettacolo�, in (JVCJMJ F 4BOUJ E BSHFOUP, exhibition catalogue, edited by A. Catello and U. Bile, Naples, 2000, p. 16.

On how relics became part of a treasury, see the recent essay by G. Luongo, “Il tesoro di San Gregorio Armeno�, in N. Spinosa, A. Pinto and A. Valerio (eds.), San Gregorio Armeno. Storia, architettura, arte e tradizioni, Naples, 2013. The most substantial group of precious objects made to contain relics of saints, apart from the busts in the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, is the treasury of San Gregorio Armeno, on which see A. Catello, “Simboli del Sacro in metallo prezioso�, in San Gregorio Armeno, cit., pp. 255–56.

3. A. GonzĂĄlez-Palacios, “Fatti e congetture su Michele Lofranoâ€?, in Antologia di Belle Arti, 5, 1978, pp. 65–68; E. and C. Catello in CiviltĂ del ’700 a Napoli, cited in note 1, p. 228; and A. GonzĂĄlez-Palacios, *M UFNQJP EFM (VTUP -F BSUJ EFDPSBUJWF JO *UBMJB GSB DMBTTJDJTNP F CBSPDDP 3PNB F JM 3FHOP EFMMF %VF 4JDJMJF, Milan, 1984, p.

350. On the collar-piece of San Gennaro, see also the entry by P. Giusti in San Gennaro tra Fede Arte e Mito, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 1997, p. 174, with prior literature.

4. E. and C. Catello, "SHFOUJ OBQPMFUBOJ EBM 97* BM 9*9 TFDPMP, cited in note 1, p. 290.

5. P. D’Onofrj, Elogio estemporaneo per la gloriosa memoria di Carlo III, Naples, 1789, p. CVII; A. GonzĂĄlez-Palacios, “Le arti decorative e l’arredamento alla corte di Napoli: 1734-1805. Oreficeriaâ€?, in CiviltĂ del ’700 a Napoli, cited in note 1, II, p. 82.

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fig. 2

Andrea De Blasio, 5BCFSOBDMF, 1729, detail of the cupola. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Museum

on several occasions, with details such as the colouring of the parts that were designed to hold the precious stones that would have enriched the gold framework, together with diamonds.6 Like their predecessors, Charles and Ferdinand of Bourbon and their respective consorts followed royal precedent by commissioning liturgical ornaments in silver and gold, enriched with gems, for both personal devotion and political opportunity, and in any case as an expression of the entire community’s religious sentiment. Yet only a small part of this immense legacy has come to us, having overcome or avoided the various dispersions, thefts, and above all Bourbon confiscations at the end of the eighteenth century, which led to the mass melting-down of crafted silver from churches throughout the Kingdom, with the exception of statues of patron saints and items for use in daily liturgy, and with greater penalties inflicted on the capital as opposed to provincial towns. Scholarship carried out in recent decades by Alvar González-Palacios is therefore of great significance, since it has led to the discovery of an extraordinary group of full-scale ornaments in gold and precious stones, exceptional as regards both execution and material quality, sent from Naples to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem during the reign of Charles of Bourbon, in the decade 1746–56.7 Together with other works in silver, covering the years between 1714 and 1762, these items were placed in the care of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, which has meant that they have been practically inaccessible until now.

The same scholar curated the precious ornaments section of the exhibition Trésor du Saint Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem (April–July 2013) held in the Musée du Château in Versailles and the Maison de Chateaubriand in Chatenay-Malabry.8 Displayed for the first time together, these works were re-examined in the light of post-1993 scholarship, and thus with an improved definition of Royal munificence, which was supported by the “alms” of the “most faithful vassals” of the King, and thus by funds that 6. F. Strazzullo, -F MFUUFSF EJ -VJHJ 7BOWJUFMMJ EFMMB #JCMJPUFDB QBMBUJOB EJ $BTFSUB, Galatina, 1977, vol. II, 579, p. 247; 595, p. 272; A. González-Palacios, Il Gusto EFJ QSJODJQJ BSUF EJ DPSUF EFM 97** F EFM 97*** TFDPMP, Milan, 1993, I , pp. 126–27.

7. A. González-Palacios, Il tempio del Gusto, cited in note 3, p. 352. The whole question of precious ornaments sent from Naples to Jerusalem is treated in depth by the same scholar in his essay “Doni di Carlo III in Terrasanta”, in Il Gusto dei principi, cited in note 6, pp. 121–29.

8. A. González-Palacios, “Les présents napolitains en Terre sainte au XVIIIe siècle”, in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013, Cinisello Balsamo, 2013, pp. 153–59.

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the Commissioner-General for the Holy Land could gather from these “benefactors”. The catalogue also addressed subjects already treated in 1993, such as the authorship of individual works which (like many items commissioned by the monarch) lack makers’ marks, especially those made of gold and precious stones: the Monstrance of 1746 for the display of the Holy Sacrament, which was to be placed within the Baldacchino of 1754, the Cross with lapis lazuli parts, from two years later, or the great Pastoral of 1756.9 The absence of marks is fairly common in works commissioned by the Crown, even if this was not exclusively so; by virtue of special relationships between the silversmith and the patron one might avoid the legal oversight that guaranteed the purity of metallic content. The only exception here – but of course a full signature also reflects the satisfaction of having completed such an exceptional piece – is the golden Chalice of Ferdinand IV, of 1761 (Naples, Treasure of San Gennaro), the work of the court jeweller Michele Lofrano.10 Also lacking marks is the earliest silver ornament to be sent from Naples to the Holy Sites, the 1714 Baldacchino attributed by González-Palacios to Domenico D’Angelo on the basis of a document published even before the existence of the piece was known.11 On the other hand, we find a full signature, “Januarius De Blasio Aurifaber”, and the date 1731, on the theatrical Paliotto (altar frontal) for the Holy Sepulchre.12 Gennaro De Blasio (documented from 1714 to 1752) was the oldest son of Andrea, the founder of a family of silversmiths who were mostly active in the field of liturgical ornaments and precious metal statuary, until beyond the middle of the eighteenth century.13 Here too the unusual detail of a full signature on a strip at the base, together with the naming of Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes, Commissioner for the Holy Land in Naples, underlines the commitment involved in the execution of a work that was architectural in aspect, over two metres long, and made with techniques ranging from engraving (for the background arches) and embossing (for the structure of the plate) to lost-wax casting (for the foreground figures, in full relief ).

The central scene is a depiction of the Pentecost, framed by drapery that wraps itself like a stage curtain around the lateral Corinthian columns, with the Apostles crowded around the Virgin against a semicircular apse background, while the dove of the Holy Spirit sends down its golden rays. Here the accentuated theatrical quality and Baroque ardour of movement echo the scenic approach adopted fifteen years earlier by the De Blasio workshop in the altar frontal with the Annunciation in Otranto Cathedral.14 Andrea De Blasio’s name reappears in the story of the Jerusalem silver on a hitherto unpublished work, the 5BCFSOBDMF with Saints Peter and Paul for the Holy Sepulchre (1729), monogrammed ADB (fig. 1). The setting – a small quadrangular temple with cut corners, strongly projecting pilasters with vegetal cartouches worked in contrasting silver gilt, like the other architectural elements – has a dynamic aspect, rich in ornamental detail, recalling the contemporary Tronetti (little thrones, or Baldacchini), a type of similar sculptural decoration already created by Andrea15 (fig.

2). The artist was extraordinarily prolific, at least to judge by his work throughout Southern Italy, but especially concentrated in Puglia; he made numerous pieces for fig. 3 Andrea De Blasio, Saint Anastasius, 1708 (after a design by Muzio Nauclerio). this region, where the ecclesiastical treasures of cities and small towns have remained Troia, Museo Diocesano more or less whole. It is worth giving a summary of his career, which saw him active in the field of statuary work, in which he is documented starting in 1694. He made models after his own invention, including the Saint Martin and Saint Comasia 9. This scholar’s catalogue entries on the Neapolitan works, and their respective illustrations, appear on pp. 160, 170, 172, 176 and 178–81 of Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre, cited in note 8.

10. E. and C. Catello, -B $BQQFMMB EFM 5FTPSP EJ 4BO (FOOBSP, Napoli, 1977, pp. 105–06; A. González-Palacios, “Fatti e congetture su Michele Lofrano”, cited in note 3, pp. 65–66; A. Catello, The Treasure of San Gennaro. Baroque silver from Naples, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 1987, p. 37; A. Catello, El arte de la Corte EF /BQPMFT FO FM TJHMP 97***, exhibition catalogue, edited by N. Spinosa, Madrid, 1990, p. 249; and P. Giusti in San Gennaro, cited in note 3, p. 178.

11. E. Catello, “L’arte argentaria napoletana nel XVIII secolo”, in F. Strazzullo (ed.), Settecento napoletano. Documenti, I, Naples, 1982, p. 56, doc. 9; A. GonzálezPalacios, “Doni di Carlo III in Terrasanta”, cited in note 7, pp. 122–23; and Idem in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre, cited in note 8, p. 153 and entry on p. 160.

12. E. and C. Catello, Argenti napoletani, cited in note 1, p. 262; E. and C. Catello, Scultura in argento nel Sei e Settecento a Napoli, Naples, 2000, pp. 47, 48, 110–11, pls. on pp. 188–89; and A. González-Palacios in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre, cited in note 8, entry on p. 170. Our publication presents the altar antependium in colour for the first time.

13. For the activity of the De Blasio family one should at least read the recent articles by E. Catello, “Gli argenti e le botteghe di famiglia ‘agli Orefici’. Andrea de Blasio”, in Gli argenti di San Martino (Quaderni della Basilica, edited by Don Franco Semeraro), Martina Franca, 2012; and G. Boraccesi, “La statua argentea di San Martino un inedito di Andrea de Blasio”, in Umanesimo della pietra, no. 6, Martina Franca, 2000, pp. 63–75, with earlier literature.

14. M. Paone, “I lunghi secoli dell’argento”, in *M #BSPDDP B -FDDF F OFM 4BMFOUP, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 1995, pp. 184–85; E. and C. Catello, Scultura in argento, cited in note 12, p. 48.

15. On the spread of Neapolitan tronetti in the eighteenth century, see A. Catello in 3JUPSOP BM CBSPDDP exhibition catalogue, Naples, 2009, II, p. 127.

A tronetto by Andrea De Blasio is housed in Otranto Cathedral: see M. Paone, *M #BSPDDP B -FDDF, cited in note 14, p. 200.

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(1700 and 1714, respectively) for the Collegiate church in Martina Franca and the Saint Paulinus for the Cathedral in Nola (1741), or collaborated with other members of his family, as in the Saint Theresa for the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro (1715). He worked under the direction of other artists who were responsible for sculptural models, as in the case of the 1708 Saint Anastasius for the Cathedral in Troia (fig. 3), made after a model by Muzio Nauclerio; the lost Saint Andrew and Saint Bartholomew made for the Neapolitan Monastery of Donnaregina (1718) after a design and model

by Solimena; and the Saint Michael the Archangel (1719) for the Cathedral in Bitetto, related to a model by Paolo De Matteis.16 He also made the altar frontals, liturgical accessories, niches for images and altar steps in the Chapel of the Virgin of Constantinople in the Cathedral of Acquaviva delle Fonti (1753).17 In this last case the silversmith’s mark is Andrea’s but it was his son Gennaro who received the official commission, as would happen throughout that decade. The hallmark, on the other hand, belongs to Andrea’s younger son, Baldassarre.

These two marks recur together in subsequent years, probably due to the not infrequent habit in family workshops of making continued use of the founder’s punch mark. In any case the stylistic uniformity of works coming from this shop is constant, proving the presence of an organized oeuvre that endured beyond the input of its individual members.

As for Andrea De Blasio’s direct relationship with painters for the crafting in silver of their clay models, the statue of Saint fig. 4 Andrea De Blasio, Altar Cross, 1720.

Michael mentioned above bears witness to a collaboration of Martina Franca, Cathedral, Treasury sorts between the silversmith and the painter – described by early sources as someone who took pleasure (“si dilettava”) in sculpture – that may not be an isolated instance. Paolo De Matteis worked on numerous occasions for the churches of San Sebastiano, San Rocco and the Annunziata on commission from the wealthy corporation of tanners in Guardia Sanframondi, the De Blasio family’s native town; and their paths could also have crossed in Puglia, where the painter was well-known and soughtafter, and where the De Blasio family received a constant flow of commissions from churches and confraternities; or perhaps in Martina Franca, where Andrea worked several times for the Collegiate church. Apart from the full-length statues mentioned above, his oeuvre includes a Chalice, decoration for a Cartegloria (a frame containing religious texts), a Pax and an Altar Cross of 1720 (figs. 4 and 5) for the Confraternity of the Immacolata dei Nobili (the Reliquary of the Virgin’s veil); in 1709 De Matteis had painted a Virgin and Child with Saints Augustine and Monica for the church of the Augustinian nunnery there.18 The relief with the Resurrection, exhibited here (cat. no. 6), is of superb quality and monumental in both scale and weight – “two hundred and seventy-six pounds of silver”. Identified in 1993 by González-Palacios, who published an initial image of it for documentary purposes, highlighting its artistic value in spite of the difficulty in viewing it in situ (its original placement is high over the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre), this great silver image can now be seen close up. We may admire its refined composition and the detailed treatment of the metal that reveals its expressive power. Dated 1736, it appears clearly related – through the continuing tradition of Luca Giordano’s art – to the slightly earlier painting of the 16. E. Catello, Scritti e documenti di Storia dell’Arte, Napoli, 1995, p. 236; E. and C. Catello, Scultura in argento, cited in note 12, pp. 244–45; M. Pasculli Ferrara, “La statua d’argento di Sant’Anastasio nella Catterale di Troia”, in Puglia Daunia, Manfredonia, 1994, pp. 21–24; C. Gelao, “Una statua d’argento di Paolo De Matteis nella cattedrale di Bitetto”, in /BQPMJ /PCJMJTTJNB, V–VI, 1982, pp. 188–95. See also R. Mavelli, “I busti d’argento dei Santi patroni di Troia”, in Atti del 27° Convegno Nazionale sulla Preistoria – Protostoria – Storia della Daunia, San Severo, 2007, pp. 301–02.

17. On the silver statues by Andrea De Blasio see note 13. For Andrea’s work in the Cathedral in Acquaviva delle Fonti, see E. Catello, “Gli altari d’argento nella cattedrale di Acquaviva delle Fonti”, in /BQPMJ /PCJMJTTJNB, III–IV, 1981, pp. 132–33.

18. G. Boraccesi, “La statua argentea di San Martino”, cited in note 13, p. 75.

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fig. 5

Andrea De Blasio, Cartagloria with the Immaculate Virgin and Saints Martin and Comasia, 1720. Martina Franca, Cathedral, Treasury

Resurrection now attributed, after careful conservation that has made it once again fully legible, to Paolo De Matteis.19 Lacking any identifying marks, this precious gift also saw the crucial intervention of Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes, CommissionerGeneral for the Holy Land, under whose orders the following works were shipped to the Holy Sepulchre (in chronological order): the Baldacchino by Andrea De Blasio, the Paliotto by Gennaro De Blasio – the subject, three years later, of a payment by Yepes of 100 ducats for altar vases – and the silver relief presented here, together covering a period of seven years. Bearing this in mind, and apart from questions of technique or style discussed in the entry (pp. 98–101), it seems plausible to attribute it to the De Blasio workshop.

19. See the entry by Nicola Spinosa in this catalogue, pp. 86–89.

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Catalogue of the E x h i b i t e d Wo r k s

ANGELA CATELLO (A.C.) CHIARA NALDI (C.N.) NICOLA SPINOSA (N.S.)

1

MASTER OF THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS (ACTIVE IN NAPLES, C. –)

Adoration of the Shepherds OIL ON CANVAS, 

 CM

PROVENANCE

Jerusalem, Museum of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land LITERATURE

 S. Muñoz, “El arte español en Ain Karem, patria de San Juan”, in Revista Geográfica Española, no. 32, 1955, p. 98.  J. Hernández Pereira, “Entorno a Bartolomé Passante”, in Archivo Español de Arte, 1955, pp. 266–73.  A. E. Pérez Sánchez, 1JOUVSB JUBMJBOB EFM TJHMP 97** FO &TQB×B, Madrid, 1965, p. 374.  G. De Vito, “Variazioni sul nome del Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastori. Studio comparativo su due dipinti su tela attribuibili al Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastori”, in Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano. Saggi e documenti 1996-1997, Naples, 1998, pp. 7–62.  A. Tarantino in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013, pp. 144–45, no. 18.

Together with a canvas of Saint John the Baptist, probably by a Caravaggesque painter in Rome active in about 1620 (see A. Tarantino in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand, Châtenay-Malabry, 16 April – 14 July 2013, p. 148, no. 20), this was a gift of Spain in 1849 (when both pictures were listed as by Jusepe de Ribera in the Condotta di Spagna), housed for many years in the Monastery of Saint John at Ain Karem, the birthplace of John the Baptist. Indicated also as a Nativity, it was displayed for the first time in 1955 as part of a Spanish exhibition about the Holy Land, and published on that occasion, both by Father Sabino Muñoz and Jesús Hernández Pereira, who attributed it to Bartolomeo Passante.

Subsequently, after Ferdinando Bologna (Francesco Solimena, Naples, 1958, pp. 30–32, note 6) suggested, opportunely, that the authorship of a whole group of paintings – formerly given to Velázquez or Ribera, initially, and then to Bartolomeo Passante – should be assigned to an anonymous painter, referred to provisionally as the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, given the existence of a number of paintings that included this subject, the canvas before us was mentioned in 1965 by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, and in 1998 by Giuseppe De Vito. On the latter occasion (pp. 7–62) and for the first time, adopting earlier hypotheses by Raffaello Causa and Maurizio Marini, but also basing himself on the implausible reading of a monogram of interlaced letters present in some of the anonymous master’s canvases, De Vito went so far as to propose an identification with Juan Do. This little-known (or imperfectly known) painter was born in Játiva, in the province of Valencia, and documented from 1625 in Naples, where he had certainly been active for some years; in 1639, with Ribera, he jointly signed a copy of a MartyrEPN PG 4BJOU -BXSFODF painted by Ribera in about 1620 (possibly identifiable, among the many, mostly workshop versions of the subject, as the one now in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; the copy is set within a grand wooden SFUBCMP in Granada Cathedral). De Vito’s idea of identifying the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds as Juan Do, who at the age of 38 appears to have still been a collaborator and copyist of Ribera, has found little agreement, and was only accepted by Franco Moro in 1999 (“Juan Do, or the Master of The Annunciation to the Shepherds: another Great Spaniard in Naples”, in Twenty Important Neapolitan Baroque Paintings, exhibition catalogue, London, The Walpole Gallery, 1999, unpaginated). This view stood in contrast to another, already published in 1983 by J. Neumann (“Unbekannte neapolitanische Gemälde im Schloss in Opôcno”, in "DUFO EFT 997 *OUFSOBUJPOBMFS ,POHSFTT GàS ,VOTUHFTDIJDIUF, Vienna, 4–10 September 1983, vol. 7, Vienna, 1986, pp.

119–58), and in 1992 by John Spike (“The case of the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, alias Bartolomeo Passante”, 82

83

in Studi di Storia dell’Arte, 1992, pp. 203–16); though their starting-points were dierent, both scholars argued for an identification of the author of the entire group of anonymous pictures as Bartolomeo Passante (distinct from someone of the same name who in the mid-seventeenth century signed a Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, owned privately in Naples), a painter cited in the household inventories of early Neapolitan collections, in guides to the churches of Naples published in the late seventeenth century or immediately thereafter, and by the biographer Bernardo De Dominici in the mid-eighteenth century.

For the problem of identifying the anonymous master as either Passante or Juan Do, see also N. Spinosa, “Aggiunte al Maestro dell’Annuncio ai pastori, alias Bartolomeo Passante o Juan Doâ€?, in A. Henning, U. Neidhardt and M. Roth (eds.), Mann kĂśnnt WPN 1BSBEJFT OJDIU BOHFOFINFS USĂŠVNFO 'FTUTDISJGU GĂ S 1SPG %S )BSBME .BSY [VN 'FCSVBS , Dresden, 2009, pp. 84–91).

Until new archival discoveries are made, or the appearance of a clearly-legible signature on the works attributable to him oer us irrefutable evidence that the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds is Bartolomeo Passante, Juan Do or another painter, perhaps also of Spanish origin, among the various figures documented in Naples in the early seventeenth century, one thing remains evident, as Antoine Tarantino noted with regard to the painting discussed here: the whole group can be dated, within a chronology stretching for stylistic reasons from the mid-1620s to the early 1650s or shortly thereafter, to the moment when the artist’s experiences of Ribera, who had settled permanently in Naples in the latter part of 1616, were at their most vigorously naturalistic and emphatically Caravaggesque in inspiration.

With respect to this, the author of the Adoration of the Shepherds exhibited here – and of other pictures with mostly Biblical or Gospel subjects, but also of “mezze figure� with ancient philosophers, geographers and astronomers, or personifications of the senses, mostly datable to about 1630 – can be defined in two ways: he adopts brushstrokes that are obviously more dense and rich, with mostly dark, glowing tones (to the point that De Dominici called him a painter of “tremendous impasto�, together with other apparently similar Neapolitans such as the young Francesco Fracanzano, Nunzio Rossi and the early Francesco Guarino), and seems to select his models from people who were rough, morose, poor and defenceless, but also endowed with immediate and sincere sentiments and emotions, from the hinterland of Campania or the South in general – the wretched shepherds of Irpinia or the Abruzzo, and the exhausted peasants of the Agro Nolano and Puglia. For further discussion of this master and his known oeuvre, painted after 1635 with a clearer palette and an increasing gentleness of expression, see N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli. Da Caravaggio a Stanzione, Naples, 2010, pp. 326–40, with earlier literature.

The Gospel subject of the Adoration of the Shepherds was depicted several times by our anonymous master, using identical or similar iconography, and often in tandem with the scene of the Adoration of the Magi, as in the case of the two canvases with this pair of subjects in the church of San Tomås in Valencia. There exist various renderings of each, dierent in dimensions and in the arrangement of individual figures: the Adoration of the Shepherds is known in other versions, among others in the Pinacoteca Comunale in Rimini (perhaps originally a pendant of the Adoration of the Magi in a private collection in Barcelona), the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence, the Museu de Arte in Sao Paulo in Brazil, and the collection of Francesco Valerio in Geneva (fig.

2 on p. 60) (for which see the literature and related illustrations in De Vito and Spinosa) – all marked, like the present version, by dry, vigorously naturalistic handling, suggesting a date close to 1630, and in any case not beyond 1635.

N.S.

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2

Paolo DE MATTEIS

(PIANA DEL CILENTO,  – NAPLES, )

The Resurrection OIL ON CANVAS, ď™„ď™ˆď™„.ď™ˆ

 CM

PROVENANCE

Jerusalem, Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Rotunda of the Anastasis, Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre LITERATURE

 G. Scerri, .BMUB F J -VPHIJ 4BOUJ EFMMB 1BMFTUJOB "QQVOUJ 4UPSJDJ, Malta, 1933, pp. 31, 95, 116.  A. Arce, OFM, “El Cuadro Tricentenario de la ResurrecciĂłn en el Santo Sepulcro (1659-1959)â€?, in Tierra Santa (Revista Mensual Ilustrada de la Custodia de Tierra Santa), vol. 34, nos. 362–63 (March–April 1959), pp. 94–97.

Set in a silver frame, the painting is placed in the upper part of the marble Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, over the low door that leads to the Chapel of the Angel. Its presence here before 1808 is documented, as stated by the Franciscan Father Trifón López, who witnessed the terrible fire of that year that destroyed part of the Holy Sepulchre; significant items saved through the prompt reaction of the Franciscans included the silver lamps hanging before the Sepulchre itself, and, among the paintings, only The Resurrection. In an article published in 1959 the Franciscan Father Agustín Arce hypothesized, erroneously (ascribing it with some doubt to one of Raphael’s pupils), that this painting was to be identified with a Resurrection received as a gift, together with other works of art and liturgical items, from Spain, based on a reference in the Compendio historial de Tierra Santa, written in 1654 by the CommissionerGeneral for the Holy Land in Sicily, Father Alejo de Carabajal, and housed in the Biblioteca Colombina in Seville.

In 1859, the canvas, having been temporarily moved to Malta by Father Salvatore Antonio Vassallo, formerly Custodian of the Holy Land (1817–20) and Commissioner-General for the Holy Land in Malta from 1821, was restored by a certain Giuseppe Hyzler, who was paid 151 scudi for his work. But once back in Jerusalem, re-installed in the upper part of the Edicule, it again became almost illegible within a few decades, aected by the soot from the candles around it – or at least in a condition, not to mention position, that impeded the recognition of its authorship. Finally examined at close hand during the conservation of some of the paintings owned by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, after the exhibition of 2013 held at Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand at Châtenay-Malabry, the canvas of The Resurrection was revealed as an autograph work by the Neapolitan painter Paolo De Matteis, datable to somewhere between the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Thus, in any case, it could not be identified as the painting of the same subject mentioned in 1654 by Carabajal, and is certainly not attributable (as Father Arce had opined in 1959) to a student of Raphael. It is probable, instead, that the picture by De Matteis, having come from Naples (or even Spain, where a number of works by him survive, sent from Naples, the capital of its Viceregal Kingdom until 1707), replaced the earlier Resurrection, cited in 1654 among the Spanish gifts to the Holy Land, on the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre; the motives for this, and a precise date (likely to be between the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century), remain unknown for the time being.

The attribution to Paolo De Matteis of this Resurrection, exhibited for the first time here, has been confirmed by the results of recent conservation, which has enabled the original colours to re-emerge, especially the delicate flesh tones of the figure of Christ, modelled with great care and a refined sense of design so as to highlight anatomical and facial details, and the intense lapis blue of the mantle around him, opening out as it seems to catch the wind. This also represents a notable addition to the known oeuvre of the Neapolitan painter, whose career began before 1683 with an apprenticeship in Luca Giordano’s workshop in Naples and evolved with the Maratta follower Giovanni Maria Morandi in Rome. De Matteis began his professional ties there with the Marchese del Carpio, Spanish Ambassador to the Holy See, ties that were intensified when the latter was appointed Viceroy in Naples. Early exposure to the Baroque works of Giordano and subsequent contact with the measured classicism of Carlo Maratta’s 86

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circle in Rome were determining factors for De Matteis’ development, especially from the early 1690s: unlike the contemporary but only apparently similar evolution of Francesco Solimena, there was an evident desire – given the increasingly widespread Arcadian poetics of the time – to reconcile the need for clarity of form and composition, as well as contained expressive modes, with the brighter, more precious eects of colour found in Giordano’s work. This tendency, found in a quiet rocaille sensibility – specifically in the canvases for the Poor Clares’ church in Cocentaina (Spain), the overdoors for the Casa del Campo now in the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, and the Virtues frescoed on the vault of the Pharmacy adjoining the Certosa di San Martino in Naples (1690–99) – was certainly one of the reasons that prompted the Comte d’EstrÊes to invite the painter to move to Paris. There he carried out prestigious commissions (1702–05), which placed him in contact with the French classicists who were engaged in the pictorial decoration of the Royal Palace at Versailles at that time, and which reinforced his recent artistic leanings. After his return to Naples, evidence of his success (by now international) can be judged by numerous commissions, not only from churches in Naples and its surrounding area (especially in Guardia Sanframondi) but also from the Austrian Viceroy Count Daun, Lord Shaftesbury during his Neapolitan sojourn, Prince Eugene of Savoy in Vienna, and Cardinal de Polignac, for whom De Matteis worked during a second Roman sojourn, between 1723 and 1726, two years before his death and at a moment when his style stood firmly between classicism and purism, albeit in an academic key.

It is very likely that the canvas from the Holy Sepulchre with The Resurrection was executed at the beginning of the eighteenth century, given the presence of iconographic and compositional elements drawn from works painted by Luca Giordano immediately after 1660 and preceding his Spanish sojourn of 1692-1702. Among these, especially relevant for the figure of Christ, one should compare the Resurrection of about 1665, known in two almost identical versions, one in the Neapolitan church of Santa Maria del Buonconsiglio a Capodimonte (fig. 4 on p. 62; displayed for some time now in the Archbishop’s apartment in Palazzo Filomarino), the other in the Sanctuary church of Monte Berico near Vicenza (O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, -VDB (JPSEBOP - PQFSB DPNQMFUB, Naples, 2000, I, p. 278, no. A174; II, p. 555, figs. 255 and 256); and, above all for other resemblances of iconography, the version of the same subject (fig. 5 on p. 63), though painted a little after 1685, which appeared years ago on the London art market (Idem, -VDB (JPSEBOP /VPWF SJDFSDIF F JOFEJUJ, Naples, 2003, p. 73, no. A0162). One can also find precise references to these canvases by Giordano in two other paintings of the Resurrection by De Matteis – other than the painting presented here – though with a dierent complexity of iconography and composition, both painted around the year 1710: the canvas in the fifth chapel on the left in the Neapolitan church of the Pietà dei Turchini (fig. 9 on p. 67), with the figure of Christ almost identical to the one in the Holy Sepulchre (M. A. Pavone, Pittori napoletani del ’700. Nuovi documenti, Appendice documentaria di U. Fiore, Naples, 1994, p. 55, fig. 52); and the sadly destroyed fresco of this subject, signed and dated 1711, which De Matteis painted in the nave vault of Sant’Anna di Palazzo in Naples, demolished in 1958 and only documented by a black and white photograph, published here (fig. 7 on p. 65). The figure of Christ painted by De Matteis in both the destroyed fresco and our canvas is almost the same as those by Giordano in the compositions cited above. For its tonal qualities, in particular, it should also be considered as close in both style and date to other compositions by Giordano, in which one can find a no less evident echo of Mattia Preti’s Neapolitan oeuvre. Such is the case of the Triumph of Saint Roch in the church of San Rocco in Guardia Sanframondi, signed and datable to about 1712, and the fresco with The Virgin Welcoming Saint Cataldo into Heaven, signed and dated 1713, in the dome of the Cappellone dedicated to that saint in Taranto Cathedral, for which there exists a preparatory oil sketch formerly in the De Biase collection in Naples. For this painting and others executed by De Matteis between the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the following century, see the relevant literature and illustrations in N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento. Dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples, 1986, second ed. 1993, pp. 129–36; and L. Pistilli, Paolo de Matteis: Neapolitan Painting and Cultural History in Baroque Europe, Aldershot, 2013.

N.S.

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Francesco DE MURA

3–5

(NAPLES, –)

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane The Raising of the Cross The Lamentation OIL ON CANVAS, 

 CM EACH

PROVENANCE

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane: Ain Karem, Museum of the Franciscan Convent of Saint John the Baptist The Raising of the Cross: Jerusalem, Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of Saint Helen DzF -BNFOUBUJPO: Ain Karem, Museum of the Franciscan Convent of Saint John the Baptist LITERATURE

 B. De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani (Naples, 1742–45), critical edition by F. Sricchia Santoro and A. Zezza, Naples, 2008, II, p. 1337 and note 427.  V. Rizzo, “La maturità di Francesco De Mura”, in /BQPMJ /PCJMJTTJNB, XIX, 1980, pp. 29–47.  V. Rizzo in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013, pp. 164–69, no. 26.

COMPARATIVE WORKS

Works not exhibited here but forming part of the same cycle: The Annunciation The Dream of Joseph Noli Me Tangere The Coronation of the Virgin Christ and Veronica

“To the church of Jerusalem he sent 22 paintings, each about eight palmi in height, which represent various stories of the life and Passion of Our Lord, and of the life of the Blessed Virgin”1 – thus Bernardo De Dominici in his Vite, providing evidence for the important commission entrusted to Francesco De Mura in about 1730. In that year, as documents tell us, the painter received 150 ducats from Father Giovanni Antonio Yepes, who was then Commissioner for the Holy Land in Naples, for the execution of an initial group of fifteen paintings for the Holy Sites in Jerusalem.2 By this time, the illustrious pupil of Francesco Solimena had achieved fame, not just locally but internationally, which enabled him to be awarded the kind of prestigious commission his 1. “… nella chiesa di Gerusalemme ha mandato 22 quadri di grandezza in circa di otto palmi l’uno, i quali rappresentano varie istorie della vita e Passione di Nostro Signore e della vita della Beata Vergine …”: Bernardo De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani (Naples, 1742–45), critical edition by F. Sricchia Santoro and A. Zezza, Naples, 2008, II, p. 1337 and note 427.

2. For historical documentation, see the essay by Nicola Spinosa in this catalogue, (pp. 59–73 and note 4); V. Rizzo, “La maturità di Francesco De Mura”, in Napoli /PCJMJTTJNB, XIX, 1980, pp. 29–47; and V. Rizzo in Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre. Présents des cours royales européennes à Jérusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-Gaffiot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013, pp. 164–69, no. 26.

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teacher might have had. Of the original group of works cited in early sources, eight canvases have come down to us, all of which are illustrated in the present catalogue. Of these, four belong to the Marian cycle: The Annunciation, The Dream of Joseph, the Noli Me Tangere and The Coronation of the Virgin; and four to the Christological cycle: Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ and Veronica, The Raising of the Cross and The -BNFOUBUJPO. For years all memory of this commission was lost, and the works were dispersed through various sites in the Holy Land: the Franciscan Convent of Saint John the Baptist at Ain Karem, that of Saint Saviour in Jerusalem, that of Saint Nicodemus in Ramleh, and the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. Thanks to the attentive conservation given to all of these works, it has been possible not only to recover them, but also to re-assess their location. The four canvases belonging to the Marian cycle have recently been relocated to the Basilica of Saint Catherine ad Nativitatem in Bethlehem, in Palestine, while the four canvases of the Christological cycle – three of which are making an exceptional appearance in Lugano as part of the present exhibition – will be displayed in the future Museum of the Franciscan Convent adjacent to the church of Saint John the Baptist at Ain Karem, in Israel.

The qualitative level of the paintings is not the same throughout. While some reveal the explicit presence of De Mura’s hand – as in the case of The Raising of the Cross and the Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, exhibited here, as well as most of the Marian episodes – others betray evidence of assistance, an entirely customary practice when an efficient workshop was involved, especially with such a substantial commission.

All the surviving canvases are basically homogeneous as far as compositional structure is concerned: forms are distributed through space with rigour and almost architectural skill, and with a sense of balanced volumes, so that they feel more sculpted than painted. The stories unfold around just a few figures, arranged on rising diagonals, and gestures are calibrated and solemn. The point of view is concentrated and essential, so that the message is conveyed to the faithful clearly and naturally. The range of colours, too, is skilfully balanced, with dominant tonalities of warm ochre and orange interacting with saturated greens and ceruleans, but also silken pinks and refined modulations of white, in a quiet harmony of hues only occasionally enlivened by blood reds.

The cycle in question belongs to the early maturity of Francesco De Mura. These are the years of the canvases he painted for the Chapel of Saint Bertario in the Abbey of Montecassino (1731–32; later destroyed), which include an almost literal parallel for the episode of Christ and Veronica; and of his Adoration of the Magi on the inner façade of the church of Santa Maria Donnaromita (1728; fig. 12 on pp. 70–71), later replicated in the grand commission for the apse decoration of the church of the Nunziatella in Naples (1732). In this period the painter was strongly dependent on the model of measured classicism and rational purism advocated by Francesco Solimena, notwithstanding the fact that the great master was beginning to turn towards a neo-Baroque mode at this time. Composition and form were thus strictly tied to the earlier oeuvre of Solimena, as seen above all in the canvases painted for Santa Maria Donnalbina (c. 1699–1701) – especially as regards The Annunciation and The Dream of Joseph. Yet a first departure from his teacher can be perceived precisely in the use of a brighter, more luminous palette. De Mura’s classicism always held onto the richness, solemnity, movement and vitality that were typical of Baroque art. What we are looking at here are Sacre Conversazioni, in which theatrical representation is removed from the stage and brought to the canvas. We should not forget that in this period there was a powerful symbiosis between painting and the art of Nativity scenes and anti-heroic contemporary theatre, in particular the Arcadia of Pietro Metastasio and his canon of moderation, decorum and reserve. Thus excessive sentimentality is banished from these scenes, and space is given to contained affetti and a more intimate and suffused atmosphere. Even in the more dramatic episodes such as The Raising of the Cross or The -BNFOUBUJPO, tragedy and pathos remain on the surface, yielding to a gently mitigated narrative, with measured emotions communicated by ample, harmonious gestures, elegant forms and airy, billowing drapery, all married to monumental dignity. Only later, in the mid-1730s, would De Mura break with classicism and the neo-Baroque. Thanks to his experience in Turin (1741–43) and contact with Venetian and French painters, his art became more embellished and ever more directed towards contemporary rocaille style. This was followed by a new, more studied approach to regular forms and compositions, and at that point, between 1743 and 1746, he reached the zenith of his career, before shifting to an academic classicism that marked the 1750s and 1760s.

Of the three canvases exhibited here, The Raising of the Cross is shown to the public for the first time out of its original context; in fact until now the painting was placed on the stairway leading to the Chapel of Saint Helen within the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. In this case, the composition offers a direct reflection not only of Francesco Solimena but also of Luca Giordano, another protagonist of the Neapolitan Baroque. Giordano treated the same subject on a number of occasions, and his drawings and oil sketches of it are many and varied. It is likely, therefore, that De Mura had direct contact with one or more versions of the subject, and then painted his own version – for example, with The Raising of the Crosses, dated 1690 and now in the University Museum at Würzburg, of which a copy exists in the Musée des beaux-arts de Dijon. An even stronger resemblance can be found 92

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in a drawing housed in the drawings cabinet of the Museo del Prado in Madrid, datable to about 1702–04 and which can be associated with works painted after his return to Naples from Spain, in which the compositional structure follows the same strong ascending diagonal from left to right. The potent male figure lifting the cross, wrapped in dazzling vermilion drapery that makes him the visual heart of the work, also recalls the vigorous secondary figures with bare-chested, energetic and muscular bodies (often in the role of executioners or tormentors) that recur as archetypes in Luca Giordano, and later in Solimena. Even in airborne figures such as the angel dominating the scene in the Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can still find echoes of that ponderous, sculptural musculature in the torso and arms, and in the leg, solidly resting on the cloud – although the lightness of the elegant, golden ochre drapery and the pure white open wings return the whole to a dimension of equilibrium and measure.

C.N.

94

95

M ARIAN

CYCLE

The Annunciation

C HRISTOLOGICAL

The Dream of Joseph

CYCLE

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane

96

Christ and Veronica

Noli Me Tangere

The Coronation of the Virgin

The Raising of the Cross

DzF -BNFOUBUJPO

97

6

DE BLASIO Workshop (attributed)

(MASTER SILVERSMITHS ACTIVE IN NAPLES AND SOUTHERN ITALY BETWEEN THE LATE SEVENTEENTH AND THE MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)

The Resurrection SILVER, ď™„ď™‰ď™ƒ 

ď™„ď™Œď™Š CM

PROVENANCE

Jerusalem, Museum of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land INSCRIBED

NEAPOLI A.D. MDCCXXXVI LITERATURE

 E. and C. Catello, "SHFOUJ OBQPMFUBOJ EBM 97* BM 9*9 TFDPMP, Naples, 1973, p. 262.  A. GonzĂĄlez-Palacios, *M (VTUP EFJ QSJODJQJ BSUF EJ DPSUF EFM 97** F EFM 97*** TFDPMP, Milan, 1993, pp. 121–22, figs. 170 and 171.  Voir JĂŠrusalem, Pèlerins, conquĂŠrants, voyageurs, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1997, p. 32, tav. XIII.  J.-L- Gaillemin, “Les trĂŠsors de JĂŠrusalemâ€?, in Connaissance des Arts, no. 542, 1997, pp. 50–52.  *O 5FSSB 4BOUB %BMMB $SPDJBUB BMMB $VTUPEJB EFJ -VPHIJ 4BOUJ, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2000, p. 301.  E. and C. Catello, Scultura in argento nel Sei e Settecento a Napoli, Naples, 2000, p. 113, pl. on p. 191.  TrĂŠsor du Saint-SĂŠpulcre. PrĂŠsents des cours royales europĂŠennes Ă JĂŠrusalem, exhibition catalogue, edited by B. Degout, J. CharlesGaďŹƒot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April – 14 July 2013, p. 172, pl. on p. 173 (entry by A. GonzĂĄlez-Palacios).

This relief, monumental in both scale and weight in silver, represents the Risen Christ, shown ascending among the clouds in a glory of cherubim, and grasping the standard of the Resurrection, with the cross of Jerusalem, in his left hand; below, still deep in slumber, two figures lie guarding the tomb.

The work is made of four embossed sheets, joined together, with three forming the background, minutely chased so as to convey the idea of a rocky surface and (in the middle) a mass of clouds; the fourth makes up the ample drapery, incised with floral motifs and billowing in the wind, that wraps around the figure of the Redeemer. The latter is cast, like the other figures, but on a larger scale, with the raised right arm and corresponding leg crafted in the round and thus enhancing the dynamism of the sculptural mass, which is described in minute anatomical detail.

In the register of Conductas for 1737 (folio 27 verso) the date 13 August includes the shipment from Naples of “un quadro grande delĂ Resurecione tuto di argento, di duecento settanta e sei libre di argentoâ€?, for which 2,600 ducats was paid. Indeed the work presents itself as a rectangular “pictureâ€?, enclosed in a rich frame, also in silver, “a quattro ordini di intaglioâ€?, slightly curved at the top and punctuated at regular intervals by foliate cartouches; a scrollwork cartouche at the top bears the incised inscription NEAPOLI A.D. MDCCXXXVI (Naples 1736).

The narrative is conveyed with atmospheric breadth and clear perspective planes that make the scene believable; in the lower part, one to each side, lie the soldiers, unwitting witnesses to the miracle, their limbs heavy with sleep. On the right, we see a man, his head facing upwards and wearing armour; on the left, a youth, bare-headed and huddled over the stone of the sepulchre, which is partly covered by an edge of the shroud. This is a composition carefully studied in every detail, from the subtle burin marks of the rocky background, describing tufts of grass, to the smooth surfaces of limbs, touched by light with chiaroscuro eects that convey a sense of volume.

The work is unique of its kind, and confounds any comparison with contemporary silversmiths’ work, not even the scenes with figures found on altar frontals, which are bound by architectural rhythms. Instead, it appears conceived to make the splen98

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did figure of Christ stand out, victorious over death and emerging from the very entrance to the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre. Originally the relief was probably set within the Edicule, in the space surmounting Christ’s tomb, to which it corresponds in shape and dimensions, as can still be seen, in spite of the reconstruction following the fire of 12 October 1808.

The composition appears to be inspired by pictorial precedents aligned with the art of Luca Giordano and close to the work produced – albeit with a different scope – by De Matteis and Solimena during the 1720s, when they were at work on Viennese Imperial commissions. However, nothing is known of the author of this relief, or of the sculptural model on which it was based. Yet it seems clear that it has the expressive confidence of a great silversmith, and of a master who must above all have had a privileged and direct relationship with the Commissioner-General for the Holy Land – indeed, on a level high enough to enable the creation of a work in silver as imposing, also symbolically, as this one. During the period in question, the De Blasio workshop certainly fulfilled these criteria.

A.C.

100

101

102

103

fig. 1

104

Sacro Monte di Varese, the Via Sacra of the “processional rosary� running along the ridge that rises to the summit of Santa Maria del Monte

Jerusalem in the Pre-Alpine Territory Luigi Zanzi “Jerusalem in the Alps” sounds like a contest between topography and fantasy. Yet the challenge has been met, in a fantastic sense, in the Pre-Alpine landscape; indeed the creation of something fantastic can draw on unexpected resources in the history of place.

It may happen that one location echoes another with such cultural intensity that it is powerful enough to inspire the realization of a locally-transformed elsewhere that is experienced as present.

The link that history can create between one place and another, especially when a site-specific manifestation of divinity is involved (and allowing for multiple variations in faith and experience), results in various ways of evoking that place somewhere else, through the creation of works that may avail themselves of indispensable artistic input.

Over the course of its history, Jerusalem – as a “holy mount” and “holy city” – has become a reference-point for many other areas and cities of Europe, inspiring the creation of architecture and monuments, for example in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Florence and Venice (to name only Mediterranean locations); and its power of attraction as a “holy place” has been variously experienced elsewhere, in some cases even involving the notion of a city or some of its relics being “transported”.

Such re-location has seen fantasy yielding to concrete reality with the building of structures specifically configured to enable a mimesis of sorts, in which – even staying “at home” in one’s own geographical territory – another place can be experienced, even an overseas one, on the edge of desert lands, such as Jerusalem.

This topomimesis (that is, the imitative transport of one place to another) could be experienced by a whole community with relative levels of intensity, depending on how historical circumstances influenced the possibility of concrete connections between places that might be far from one another but linked by a potent magnetism of faith; and faith could even allow people to believe that a putatively sacred structure had actually been transported, by angelic means, by virtue of mysterious, invisible flight – as in the case of the legendary house of the Virgin Mary, borne by angels to Loreto.

fig. 2

View of some of the chapels of the Sacro Monte di Varese, towards the western Pre-Alps

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Collectively-exercised devotional practices became the keenest stimulus for building specially topomimetic structures, in which Holy Sites could be reproduced; and a crucial aspect of what we might call theatrical performances was pilgrimage, as found for example in the traditional journeys that took people from the plains of the Po Valley and Ticino to Santa Maria del Monte, overlooking Varese. Even if enacted in a place different from that sought by topomimesis, pilgrimage induced its participants to experience a journey oriented towards a place imagined as actually present and reachable, in place of the original destination, which had become unreachable – as happened with Jerusalem, with increasing severity, beginning in the sixteenth century.

The invention of a new pilgrimage to Jerusalem, experienced internally, and in one’s own territory, stimulated the building of so-called Sacri Monti in the Pre-Alpine area. Being at home, so to speak, while visiting such Holy Sites became more emotionally pregnant when the imaginary destination of the pilgrimage found immediate correlation in the natural surroundings in which it was taking place.

The distinctive landscape of the Pre-Alpine territory – defined by the broader region of the Upper Insubria, which includes not only northwest Lombardy but also a good part of the Ticino, as well as the so-called Malcantone – is formed by a harmonious meandering of mountains punctuated by lakes, or “water plains” framed by scenic views in valleys that seem to follow each other in a play of hill after hill, provoking a constant echo of shorelines in hemispherical bays, mostly limited half way along, or occasionally from above, by some higher peak (fig. 2).

Numerous aspects of these mountainous features have an impact on the practice of pilgrimage, either in the choice of destination (some singular peaks, for example the Sanctuary church of Santa Maria del Monte overlooking Varese, or stunning ridges between mountain and lake, such as the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso overlooking Locarno) or in the evocative choices imposed by one place or another when a symbolic reference to Jerusalem was sought – here as a “new Jerusalem” on the elevated plain of a mountain (as at Varallo), there as a via sacra (sacred route) ascending through a hilly assemblage of Jerusalem’s monuments, narrating the story of Christ (as at Varese, fig. 1).

Even though the iconography could be varied, Jerusalem was mostly presented in its Christian aspect as a city on a hill, a city reached by pilgrims climbing up to a culminating point considered sacred. Close to the ancient city of Jerusalem, perched on Mount Sion, there stood the hill on which Christ was crucified (a site subsequently embedded in the walled city of Constantine,

fig. 4 Sacro Monte di Varese, the fourth chapel with the “mystery” of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple p. 106 fig. 3 Sacro Monte di Varese, the Via Sacra in its ascending itinerary from the third to fifth chapels

107

108

fig. 6

Drawing of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre seen from outside (above) and of the Edicule, from the $PEFY 6SCJOBUF -BUJOP

p. 108 fig. 5 Sacro Monte di Varallo, the Piazza dei Tribunali, topomimetic recreation

and later of the Crusaders); the city was always seen as set within surrounding hills, of which the Mount of Olives was extraordinarily significant, and these hills were mapped out, in turn, by peaks that meandered towards the desert. Jerusalem was thus part of a landscape that was imagined in a dazzling “Oriental” light.

The vistas seen among the mountains of the Pre-Alpine region could thus lend themselves to a pilgrimage of the mind, in which familiar peaks became the setting for processional prayers, as if one were oriented towards the Near East, or Jerusalem itself.

North winds at dusk in the winter, or westerly breezes at dawn in the springtime, have always spread rose-coloured tints across the sky of the Pre-Alps, sometimes streaking the horizon with reverberating blushes of red, against the luminous apparitions of scattered constellations (with a highly symbolic crescent moon, next to the crystalline brilliance of the Evening Star), prompting hearts and minds to seek a visionary goal in the Orient – along a line distantly stretching across the range of the Alps, beyond the sea, and towards the desert, reaching a land that is other, in its transcendental nature.

These fantasy landscapes have as their goal – a goal of faith – the dreamy apparition of a Jerusalem “of the East”, exalted and holy in its literally Oriental light, the East of the dawn, where eschatological hope is announced and transfigured. Processional pilgrimages thus found the Pre-Alpine territories to be as rich as could be for a virtual evocation, through topomimesis and mystery, of the Holy Sites, and in particular of Jerusalem.

The Franciscan-inspired individuals who built the Pre-Alpine Sacri Monti (for example Bernardino Caimi at Varallo and Giovan Battista Aguggiari at Varese) were well aware of this topographical value, and they could take advantage of accurate reports made by both their fellow-friars who were Custodians of the Holy Land and numerous pilgrims who had undertaken the long land and sea voyage to Jerusalem; and this was precisely noted by the travellers who passed through the Pre-Alpine territory 109

in various eras (including, among many others, Alessandro Volta and Giambattista Giovio in the late eighteenth century, and Samuel Butler a century later).

An important element of montanità, or “mountain wilderness” (which is intrinsic to the idea of the Sacro Monte) is the play of one elevated place among others, as with the sacred mount of Jerusalem surrounded by hills; and thus pilgrimage was enlivened by these visual goals of one peak interacting with another, and the creation of a sort of sacred wall formed by the various Sacri Monti, standing as symbolic bulwarks – erected under the banner of the Counter-Reformation – against the Protestant states north of the Alps (figs. 3 and 4).

In this way, Jerusalem itself was topomimetically moved to a “New Jerusalem” on the frontiers of the CounterReformation, in the Pre-Alpine region that was the threshold between the Mediterranean and the world beyond the Alps.

The presence of a Jerusalem, even symbolically transformed, was incorporated in some of the monuments built to evoke the city itself (fig. 6).

At Varallo the “holy city” was built on a high esplanade of a hill that overlooks the “secular city” below, reproducing the urban layout of the parts of Jerusalem that were important for devout Christians (for instance, the Piazza dei Tribunali, fig. 5).

Similarly, the fifth chapel of the Sacro Monte at Varese, which houses the “mystery” of Jesus disputing with the learned men in the Temple (figs. 7 and 8), was created using obviously Roman-inspired palace architecture (in this case revisited through a Mannerist, pre-Baroque lens). These places were reproduced in the Sacri Monti with attention paid to every significant detail, as with the staircase leading to the Holy Sepulchre. In the chapels dedicated to each theatrically-inspired “mystery” the backgrounds were frescoed with views of Jerusalem (elsewhere, one finds painstaking historical-topographical maps, for example at Santa Maria degli Angioli in Lugano), sometimes including places that leave a powerful impression on pilgrims as they visit the Sacri Monti, reliving in a visionary way the story “performed” in each chapel (fig. 9).

The distinctive feature of this topomimetic representation is its dramatic animation through statuary images (a sort of Nativity scene, slightly larger than life, according to the most creative Franciscan tradition, which had already become the staple of so-called sacre rappresentazioni or sacred theatre) arranged in sculpted groups that interact admirably with the figures frescoed on the walls of the theatrical “set” (fig. 10).

figs. 7 and 8

110

Francesco Silva, details of the statuary group in the fifth chapel of the Sacro Monte di Varese: the “mystery” of Christ Disputing in the Temple

111

112

These scriptural representations respond with the exactitude of catechism, but also with historical and dramatic scope, to the Catholic world’s traditional adoption of works of art in achieving the goals of the #JCMJB 1BVQFSVN, or Paupers’ Bibles.

The Sacri Monti of the Pre-Alpine region thus constitute not only a singular natural demonstration of how a landscape made sacred by art can offer a concrete rendering of a topomimetic re-invention of Holy Sites, inspired by Jerusalem and the Orient (hard to reach after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571); they also naturally demonstrate (in line with the dictates of the Council of Trent) how art was valued as an instrument of Counter-Reformation faith when pitted against Protestant iconoclasm.

fig. 10 Dionigi Bussola, statuary group in the tenth chapel of the Sacro Monte di Varese: dramatic aspects of the “mystery” of the Raising of the Cross p. 112 fig. 9 Tanzio da Varallo, frescoed background scene in the twenty-seventh chapel of the Sacro Monte di Varallo: view of Jerusalem with Judas’ hanged body

City of Jerusalem 113

fig. 1

City of Jerusalem, 1538–40. Lugano, church of Santa Maria degli Angioli

114

New Light on the Views of Jerusalem in Santa Maria degli Angioli, Lugano Vera Segre Lugano bears precious witness to Jerusalem in a pair of cartographic views dating from just before the mid-sixteenth century.

These consist of two paintings (figs. 1 and 8) in the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, built next to the convent of the Observant Franciscans near the gates of the city between 1499 and 1515.1 The lunettes were frescoed in the central passageway of the imposing tramezzo (rood screen), completed on 26 June 1526 and adorned with a grand Crucifixion by Bernardino Luini in 1529 – a structure that was typical of the Observant monastic churches of Northern Italy.2 In its original arrangement, the central passage was the only one through which the faithful could see the altar in the middle of the friars’ choir. After the suppression of the convent in 1848, the walls of the lateral chapels of the church’s tramezzo were pierced in 1853, creating the three apertures still visible today.3 One could therefore define the site of the frescoes with views of Jerusalem as the fulcrum of the church, although a metal gate impeded public access to this passage.

As Custodians of the Holy Sites since the fourteenth century, the Franciscans are known to have done their best to disseminate the awareness of those places through images, but also by way of devotional complexes aimed at oering alternatives to pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which had become dangerous during Ottoman occupation, and providing itineraries for meditation and prayer centred on the life and Passion of Jesus Christ. The Pre-Alpine region has a notable number of such itineraries, culminating in the so-called Sacri Monti, initially established by Fra Bernardino Caimi and later

by Saint Charles Borromeo.4 The Sacri Monti are a recreation and visualization of the Holy Sites, giving them concrete appearance in a series of specifically-planned chapels frescoed and filled with statues in order to stage the sacred stories. However, what remains of this imposing cultural project, which had such wide-ranging artistic consequences, does not include any parallels for the monumental maps in Lugano.5 The painted backgrounds of the sixteenth-century chapels (but even of the later ones) in Varallo and the other Sacri Monti make no cartographical references. Among the Franciscan tramezzi, invariably painted with subjects related to the Passion, that have come down to us, none has a map of Jerusalem like the one at Lugano. It is true that many examples of this architectural-decorative type have been completely lost – including the two structures indicated as possible prototypes, San Giacomo in Pavia and Sant’Angelo in Milan – and so Lugano presents itself today as a somewhat isolated instance.

The sole comparison we can make is with a seventeenth-century fresco in the entrance-hall that connects the first two cloisters of the Franciscan convent of San Giuseppe, in the centre of Brescia.6 Set under large lunettes dedicated to the life of Saint Bernardino of Siena, the four walls of the central cloister bear images of thirty-five views, each of one of the Franciscan convents that constituted the Province of the Brescian Observance as they were in 1610 – a cartographical statement of exceptional importance. Under the scene showing the death of the saint, though, is a painted map, now very damaged, of Jerusalem as seen from the Mount of Olives, carefully reproducing the plan by Antonio De Angelis, printed in Rome in 1578.

De Angelis, a Franciscan friar from Lecce who had sojourned in Jerusalem for eight years, had made a map so reliable that it generated a very large number of prints (fig. 2).7 A single example now survives, by chance, in a private collection. The fresco in Brescia faithfully copies it, and provides a summary of captions in Italian, precisely copied and in the same numerical 1. For a general history of the building see L. Calderari, “Lugano, Santa Maria degli Angeli�, in *M 3JOBTDJNFOUP OFMMF UFSSF UJDJOFTJ %B #SBNBOUJOP B #FSOBSEJOP -VJOJ Itinerari, Milan, 2010, pp. 109–26, with earlier literature.

2. The peculiar structure of Franciscan tramezzi surviving in Piedmont and Lombardy has been studied by A. Nova, “I tramezzi in Lombardia fra XV e XVI secolo: scene della Passione e devozione francescanaâ€?, in *M 'SBODFTDBOFTJNP JO -PNCBSEJB TUPSJB F BSUF, Milan, 1983, pp. 197–215; and by K. Imesch Oehry, %JF ,JSDIFO EFS 'SBO[JTLBOFSPCTFSWBOUFO JO EFS -PNCBSEFJ JN 1JFNPOU VOE JISF i-FUUOFSXĂŠOEFw "SDIJUFLUVS VOE %FLPSBUJPO, Essen, 1991.

3. See I. Marcionetti, $IJFTB F DPOWFOUP EJ 4BOUB .BSJB EFHMJ "OHFMJ JO -VHBOP, Lugano, 1999, p. 83.

4. For the Sacri Monti see L. Zanzi, Sacri Monti e dintorni. Studi sulla cultura religiosa artistica della Controriforma, Milan, 2005, and A. Barbero and S. Piano (eds.), Religioni e Sacri Monti (symposium papers, Turin, Moncalvo and Casale Monferrato, 2004), Ponzano Monferrato, 2006.

5. Each lunette measures 300 cm across at the base, with a maximum height of 160 cm.

6. Already pointed out by I. Marcionetti, $IJFTB F DPOWFOUP EJ 4BOUB .BSJB EFHMJ "OHFMJ JO -VHBOP, cited in note 3, p. 92, and then by F. G. Nuvolone, “Une fresque du Mont des Oliviers attribuĂŠe au peintre Bernardino Lanino (Lugano, Santa Maria degli Angioli, XVIe siècle)â€?, in M. KĂźchler and C. Uelinger (eds.), Novum 5FTUBNFOUVN FU 0SCJT "OUJRVVT (6). Jerusalem. Texte, Bilder, Steine, Freiburg and GĂśttingen, 1987, pp. 83–107, who hypothesize on p. 93 that this derives from Bernardino Amico’s print of 1620, itself descended from that by De Angelis. The details of the image refer instead to the accepted sixteenth-century prototype.

7. For more about De Angelis, and on the cartography of Jerusalem in general, see R. Rubin, Image and Reality. Jerusalem in maps and views, Jerusalem, 1999.

115

fig. 2

Antonio De Angelis, Hierusalem. Rome, Convent of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, 1578. Moldovan Family Collection

sequence, but reduced from the original 90 to only 32. It is possible that other convents and Franciscan foundations had frescoes with depictions of Jerusalem, but we do not know of any.

One peculiarity of the Lugano frescoes that makes reading and interpreting them particularly interesting is that they do not derive from any known plan or drawing.8 Nor do we have any documents about their origin, although our study is supported by circumstantial evidence that plausibly dates them to the period 1538–40. The Archive of the Friars Minor for the Province of Turin, on which Santa Maria degli Angioli depended, houses a manuscript volume entitled -JCSP EFMMB 'JCCJB that contains a chronicle of the convent from 1515 to 1825.9 While the frescoes of Jerusalem are not mentioned, the Chapel of the Madonna, situated on the right, is stated to have been decorated at the behest of Francesco Rusca da Magliaso before 1528. For the painting of the chapel on the left, dedicated to Saint Francis and later redecorated, there was a substantial donation in 1528; the period is generally marked by a number of bequests.

A dating of 1538–40 for the lunettes in the central passageway can be derived from the observation of certain details in the view of Jerusalem, and in particular the incomplete walls on the south side of the city – the last to be erected, before 1541, by Suleiman the Magnificent – whereas the Jaffa, Damascus and Saint Stephen’s (or Lions’) Gates, dating from 1538, are shown as complete. The frescoed image lacks the present-day Sion Gate, which dates from 1540. Moreover, the Convent of Mount Sion is still indicated as the seat of the Franciscans, who were definitively expelled from it in 1551,10 while the belltower of the Holy Sepulchre is shown in its state before the collapse of 1546.

As regards the attribution of the two lunettes to the hand of a specific artist, it would not be prudent to say anything, given the current condition of their surfaces – very much abraded, scratched and generally tormented as a result of the 8. During my research I have been able to benefit from the generous availability and advice of Professor Rehav Rubin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as from that of Peter Barber, Head of Cartographic and Topographic Materials at the British Library in London, whom I thank warmly for their counsel and encouragement. It has also been very useful to consult the website relating to the extraordinary collection of maps of the city of Jerusalem donated by Eran Laor to the Library of the Hebrew University: http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/jer/index.html 9. Turin, Archivio Provinciale dei Frati Minori, Pr SD 10.7.2.2.

10. See A. Cohen, “The expulsion of the Franciscans from Mount Zion. Old documents and new interpretation”, in Turcica. Revue d’études turques, no. 18, 1986, pp. 147–57.

116

fig. 3

Franciscus Quaresmius, Novae Ierosolymae et locorum circumiacentium accurata imago

inappropriate tools used during their discovery in about 1925.11 Both frescoes included figures that recall the salient episodes of sacred narrative, and while these may be almost illegible, they are not without a certain quality.

In the lunette with the Mount of Olives we see the figure of Jesus praying in the Grotto of the Agony, and then appearing in glory on top of the Chapel of the Ascension, in counterpoint with the sad figure of Judas, who has hanged himself from a tree at the base of the same hill. Finally, in the background at left, where the description continues with a passing mention – still topographically pertinent – of other locations in Palestine, one can just see some animals (a camel, a donkey, a horse, a goat) whose presence would have defined the site of Bethphage, a small village south of the Mount of Olives known for its herds of animals destined for sacrifice, where Jesus mounted the ass that took him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Luke 19: 29–40).12 The hilly background of the lunette with the view of Jerusalem also bears the words CIVITAS HEBRON DOVE DIO CREO [A]DA[M] (the city of Hebron where God created Adam). The genesis of Adam was illustrated in the fresco by the figures of God (whose haloed head still appears between the words DOVE and DIO) and his creation, only partly visible in their present condition.13 Over the dome of the Holy Sepulchre, the crucified Christ is shown in oblique perspective. On 11. In the Lugano freco, between the “Porta Aureaâ€? and the “Porta de la Iudecaâ€? the walls of Jerusalem bear a date, perhaps legible (though very damaged) as 1929, applied in Arabic numerals distinct from those visible in the rest of the fresco. We may presume that this relates to their discovery, or to their restoration, completed in 1930 under the direction of Edoardo Berta. Lara Calderari, who reads it instead as 1925, states that the inscription does not appear in photographs taken before restoration. I am grateful to Lara Calderari for having given me access to section 3.3.6 of her dissertation -B EFDPSB[JPOF QJĂĄ BOUJDB EJ 4BOUB .BSJB EFHMJ "OHFMJ -VHBOP DJSDB , UniversitĂ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (academic year 1994–95, advisor MiklĂłs Boskovits), pp. 222–36, where she discusses these two lunettes. The first description of the lunettes was by C. Chiesa-Galli, -B DIJFTB EJ 4BOUB .BSJB EFHMJ "OHFMJ JO -VHBOP, Lugano, 1932, pp. 64–67.

12. The fragmentary inscription [T]ERRA BET[FAGE] can only be interpreted in the context of what remains of the adjacent passages of paint.

See C.-M. Dubois Maisonneuve, 7JBHHJ EJ (FTĂĄ $SJTUP P EFTDSJ[JPOF HFPHSBmDB EFJ QSJODJQBMJ MVPHIJ F NPOVNFOUJ EJ 5FSSB 4BOUB, Turin, 1832, p. 166.

13. Hebron, one of the oldest cities in the Near East, and about 30 km south of Jerusalem, was considered the site of the Creation of Adam according to the Talmud, but not in Christian tradition, which holds that this took place in Jerusalem, or specifically on Mount Golgotha. See G. Ferraro, *M MJCSP EFJ MVPHIJ, Milan, 2001, p. 195; F. Bandini, E fu sera e fu mattina: primo giorno. I miti della creazione e delle origini della vita tra eros e ethos, Florence, 2006, p. 19.

117

fig. 4

Bernardino Amico, Discretione vera de l’antica Cita di Gierusalem, from Trattato delle piante & immagini de sacri edifizi di Terra Santa, 1620

the path descending from Mount Sion, which must be taken in order to cross the River Kidron at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where the Tomb of the Virgin is found, we can see a small group of figures, scarcely legible but to be interpreted as the Apostles (some beards and haloes are still visible). Despite the ruined paint surface, we can deduce that they are bearing a coďŹƒn on their shoulders. This area corresponds to the path described in texts relating to the Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin, when the Apostles carry Mary’s body from the site of her Dormition on Mount Sion to her tomb near Gethsemane.14 Below the group of Apostles we can make out a long inscription of which only these letters, divided between two lines, are clear: [‌‌]TA[‌‌‌]; LA MADONA SEP[ELIR?]E (burial [?] Madonna). According to the Apocryphal Gospels, the funeral procession saw the first post-mortem miracle eected by the Virgin, and this may have been the subject of this much-reduced inscription.15 The miracle of the severing and subsequent healing of the arms of the irreverent Jephonias as he attempted to stop the Apostles is very rare in Western art, but more frequent in Byzantine, Romanian, Serbian and Athonite painting. Oddly enough, one of the few depictions of this episode in Italian art is by Bernardino Lanino, in the predella of an altarpiece in the church of San Sebastiano in Biella, signed and dated 1543;16 and it is precisely to Lanino that the lunettes in Lugano have been attributed by Flavio Nuvolone, the only scholar who has made a thorough study of them, when they were discovered, in an article focused on the fresco of the Mount of Olives.17 Nuvolone’s attribution to Lanino was 14. Among the numerous apocryphal texts that narrate the carrying of the Madonna’s coďŹƒn, we may cite the account attributed to Saint John the Theologian (or Evangelist), published in H.-J. Klauck, Apocryphal Gospels. An introduction, translated by B. McNeil, London, 2003, pp. 192–204. Various sources (other than the Evangelist) are also cited by Jacobus de Voragine in the (PMEFO -FHFOE, including Saint John of Damascus, Saint Cosmas Vestitor and Dionysius (DzF (PMEFO -FHFOE Readings on the Saints, translated by W. G. Ryan, Princeton, 1993, vol. II, pp. 77–79).

15. “And, behold, as they carried her, a certain Hebrew named Jephonias, mighty of body, ran forth and attacked the bed as the apostles carried it, and lo, an angel of the Lord with invisible power struck his two hands from o his shoulders with a sword of fire and left them hanging in the air beside the bedâ€?: see Apocryphal Gospels, cited in note 14, p. 202.

16. See G. Romano (ed.), #FSOBSEJOP -BOJOP F JM $JORVFDFOUP B 7FSDFMMJ, Turin, 1986, pp. 103–20.

17. F. G. Nuvolone, “Une fresque du Mont des Oliviers�, cited in note 6 above.

118

fig. 5

Bernardino Amico, -B WFSB F SFBMF DJUB EJ (JFSVTBMFN DPNF TJ USPWB PHJ, from Trattato delle piante & immagini de sacri edifizi di Terra Santa, 1620

based on the reading of a sort of signature, now no longer recognizable as such, hidden among the vegetation on the Mount of Olives. Nuvolone also supposed that the frescoes could be dated to about 1530, when Lanino, who was still an apprentice, might not have been allowed to sign his work. Yet even if the few remaining figures are not entirely without refinement, the general style contrasts too much with what we know of Lanino’s oeuvre, even that of his youth. No parallel can be found in his work for the stylized vegetation and perspectival incongruity of the architectural views. Actually, Lanino collaborated with Gaudenzio Ferrari on the Sacro Monte at Varallo between 1530 and 1540, and it makes sense to attribute the work to someone connected with the world of the Sacri Monti,18 bearing in mind both the shared aim of recalling the Holy Sites and the same patronage of the Observant Franciscans; but instead of attaching ourselves to a distinguished name it would be more opportune to think of a workshop collaborator who was stylistically more retardataire and active in this area, perhaps specializing in the painting of backgrounds.

The interest and indeed merit of these frescoes lies not in their pictorial quality, which is modest, after all, but in the extraordinary wealth of detail, cultural references and a strong sense of up-to-date information, proving that the two views were the result of access to first-hand awareness, if not direct experience of the Holy Sites. We may therefore suppose that someone of deep culture was involved, and that this person provided the indications for such detailed map-making.19 Among the many maps of Jerusalem that were spread across Europe starting in the mid-fifteenth century, especially for 18. For the mingling of spiritual and artistic aspects of the Sacri Monti, see S. Langé and A. Pensa, Il Sacro Monte. Esperienza del reale e spazio virtuale nell’iconografia della Passione, Milan, 1991, as well as L. Zanzi, Sacri Monti e dintorni and A. Barbero and S. Piano, Religioni e Sacri Monti, both cited in note 4 above.

19. In this context it may be of interest to note a reference to the 1515 consecration of the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli by the Bishop of Tiberias, named in the -JCSP EFMMB 'JCCJB (p. 71) as Galeazzo Baldiro. However, a quick check reveals that the Diocese of Tiberias had been suppressed for some time, and that the name of the bishop is given by other sources (K. Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi, III, Regensburg, 1923; G. Robolini, Notizie appartenenti alla storia della sua patria, Pavia, 1838, p. 178) as Galeazzo Baldi, only Titular Bishop of Tiberias (and Suffragan Bishop of Pavia, side by side with Francesco Alidosi). In 1511 he had consecrated the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pavia.

119

fig. 6

120

Petrus Vesconte, Jerusalem, from Marin Sanudo, -JCFS TFDSFUPSVN GJEFMJVN DSVDJT TVQFS terrae sanctae recuperatione et conservatione, Hanau, Christian Wechelius, 1611

the use of pilgrims, two stand out for quality and reliability: these were made by two Franciscan friars, the above-mentioned Antonio De Angelis (printed in Rome in 1578) and Franciscus Quaresmius (published in Antwerp in 1639, fig. 3).20 Both are later than the Lugano frescoes, but turn out to be very useful for reintegrating and verifying our gap-filled lunettes, especially as each of these maps comes with a series of numbered captions: De Angelis has 90 and Quaresmius 115. The Lugano frescoes once had numerous captions too, scattered through the images themselves. These inscriptions, which were of great interest and utility for understanding the paintings, were not numbered, and since they were applied over the images, they are unfortunately mostly illegible today.21 In an earlier study, to which I refer the reader for a more analytical research, I provide an account of what can still be read, having succeeded in recording and interpreting the fragments of seventy or so inscriptions (fifty on the city of Jerusalem and over twenty on the Mount of Olives).22 On this occasion we shall investigate just a few of the aspects that make the Lugano views particularly interesting.

To start with, they are arranged topomimetically, so that whoever pauses in that passageway, with Jerusalem on one side and the Mount of Olives on the other, is – as it were – in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a reference of supreme symbolic value, given that the place is identified by the three monotheistic faiths as the site of the Last Judgement, based on a passage from the Book of the Prophet Joel (3:2). Jerusalem is presented as seen from the top of the Mount of Olives, so as to convey its entire topography, right to the other end of the city, where the Jaa Gate and Citadel stand. As in the maps by De Angelis and Quaresmius, the latter is named CASTELLO DE PIXANI (Castle of the Pisans).23 If this reference to the Pisans reflects a tradition going back to the Crusades, the fresco is particularly up to date regarding the presence and layout of the various ecclesiastical communities around the Holy Sepulchre, each carefully noted (Maronites, Jacobites, Georgians, Orthodox monasteries, Abyssinians, Syriacs and the various Armenian churches). These communities do not appear on other contemporary maps, which implies particular focus in our case, and the same can be said for the indication of the largest synagogue and the principal mosques, marked as such with their minarets, crescents over their domes and explicit words, such as MOSCHEA DEL SOLDAN (Mosque of the Sultan). As for the present-day mosque area, other maps made in the Christian world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries tend to ignore the Islamic presence, inserting captions such as “Templum Salomonisâ€? and “Templum Presentationis Beatae Virginis Mariaeâ€? (Quaresmius 1 and 3).

Other details, found only in our frescoes, reveal a level of attention derived from thorough knowledge of the sites.

For instance, opposite the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre one can note, beyond the small steps that lead to the Chapel of the Agony of the Virgin, the broken red marble columns that are still visible today as remnants of the ancient arcade of the Basilica – details that we may seek in vain on other maps, which are content with a much more summary description.

The author’s focus in the Lugano frescoes is on what are believed to be very important points of information: for example, one of the items included is the aqueduct restored by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1536,24 with a depiction of its course around Mount Sion, and associated with the words AQUA CHE VIENE DA HEBRON (water coming from Hebron).

Nearby, there appears a place of great interest to the Christian pilgrim, which was also recorded in the precise accounts of the Zurich Dominican friar Felix Fabri,25 and derived from the Apocryphal Gospels: DOVE [‌‌]IVDEI VOL[‌‌]ROBAR EL[‌‌]DE LA MADONA (where Jews ‌ stealing ‌ of the Madonna). Pilgrims were shown a place where they were told that some Jews had blasphemously attempted to take the body of the Virgin as it was being carried from the site of her Dormition to where she was to be buried. In this case, then, we see elements from first-hand, up-to-date knowledge of the 20. The map by Quaresmius, a native of Lodi and named Custos Terrae Sanctae in the years 1618–19, formed part of one of his publications, the Historica theologica et moralis Terrae Sanctae elucidatio (Antwerp, 1639). See R. Rubin, Image and Reality, cited in note 7, pp. 87–105.

21. During my research I have also sought – though unfortunately without success – an improved reading of the more ruined inscriptions, using a black light, kindly made available by the conservator Rudy Sironi, whom I thank for his help. In the 1980s Nuvolone (see note 6 here) succeeded in reading a good deal more than what can be seen today, and the swift deterioration of these walls was one of the motivations for my study.

22. V. Segre, “Cartografia gerosolimitana in Santa Maria degli Angeli a Lugano�, in Archivio Storico Ticinese, no. 152, 2012, pp. 180–221. Unfortunately Nuvolone’s work was limited to the lunette with the Mount of Olives, and in any case some of his readings do not coincide with mine.

23. The structure in question is the Citadel, destroyed and rebuilt several times on the site where Herod had erected his magnificent palace. Today the Citadel, for centuries the seat of the most diverse military garrisons, houses a museum dedicated to the city of Jerusalem, and is also referred to as the Tower of David through an erroneous identification, widespread in the Byzantine period, with the residence of the Biblical King. The name “Castello dei Pisani� goes back instead to the period of the First Crusade, when the Archbishop of Pisa, Dagobert – Pontifical Legate in the Holy Land and a protagonist of the Crusade, as well as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem – took the fortress in 1100, with the support of the army of fellow-Pisans who had accompanied him. But he did not keep it for long, since Godfrey of Bouillon’s concession to Dagobert for control of the city and the Citadel depended on conditions that were ultimately not realized. In July 1100 Godfrey was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, with whom Dagobert had a bad relationship, and he was soon deposed as Patriarch. Notwithstanding the brief duration of the Pisans’ possession of the Citadel, a similar name recurs very frequently, especially in Italian and German cartography, but also in French and Dutch maps, produced between the late fifteenth and the eighteenth century. See V. Segre, “Cartografia gerosolimitana�, cited in note 22, pp. 205–06.

24. This detail provides a further element for dating the frescoes. See S. Loreda, Topografia di Gerusalemme fino al 70 d.C., Jerusalem, 1998, pp. 6, 7, 8 (low level aqueduct); and http://www.biblewalks.com/sites/sultanpool.html 25. DzF #PPL PG UIF 8BOEFSJOHT PG 'FMJY 'BCSJ $JSDB o " % , translated by A. Stewart, 2 vols., London, 1887–97, pp. 312–13.

121

fig. 7

122

Map of Jerusalem with three rings of walls, as described by Flavius Josephus, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911

city’s topography directly juxtaposed with religious cartography, of the symbolic kind that was especially reconstructed for the use of pilgrims.

Once again in relation to Jerusalem’s complex and very old water supply,26 it is surprising to see how precisely the Lugano lunettes indicate the canal linking the Gihon Spring – identified in the fresco with the words DOVE LAVAVA LI PANI LA MADONA (where the Madonna washed clothing) – and the Pool of Siloam, with VADE AD NATATORIA SILOE (citing John 9:7, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam�). The old, important waterworks do not appear on contemporary maps produced by the Franciscans, which share the topographic precision of the frescoes in Lugano. However, this feature is marked in the more Northern European and generally less realistic maps.27 What is unique, though, is the Lugano version of the Pool of Siloam, which is depicted as surrounded on three sides by an arcade with four arches, corresponding perfectly to the reconstruction given by modern-day archaeologists of the arcade built here in the fifth century by the Byzantine Empress Eudocia. Such an elaborate version cannot be found on other maps, which simplify its appearance, making it resemble something more like the ruins visible there today.

As for the accurate recreation of individual Holy Sites, and with reference to Gospel sources, the fresco in Lugano gives great emphasis to the PORTA FERREA (the Iron Gate), through which Saint Peter was believed to have miraculously left prison and the city. Since the ancient prison was traditionally identified as in a central area of the Muristan (the quarter between the Jaa Gate near the Citadel and the Temple Mount), and the Iron Gate was identified until 1700 as a still extant opening, the Lugano frescoed lunette adopts an idea of the ancient city probably derived from a reading of Flavius Josephus, who gives a precise description of how the various rings of walls stood at the time of Jesus Christ. The first and oldest wall is depicted as a direct link between the so-called Hippicus Tower (that is, the zone of the Citadel, or in our fresco, the Castle of the Pisans) with the western arcade of the Temple.28 The Lugano fresco traces the line of this ancient wall, which is seen obliquely, and sets the Iron Gate in its centre, thus presenting an image combining direct observation and an evocation of the city in Jesus’ day.

Bernardino Amico da Gallipoli, a Franciscan friar who sojourned in the Holy Land between 1593 and 1597, created two distinct maps of Jerusalem: one relative to the era of Jesus, where following Josephus he draws three circles of walls (fig.

4), and one of contemporary Jerusalem, in which we see instead the modern walls built by Suleiman the Magnificent (fig.

5).29 The fresco in Lugano, painted, as we have seen, in a period in which the new walls were only partly built, involves an interesting and curious combination. The use of Josephus as a source becomes even more clear and explicit in the remains of walls that our fresco represents as a partial but powerful external bastion of Mount Sion, which was still the seat of the Franciscans, though only for a little longer. Indeed these walls are defined by white quadrangular towers, marked with the number 20, while the sections of wall connecting them bear the numbers 200 or 100. These are precisely the measures, in cubits, given by Josephus in his description of the third ring of walls of Jerusalem (fig. 7);30 and so we may conclusively state that the Lugano fresco refers to this source, which is followed to the letter, in spite of the occasional misunderstanding and lack of explicit citation.

Flavius Josephus was a much-read and respected source for the Church throughout the Middle Ages, especially for his bearing witness to the historical existence of Jesus in a passage in the Antiquities of the Jews (though this is suspected by some to be the result of interpolation). Among cartographers who sought to reconstruct the aspect of ancient Jerusalem, he was often used and even cited explicitly: for example, the Venetian Marin Sanudo includes in the map of Jerusalem he attaches to numerous manuscripts of his -JCFS TFDSFUPSVN mEFMJVN DSVDJT TVQFS UFSSBF TBODUBF SFDVQFSBUJPOF FU DPOTFSWBUJPOF (1320) the following caption regarding the length of the walls built around the Holy City: “Civitas habuit in giro secundum Iosephum

26. See A. Mazar, “The Aqueducts of Jerusalem�, in +FSVTBMFN SFWFBMFE "SDIFPMPHZ JO UIF )PMZ $JUZ o , New Haven, 1976, pp. 79–84; D. Bahat and H. Rubinstein, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 1990; and R. Reich, G. Avni and T. Winter, Jerusalem Milestones. A Guide to the Archeological Sites, Jerusalem, 2009, pp. 58–76.

27. The association between the spring and the Pool of Siloam is made, for example, in the woodcut map in Sebastian Mßnster’s Cosmographia universalis, Basel, 1550, pp. 1015–18; in the map drawn by Peter Lackstein and printed by Gerard de Jode, "OUJRVBF 6SCJT )JFSPTPMZNPSVN UPQPHSBQIJDB (Antwerp, 1571?); and in the map by Christian von Adrichom, printed in Cologne and dating from 1584. For all these maps, see the website cited in note 8 above, http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/jer/index.html 28. Josephus, The Jewish War, edited by E. M. Smallwood, translated by G. A. Williamson, London, 1981, pp. 297–300.

29. The first edition (followed by others) was published as Trattato delle piante et immagini de i sacri edificii di Terra Santa disegnate in Gierusalemme secondo le regole della prospettiua, & vera misura della lor grandezza dal R.P.F. Bernardino Amico da Gallipoli dell’ordine di S. Francesco de Minori Osservanti, with engravings by Antonio Tempesta, Rome, 1609.

30. Ibid., pp. 153–59 and 174–76, where it is stated that the towers were built with 20-cubit-high white marble blocks, so well joined that each tower resembled an immense monolith emerging from the ground – a notion faithfully conveyed by the Lugano fresco.

123

Stadia XXX” (fig. 6).31 In the sixteenth century an explicit reference to Josephus as a source appears in a map of Jerusalem

by Braun & Hogenberg (Theatrum des cités du monde), published in Brussels in 1575 and reprinted several times,32 while the map by Christian von Adrichom, which is based on Josephus’ description, offers a view of the city that strays far from reality.33 What emerges clearly from our brief study is the great historic and cultural value, not to mention complexity, of the Lugano lunettes, the object in the past of only superficial study and truly unfortunate restoration; one hopes they will be preserved as securely as possible for future generations.

31. See E. Edson, “Jerusalem under Siege: Marino Sanudo’s map of the Water Supply, 1320”, in L. Donkin and H. Vorholt (eds.), Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West, Oxford, 2012, pp. 201–17.

32. See R. Rubin, Image and Reality, cited in note 7, p. 116.

33. Ibid., pp. 110–15.

124

fig. 8

Mount of Olives, 1538–40. Lugano, church of Santa Maria degli Angioli

125

Mount of Olives 126

Appendix

127

128

A Very Modest Neapolitan Franciscan: Padre Juan Antonio Yepes Jacques Charles-Gaffiot Research carried out in various Franciscan archives on Padre Juan Antonio Yepes has so far been quite unfruitful.1 Only the two registers “donde se escriben las Conductas�, preserved in the archives of the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, enable us to revisit the actions of this humble Franciscan friar, who for thirty years raised the funds for and ensured the crafting of important items of Neapolitan gold- and silversmiths’ work for the Holy Land, with flawless command of how to prompt almsgiving from sovereigns and their vassals as well as from the faithful populace.

Padre Yepes undertook his first (and perhaps only) Mediterranean crossing in 1714, reaching Jerusalem on 8 October. Referred to as conductore (courier) in the shipping register, he already held the post of Deputy Commissioner for the Holy Land for the Kingdom of Naples, the Commissioner-General’s post being held at that time by Padre Juan Antonio GimÊnez.2 His success no doubt led him, in turn, to be named Commissioner-General ten years later, assisted by Fr. Angelo da Terbiazo.

Before being replaced in this senior position in 1742 by Padre Gaetano,3 Padre Yepes was to be involved in a number of shipments to the Holy Land – consisting of exceptional gifts, foodstus, fabrics, medicine, etc. – and the sum of 51,385 Venetian zecchini, which certainly could not rival the numbers of gifts in cash sent annually from Spain, but which must have nonetheless demanded a good deal of eort and sacrifice to be assembled.

Neapolitan shipments carried out under the supervision of Padre Yepes t 0DUPCFS /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU OP CSPVHIU CZ 1BESF +VBO "OUPOJP :FQFT commissario and conductore for the Kingdom of Naples4: - The sum of 2500 Venetian zecchini together with a silver chalice and its paten, partly gilt, weighing 3 pounds and 4 ounces, adorned with images representing the Instruments of the Passion, - A red satin chasuble trimmed with a gold and silver braid donated as a sign of devotion by the Bishop of Isernia, - Dierent sorts of provisions, - A precious CBMEBDDIJOP (canopy) weighing 130 pounds, financed in part by benefactors, and for the remaining part by the shipment from the Holy Land to Naples of gold and silver ingots and jewels which were of no use in Jerusalem. t 0DUPCFS /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU OP DPVSJFSFE BU UIF SFRVFTU PG 1BESF +PT� "OUPOJP (JN�OF[ SFGFSSFE UP BT Commissioner-General for the Holy Land for the Kingdom of Naples) by Fr. Francisco Antonio and Fr. LÊon da Monte Sarchio.5 t /PWFNCFS 1PSUVHVFTF BOE /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU OP DPVSJFSFE BU UIF SFRVFTU PG 1BESF (JN�OF[ CZ 'S #POBWFOUVSB da Matera of the province of the Principado and by Fr. Antonio of the province of Basilicata.6 t "QSJM 'SFODI BOE /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU OP DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S #POBWFOUVSB EB "QSJHMJBOP BOE 'S 4BMWBUPSF EB Terlizzi, conductores de Napoles, at the request of Padre GimÊnez.7 t +VMZ /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU OP DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S (JVOJQFSP EB 4BO .BSDP 'S -PSFO[P EB &TUJMMB BOE 'S &VHFOJP EB Oppido, conductores; these gifts had been delivered by P. J. Ant. Yepes, Deputy Commissioner during the absence of Padre GimÊnez:8 - 2000 Venetian zecchini, - Various items of merchandise and victuals (white cloth, sausages, etc.).

1. Father Jerome Golubovich, the learned historian of Franciscan history at the end of the nineteenth century, does not make a single mention of Padre Yepes’ activity in his writings.

2. Father Francisco Quecedo, CooperaciĂłn econĂłmica internacional al sostenimiento de los Santos lugares, Barcelona, 1951, p. 196: Neapolitan shipment no. 284 of 6 November 1713.

3. -JCSP OVFWP EPOEF TF FTDSJCFO MBT $POEVDUBT R<VF> WJFOFO EF MB &VSPQB B FTUB 4<BOUB> $JVE<BE> +FSVTB<MFN> EFTEF E<F> "HPT<UP> EF , 1720â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1879.

Manuscript volume (200 ďŹ&#x20AC;.) housed in the Archives of the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, p. 34.

4. F. Quecedo, CooperaciĂłn econĂłmica, cited in note 2: shipment no. 290, p. 198.

5. Ibid., p. 202.

6. Ibid., p. 205.

7. Ibid., p. 206.

8. Ibid., p. 208.

129

fig. 1

-JCSP OVFWP EPOEF TF FTDSJCFO MBT $POEVDUBTy, 1720â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1879, ďŹ&#x20AC;. 17 verso â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 18 recto. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Archive

t +VMZ /FBQPMJUBO 'MPSFOUJOF BOE 'SFODI TIJQNFOU OP DPVSJFSFE CZ 1 "WJUJP EF MB 3JQB 'S #VFOBWFOUVSB EB Conversano and Fr. Nicolas da Pasticcio, consigned by Padre GimĂŠnez.9 t < > 0DUPCFS /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S (JVOJQFSP EB 4BO .BSDP 'S (FSPOJNP EFMMB 4FSSB BOE 'S "OUPOJP da Potenza, conductores, consigned by P. GimĂŠnez.10 t %FDFNCFS 7FOFUJBO BOE /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 4BMWBUPSF EB 5FSMJ[[J BOE 'S 4BMWBUPSF EB -JCFSBOP conductores, consigned by P. GimĂŠnez.11 t 0DUPCFS /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S (JVOJQFSP EB 4BO .BSDP 'S #FOFEFUUP EB .PMB BOE 'S $IFSVCJOP EB Chierchia, conductores, consigned by P. GimĂŠnez.12 t "VHVTU 4IJQNFOU GSPN /BQMFT 5VTDBOZ 3PNF BOE 4BSEJOJB DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S "OUPOJP %FHJMEPOJ BOE 'S 1BTDBMF EB Montalbano, conductores, consigned by the Most Reverend Father Giovanni Antonio Jepes (sic), Deputy Commissioner for the Holy Land.13 - 3000 Venetian zecchini, - Victuals, 9. Ibid., p. 211.

10. -JCSP OVFWP EPOEF TF FTDSJCFO MBT $POEVDUBT, cited in note 3, p. 2 recto.

11. Ibid., p. 4 recto.

12. Ibid., p. 5 verso.

13. Ibid., p. 6 verso and p. 7.

130

-

Six tobacco-cases dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;avalio [?] di metallo del Principe, [â&#x20AC;Ś?] eighteen; twelve of engraved brass and six of tortoiseshell, Two dozen scissors with cases made of zegnino [?], Twenty-four pairs of glasses for long-distance, Twelve pairs of glasses referred to as spioncelli, with a varnished [?] box, DiďŹ&#x20AC;erent sorts of clothes and accessories, Twenty-eight gilt brass cocchiarini [spoons] divided into seven wrought cases.

t +VMZ /FBQPMJUBO 'SFODI 3PNBO .JMBOFTF BOE 4JDJMJBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S "OHFMP EB 5FSCJB[P commissario conductore of the Kingdom of Naples, Fr. Antonio Torre Maggiore and Fr. Francesco Antonio da Giovenazzo, consigned by the Reverend P. Antonio Yepes, Commissioner-General for the Holy Land.14 - 3000 Venetian zecchini, - Pieces of fabric and liturgical accessories, the result of the generosity of the Emperor and his loyal vassals. t .BZ /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S "OHFMP EB 5FSCJB[P BOE 'S #POBSPUUB EB #PMPHOB conductores, on behalf of Reverend P. Yepes.15 - 2600 Venetian zecchini, - Various items of merchandise, including rolls of fabric (taďŹ&#x20AC;eta, white damask, red damask, silk of all colours). t +VMZ /FBQPMJUBO BOE 1BQBM 4UBUFT TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S #FOFEFUUP EB .PMB 'S 1BTDBMF EB .POUBMCBOP BOE 'S Salvatore dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Alta Mura, conductores, on behalf of P. Yepes.16 - 2600 Venetian zecchini, - Merchandise for the friarsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wardrobe. t +VOF /FBQPMJUBO BOE 5VTDBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S "OHFMP EB 5FSCJB[P BOE 'S 4JMWFTUSP EB 4BO 4FWFSJOP conductores, on behalf of P. Yepes.17 - 2533 Venetian zecchini, - Textile products and three books. t .BZ /FBQPMJUBO 'SFODI .BMUFTF 3PNBO BOE 7FOFUJBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 7JUBMF EBMM "RVJMB 'S 'SBODFTDP Antonio da Laurito and Fr. Pascale Circelo on behalf of P. Yepes.18 - 2700 Venetian zecchini, - Textile products and various works including an Italian-Spanish dictionary and books for meditation. t /PWFNCFS /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 1BTDBMF EB .POUBMCBOP BOE 'S (JBDPNP EBMMF /PDJ PO CFIBMG PG P. Yepes.19 - 2000 [?] Venetian zecchini, - A silver and silver-gilt tabernacle with the figures of Saint Peter and Saint Paul,20 - Two little bronze bells. t .BSDI /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU XJUI .JMBO 4QBJO BOE .FTTJOB DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S &VHFOJP conductore, by order of P. Yepes.21

14. Ibid., p. 8.

15. Ibid., p. 10 verso.

16. Ibid., p. 12.

17. Ibid., p. 14 verso.

18. Ibid., p. 15 verso.

19. Ibid., p. 17.

20. This tabernacle does not appear to correspond to the one mentioned on p. 163 in the TrĂŠsor du Saint-SĂŠpulcre. PrĂŠsents des cours royales europĂŠennes Ă JĂŠrusalem exhibition catalogue (edited by B. Degout, J. Charles-GaďŹ&#x192;ot and B. Saule, Château de Versailles and Maison de Chateaubriand (Châtenay-Malabry), 16 April â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 14 July 2013), which is surmounted by three silver statuettes of the Risen Christ flanked by Saints Francis and Anthony of Padua. The tabernacle shipped by Padre Yepes in 1729 must therefore be the one reproduced on pp. 74 and 76 of this catalogue (figs. 1 and 2).

21. Ibid., p. 18.

131

-

1000 Venetian zecchini, 6 gilt copper jars.

t "VHVTU TIJQNFOU PG 7FOFUJBO zecchini brought by Fr. Matteo Palo.22 t +VOF /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 1BTDBMF EB .POUBMCBOP conductore, by order of P. Yepes.23 - silver and silver-gilt altar frontal with the Pentecost scene, - 2 small carafes and a cross with its crucifix, 1 CVYJB, 2 catape, 2 mescole [ladles, archaic form of mestola], all in silver, - a diamond set in copper for cutting glass, 8 gilt copper candlesticks with silver flowers. 3 wooden statues of the Conception, Saint Jude Thaddeus and Saint Helen, â&#x20AC;Ś a medium-sized bell, 6 bowls for the sacristy. t "VHVTU /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU XJUI 3PNF .BMUB 4BWPZ .JMBO BOE (FOPB DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 1BTDBMF EB .POUBMCBOP 24 - 2000 Venetian zecchini. t +VOF /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 1BTDBMF EB .POUBMCBOP conductore.25 - 3000 Venetian zecchini, - 4 large paintings of Saint Anne, Saint Joseph, Saint Francis and Saint Anthony with their gilt wood frames, gilt copper candlesticks for Nazareth, a damask fabric of 26.5 canne. â&#x20AC;Ś A Greek grammar. t "VHVTU < > /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU 7FOJDF 4JDJMZ .BMUB 'SBODF DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S 1BTDBMF EB .POUBMCBOP CZ PSEFS PG 1 :FQFT 26

fig. 1

-JCSP OVFWP EPOEF TF FTDSJCFO MBT $POEVDUBTy, 1720â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1879, f. 17 verso. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Archive

22. Ibid., p. 18 verso.

23. Ibid., p. 19.

24. Ibid., p. 19 recto.

25. Ibid., p. 20 recto.

26. Ibid., p. 23.

132

-

4000 Venetian zecchini, marble altar with a gilt copper tabernacle for Nazareth, six candlesticks â&#x20AC;Ś a portable organ for the Santa casa.

t "VHVTU /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S (JBDPNP EB 1PNBSJDP 27 - 2000 Venetian zecchini, - 6 jars with six silver ramages.

25 July 1736: Neapolitan shipment (Malta and Tuscany) couriered by Fr. Giacomo da Pomarico, by order of P. Yepes, CommissionerGeneral for the Holy Land.28 - 3000 Venetian zecchini, - a sculpture of the Resurrection of Our Lord, a painting of Saint Anthony of Padua, â&#x20AC;Ś three brass lamps. t "VHVTU /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S %JFHP EB 'PHHJB CZ PSEFS PG 1 :FQFT 29 - 2600 Venetian zecchini, - a large bas-relief of the Resurrection, entirely made of silver, weighing 270 pounds of silver. â&#x20AC;Ś t +VOF /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ #FOJHOP EB 'SBODB 7JMMB CZ PSEFS PG 1 :FQFT 30 - 3000 Venetian zecchini, - other merchandise. t +VOF /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU 4JDJMZ BOE .BMUB DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S %PNFOJDP EB .VTDJBOP 'S (JPWBOOJ EB 'BTBOP BOE 'S Giovanni da Cassano, by order of P. Yepes.31 - 3152 Venetian zecchini, - 24 large candlesticks of gilt wood â&#x20AC;Ś with flower vases in gilt wood. Three gilt wood frames for three paintings. t -BUF 0DUPCFS PS FBSMZ /PWFNCFS /FBQPMJUBO TIJQNFOU DPVSJFSFE CZ 'S #FSOBSEJOP EB /BQPMJ BOE 'S %PNFOJDP EB Musciano, by order of P. Yepes.32 - 3500 Venetian zecchini, - other merchandise, spice, thread, silver braid, writing paper, etc.

27. Ibid., p. 24 verso.

28. Ibid., p. 25 verso.

29. Ibid., p. 27 verso.

30. Ibid., p. 28.

31. Ibid., p. 30.

32. Ibid., p. 32 verso.

133

Map of the Holy Sepulchre This exhibition includes two works of art with a direct provenance from the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Their placement in situ can be visualized here through a map of the Basilica with indications of their respective positions.

1. Paolo De Matteis

2. Francesco De Mura

1. Paolo De Matteis, The Resurrection. Oil on canvas, 151.5 × 142 cm Rotunda of the Anastasis, Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, in an elevated position on the front of the Edicule The Edicule, comprising a vestibule and the sepulchral chamber, is covered by a flat roof with a small cupola in the centre, in Muscovite, onion-dome style, supported by small columns. Rising beyond the candelabra of the various communities, the façade of the Edicule is set within columns, festoons, cornices and oil lamps, behind which, high up, hangs the painting of The Resurrection.

2. Francesco De Mura, The Raising of the Cross. Oil on canvas, 127 × 180 cm Chapel of Saint Helen The canvas of The Raising of the Cross is set on the wall of the staircase that leads from the chapel dedicated to Saint Helen to the one below it, the cave-chapel of the Inventio Crucis.

135

Exhibition Itinerary This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre. The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps, with venues in the Canesso Gallery and the Patio del Municipio in Lugano, as well as in the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, the site of the two frescoed lunettes with images of Jerusalem.

Precisely because of its diverse content, the exhibition has generated a composite event. Running parallel to ours, in a spirit of cultural synergy, the Museo Cantonale dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arte in Lugano has organized a separate exhibition, with its own catalogue, entitled Jerusalem photoHSBQIFE *NBHFT GSPN UIF BSDIJWF PG UIF ²DPMF #JCMJRVF FU "SDIĂ?PMPHJRVF GSBOĂ&#x17D;BJTF JO +FSVTBMFN o .

The exhibition also has a broader scope, with ancillary events such as a series of lectures.

Seen comprehensively, the group of events addresses the public with a single voice, and invites visitors to follow an itinerary that passes through the city of Lugano, covering the various exhibition venues.

1

Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli Piazza B. Luini Sixteenth-century frescoed lunettes illustrating the City of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives

2

Canesso Gallery Piazza Riforma 2 Baroque Art from the Holy Sepulchre.

The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps

3

Patio del Municipio Piazza Riforma 1 The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps

4

Museo Cantonale dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arte. East Wing Via Canova 10 Jerusalem photographed. *NBHFT GSPN UIF BSDIJWF PG UIF ²DPMF #JCMJRVF FU "SDIĂ?PMPHJRVF GSBOĂ&#x17D;BJTF JO +FSVTBMFN o .

Four videos have been produced to accompany this event, each of them casting light or developing various aspects of the principal subject of the exhibition, with the following titles: t The Image of Jerusalem in the Pre-Alps t The rediscovery of the paintings, stage by stage t Organizers and Scholars have their say t Baroque Art in Bethlehem. Re-location as re-evaluation of works of art 137

List of Illustrations Introduction Manuela Kahn-Rossi p. 20 fig. 1

The Franciscans support the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre, 1724â&#x20AC;&#x201C;44. Print from ElzĂŠar Horn, *DIPOPHSBQIJBF -PDPSVN FU .POVNFOUPSVN 7FUFSVN 5FSSBF 4BODUBF

p. 21 fig. 2

Sigillum Guardiani Sacri Conventus Montis Sion, 1671. Height 15 cm. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land

p. 22 fig. 3

The Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, seen from the northwest, 1898â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1914. Photograph. Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Dept. of Prints and Photographs, American Colony Jerusalem Collection

p. 22 fig. 4

Ain Karim [Karem], 1934â&#x20AC;&#x201C;39. Photograph. Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Dept. of Prints and Photographs, American Colony Jerusalem Collection

p. 24 fig. 5

Saint Francis of Assisi Preaches the Gospel in Syria [The Arrival at Acre], in Saint Bonaventure, -FHFOEB .BJPS, 1457. Codex 1266, illuminated ms. 112. Rome, Museo Francescano dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini

p. 25 fig. 6

Scotti workshop (?), 4DFOFT GSPN UIF -JGF BOE 1BTTJPO PG $ISJTU, 1513â&#x20AC;&#x201C;15. Fresco. Bellinzona, church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

p. 26 fig. 7

Bernardino Luini (1480 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; c. 1532), Scenes from the Passion of Christ, 1529. Fresco. Lugano, church of Santa Maria degli Angioli

p. 27 fig. 8

Sanctuary church of the Madonna del Sasso, Orselina. Photograph. Bellinzona, UďŹ&#x192;cio dei Beni Culturali

p. 28 fig. 9

FĂŠlix Bonfils (1831â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1885), Door of the Holy Sepulchre, 1870â&#x20AC;&#x201C;90. Photograph. Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Dept. of Prints and Photographs

p. 29 fig. 10

Luigi Fiorillo, Religious ceremony at the Holy Sepulchre, 1880â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1900. Photograph. Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Dept. of Prints and Photographs

p. 31 fig. 11

DzF )PMZ 4FQVMDISF UIF 5PNC, 1898â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1914. Photograph. Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Dept. of Prints and Photographs, American Colony Jerusalem Collection

A Closer Jerusalem Carlo Bertelli p. 32 fig. 1

French School (fifteenth century), The Crusades: View of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, from the Book of Hours of RenĂŠ dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Anjou (vellum). London, British Library, Egerton Ms 1070, f. 5

p. 33 fig. 2

Jerusalem, detail of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Map of the Holy Landâ&#x20AC;?. Mosaic, sixth century. Madaba, church of Saint George

p. 34 fig. 3

Mantuan artist (fifteenth century), View of Jerusalem. Detached fresco mounted on synthetic resin support. Mantua, Castello di San Giorgio

pp. 36â&#x20AC;&#x201C;37 fig. 4

Hans Memling (c. 1435/40 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1494), The Passion, c. 1470. Oil on panel, 55 Galleria Sabauda

pp. 38â&#x20AC;&#x201C;39 fig. 5

Hans Memling (c. 1435/40 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1494), The Seven Joys of the Virgin, c. 1480. Oil on panel, 81 Munich, Alte Pinakothek

p. 40 fig. 6

Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo (c. 1480/85 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; after 1548), Adoration of the Shepherds (Nativity), 1540.

Oil on canvas, 192 178 cm. Brescia, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo

90 cm. Turin, 189 cm.

139

p. 41 fig. 7

Gaudenzio Ferrari (1475/80 – 1546), Crucifixion, 1513. Fresco. Varallo, church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

p. 42 fig. 8

Gaudenzio Ferrari (1475/80 – 1546), Meeting at the Golden Gate, scene from Stories of Joachim and Anna, 1545. Detached fresco mounted on canvas, 190 135 cm. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera

p. 43 fig. 9

Giotto (c. 1267–1336), -BNFOUBUJPO. Fresco, 1303–05. Padua, Scrovegni Chapel

p. 44 fig. 10

Antonio Allegri, called Correggio (1489–1534), Nativity (-B OPUUF), 1528–30. Oil on canvas, 256.5 188 cm. Dresden, Gemäldegalerie

p. 45 fig. 11

Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610), The Conversion of Saul, 1601. Oil on canvas, 230 175 cm. Rome, Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, Cerasi Chapel

p. 47 fig. 12

Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610), Saint Francis in Ecstasy, 1594. Oil on canvas, 92.5 128.4 cm. Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1943.222

The Franciscans in Jerusalem Jacques Charles-Gaffiot p 48 fig. 1 and p. 51 fig. 2

View of the twelfth-century Upper Room of the Cenacle. Called the “Chamber of the Last Supper”, it was transformed into a mosque during the Ottoman era

p. 52 fig. 3

Cope worked in silver thread by Anne of Austria’s embroiderer, Alexandre Paynet; gift of King Louis XIII in 1619

pp. 54–55 fig. 4.

Procession of the Latin Church to the Holy Sepulchre

Neapolitan Paintings in the Holy Land Nicola Spinosa

140

144 cm.

p. 58 fig. 1

Mattia Preti (1616–1699), The Angel Appearing to Zacharias. Oil on canvas, 146 Ain Karem, church of Saint John the Baptist

p. 60 fig. 2

Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (active in Naples, c. 1625–50), Adoration of the Shepherds. Oil on canvas, 149 197 cm. Geneva, collection of Francesco Valerio

p. 61 fig. 3

Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (active in Naples, c. 1625–50), Adoration of the Shepherds. Oil on canvas, 178 261 cm. Naples, Museo di Capodimonte

p. 62 fig. 4

Luca Giordano (1634–1705), Resurrection. Oil on canvas, 187 of Santa Maria del Buonconsiglio

p. 63 fig. 5

Luca Giordano (1634–1705), Resurrection. Oil on canvas. Formerly art market, London

p. 64 fig. 6

Paolo De Matteis (1662–1728), Meekness. Fresco, 240

p. 65 fig. 7

Paolo De Matteis (1662–1728), Resurrection. Fresco (destroyed). Naples, church of Sant’Anna di Palazzo (demolished)

p. 66 fig. 8

Paolo De Matteis (1662–1728), Aurora and the Chariot of the Sun. Oil on canvas, 151 Pommersfelden, Schloss Weißenstein

p. 67 fig. 9

Paolo De Matteis (1662–1728), Resurrection. Naples, church of the Pietà dei Turchini

p. 68 fig. 10

Francesco Solimena (1657–1747), Resurrection. Oil on canvas, 145.5 Österreichische Galerie Belvedere

205 cm. Naples, church

92 cm. Naples, Certosa di San Martino

77 cm. Vienna,

125 cm.

p. 69 fig. 11

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), $ISJTU 'BMMJOH PO UIF 8BZ UP $BMWBSZ CFGPSF 7FSPOJDB. Oil on canvas, 61.5 75 cm. Marano di Castenaso, Molinari Pradelli collection

pp. 70–71 fig. 12

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), Adoration of the Magi. Oil on canvas, 220 Naples, church of Santa Maria Donnaromita

p. 73 fig. 13

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), Saint Bertario Preaching. Oil on canvas, 62 Marano di Castenaso, Molinari Pradelli collection

420 cm.

48.7 cm.

Precious Ornaments in Naples and Jerusalem, and a Note on the De Blasio Family of Silversmiths Angela Catello p. 74 fig. 1

Andrea De Blasio, 5BCFSOBDMF, 1729. Silver and gilt copper. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Museum

p. 76 fig. 2

Andrea De Blasio, 5BCFSOBDMF, 1729, detail of the cupola. Silver and gilt copper. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Museum

p. 77 fig. 3

Andrea De Blasio, Saint Anastasius, 1708 (after a design by Muzio Nauclerio). Silver and gilt copper.

Troia, Museo Diocesano

p. 78 fig. 4

Andrea De Blasio, Altar Cross, 1720. Silver, height 71 cm. Martina Franca, Cathedral, Treasury

p. 79 fig. 5

Andrea De Blasio, Cartagloria with the Immaculate Virgin and Saints Martin and Comasia, 1720.

Martina Franca, Cathedral, Treasury

Catalogue of the Exhibited Works pp. 83 and 85 cat. no. 1

Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (active in Naples, c. 1625–50), Adoration of the Shepherds. Oil on canvas, 127 148 cm. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Museum

pp. 86 and 89 cat. no. 2

Paolo De Matteis (1662–1728), The Resurrection. Oil on canvas, 151.5 142 cm. Jerusalem, Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Rotunda of the Anastasis, Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre

p. 91 cat. no. 3

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Oil on canvas, 127 Ain Karem, Museum of the Franciscan Convent of Saint John the Baptist

p. 93 cat. no. 4

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), The Raising of the Cross. Oil on canvas, 127 Jerusalem, Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of Saint Helen

p. 95 cat. no. 5

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), DzF -BNFOUBUJPO. Oil on canvas, 127 Museum of the Franciscan Convent of Saint John the Baptist

pp. 96-97

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), Marian cycle: The Annunciation t The Dream of Joseph t Noli Me Tangere t The Coronation of the Virgin. Oil on canvas, 127 180 cm each. Bethlehem, church of Saint Catherine ad Nativitatem.

Francesco De Mura (1696–1782), Christological cycle: Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane t Christ and Veronica t The Raising of the Cross t DzF -BNFOUBUJPO. Oil on canvas, 127 180 cm each.

All works destined for Ain Karem, Museum of the Franciscan Convent of Saint John the Baptist

pp. 99 and 101 cat. no. 6

Attributed to the De Blasio workshop (master silversmiths active in Naples and southern Italy between the late seventeenth and the mid-eighteenth century), The Resurrection, 1736. Silver, 160 197 cm.

Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Museum

180 cm.

180 cm.

180 cm. Ain Karem,

141

Jerusalem in the Pre-Alpine Territory -VJHJ ;BO[J p. 104 fig. 1

Sacro Monte di Varese, the Via Sacra of the “processional rosary” running along the ridge that rises to the summit of Santa Maria del Monte

p. 105 fig. 2

View of some of the chapels of the Sacro Monte di Varese, towards the western Pre-Alps

p. 106 fig. 3

Sacro Monte di Varese, the Via Sacra in its ascending itinerary from the third to the fifth chapel

p. 107 fig. 4

Sacro Monte di Varese, the fourth chapel with the “mystery” of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, viewed from the slope of the hill

p. 108 fig.

Sacro Monte di Varallo, the Piazza dei Tribunali, topomimetic recreation

p. 109 fig. 6

Drawing of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre seen from outside (above) and of the Edicule, from the $PEFY 6SCJOBUF -BUJOP

pp. 110 and 111 figs. 7 and 8

Francesco Silva (1568–1641), details of the statuary group in the fifth chapel of the Sacro Monte di Varese: the “mystery” of Christ Disputing in the Temple

p. 112 fig. 9

Tanzio da Varallo (c. 1580–1633), frescoed background scene in the twenty-seventh chapel of the Sacro Monte di Varallo: view of Jerusalem with Judas’ hanged body

p. 113 fig. 10

Dionigi Bussola (c. 1615–1687), statuary group in the tenth chapel of the Sacro Monte di Varese: dramatic aspects of the “mystery” of the Raising of the Cross

New Light on the Views of Jerusalem in Santa Maria degli Angioli, Lugano Vera Segre

142

300 cm. Lugano, church of Santa Maria

p. 114 fig. 1

City of Jerusalem, 1538–40. Frescoed lunette, 160 degli Angioli

p. 116 fig. 2

Antonio De Angelis, Hierusalem. 140 Moldovan Family Collection

p. 117 fig. 3

Franciscus Quaresmius (1583–1650), Novae Ierosolymae et locorum circumiacentium accurata imago, 27.3 39.9 cm

p. 118 fig. 4

Bernardino Amico, Discretione vera de l’antica Cita di Gierusalem, 19.4 38.4 cm. Caption on verso: “Ragionamento, et disegno dell’antica sudetta città in tempo di Christo”; from Bernardino Amico, Trattato delle piante & immagini de sacri edifizi di Terra Santa, Venice, Pietro Ceconcelli, 1620, no. 45. Second edition with plate redesigned by the French artist Jacques Callot

p. 119 fig. 5

Bernardino Amico, -B WFSB F SFBMF DJUB EJ (JFSVTBMFN DPNF TJ USPWB PHJ, 19.6 28.4 cm. Caption on verso: “Discorso, & il modello, come si ritroua hoggi la Città di Gierusalemme”; from Bernardino Amico, Trattato delle piante & immagini de sacri edifizi di Terra Santa, Venice, Pietro Ceconcelli, 1620, no. 44. Second edition with plate redesigned by the French artist Jacques Callot

p. 120 fig. 6

Petrus Vesconte, Jerusalem, from Marin Sanudo (1270 – c. 1343), -JCFS TFDSFUPSVN mEFMJVN DSVDJT super terrae sanctae recuperatione et conservatione, Hanau, Christian Wechelius, 1611, map no. IV

p. 122 fig. 7

Map of Jerusalem with three rings of walls, as described by Flavius Josephus, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911

p. 125 fig. 8

Mount of Olives, 1538–40. Frescoed lunette, 160 degli Angioli

206 cm. Rome, Convent of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, 1578.

300 cm. Lugano, church of Santa Maria

A Very Modest Neapolitan Franciscan: Padre Juan Antonio Yepes Jacques Charles-Gaffiot p. 130 fig. 1

-JCSP OVFWP EPOEF TF FTDSJCFO MBT $POEVDUBT R<VF> WJFOFO EF MB &VSPQB B FTUB 4<BOUB> $JVE<BE> +FSVTB<MFN> EFTEF E<F> "HPT<UP> EF , 1720–1879. Manuscript, 200 ff., ff. 17 verso – 18 recto. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Archive

p. 132 fig. 2

-JCSP OVFWP EPOEF TF FTDSJCFO MBT $POEVDUBT R<VF> WJFOFO EF MB &VSPQB B FTUB 4<BOUB> $JVE<BE> +FSVTB <MFN> EFTEF E<F> "HPT<UP> EF , 1720–1879. Manuscript, 200 ff., f. 17 verso: mention, under 9 November 1729, of the silver 5BCFSOBDMF (fig. 1 on p. 74) sent from Naples as instructed by Father Juan Antonio Yepes, Commissioner-General for the Holy Land. Jerusalem, Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Archive

143

Scholars

Carlo Bertelli Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Lausanne and the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI, Italian-speaking Switzerland). He has held the posts of Ministerial Superintendent for the Arts in Western Lombardy, Director of the Brera Gallery, and member of the scholarly committee at the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano. His numerous publications range from prestigious books to important scholarly articles. He has been awarded the Centenary Prize of the BSI Bank.

Angela Catello Art historian and Decorative Arts specialist, notably on works by goldsmiths, silversmiths and Nativity figures from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. She has published scholarly articles, essays and book reviews in Italy and abroad, and has taught post-graduate courses. Since 1984 she has been curator for work in silver in exhibitions held by the Soprintendenza in Naples.

Jacques Charles-Gaffiot Former director of the Centre culturel du Panthéon in Paris. Between 1987 and the present he has been curator of exhibitions in Paris, Rome, Saint Petersburg and Beijing, always focusing on new areas of study. His most recent events include Trônes en majesté, l’autorité FU TPO TZNCPMF, Trésor du Saint-Sépulcre and -FT $ISÏUJFOT E 0SJFOU.

Manuela Kahn-Rossi Former Director (1984–99) of the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano, which she created. An art historian and specialist in museum studies, she has curated and produced exhibitions internationally, on a variety of subjects and ranging from the fifteenth century to the present day. Since 2000 she has worked as consultant, researcher and curator of art exhibitions. She is widely published in both books and scholarly articles.

144

Chiara Naldi Art historian. She has collaborated in art filing for both museums and private collections, and has been curator of a private collection of seventeenth-century Neapolitan art. Since 2005 she has worked in the art market, and since 2011 she has been the Director of the Galleria Canesso Lugano, for which she curates the exhibition catalogues.

Vera Segre Art historian with a PhD from the University of Lausanne. She is an Assistant at the Universities of Zurich and Lausanne, and has been contractual Professor at the Universities of Pavia and Macerata. She teaches at the Liceo Cantonale (secondary school) in Lugano, in tandem with her research activities. Her publications focus on the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and her most recent work is a study of the Cartography of Jerusalem in Santa Maria degli Angioli.

Nicola Spinosa Art historian and Ministerial Superintendent for the Arts in Naples in 1984â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2009. As museum director and university professor, he has curated the revised display of a number of historic collections, including that of the Capodimonte Museum. He has organized important conservation projects and numerous exhibitions held by the Soprintendenza in Naples, covering ancient, modern and contemporary art. He has been honoured with several awards.

Luigi Zanzi Formerly Professor of Methodology of Historical Sciences at the University of Pavia. He is a specialist on the art of the Sacri Monti, on which he has written several important works, as well as on the Eco-history of the Insubria region. His numerous and prestigious publications focus on history, art and a broad range of cultural interests.

145

Photo credits 2014. Photo Scala, Firenze /Fondo Edifici di Culto â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Ministero dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Interno: p. 45 fig. 11 Archivio Fotografico Civici Musei dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arte e Storia di Brescia: p. 40 fig. 6 Archivio fotografico della Soprintendenza per il Polo Museale di Napoli: p. 65 fig. 7; p. 67 fig. 9 Belvedere, Vienna: p. 68 fig. 10 Bpk/Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen: pp. 38â&#x20AC;&#x201C;39 fig. 5 British Library Board: p. 32 fig. 1 CG92/Olivier Ravoire: Marian cycle, pp. 96 and 97 Carlo Vannini (RE): p. 69 fig. 11; p. 73 fig. 13 Centro Grafico s.r.l., Foggia: p. 77 fig. 3 Collection of Francesco Valerio, Geneva: p. 60 fig. 2 Eitan Simanor / Custody of the Holy Land: p. 58 fig. 1 Fabio Speranza, Naples: p. 61 fig. 3; p. 62 fig. 4; p. 64 fig. 6 From 4FUUFDFOUP OBQPMFUBOP 4VMMF BMJ EFMM BRVJMB JNQFSJBMF , exhibition catalogue, Naples, 1995: p. 66 fig. 8 Foto Archivio Giulia Zorzetti, restorer, Naples: pp. 70â&#x20AC;&#x201C;71 fig. 12 From O. Ferrari e G. Scavizzi, -VDB (JPSEBOP - PQFSB DPNQMFUB, Naples, 2000: p. 63 fig. 5 Foto AD studio Š Ferraris Silvano: p. 41 fig. 7 Fotografie di Angelo Golizia e Carmine Lafratta: p. 78 fig. 4; p. 79 fig. 5 Fotografia Studio Paolo Zanzi: p. 104 fig. 1; p. 105 fig. 2; p. 106 fig. 3; p. 107 fig. 4; p. 108 fig. 5; p. 110 fig. 7; p. 111 fig. 8; p. 112 fig. 9; p. 113 fig. 10 Galleria Canesso Lugano: pp. 83 and 85 cat. 1; pp. 87 and 89 cat. 2; pp. 91, 93 and 95 cat. 3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;5; Christological cycle, pp. 96, 97 Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: p. 44 fig. 10 Marie-Armelle Beaulieu / Custody of the Holy Land: p. 12; p. 16; p. 20 fig. 1; p. 21 fig. 2; p. 52 fig. 3; pp. 54â&#x20AC;&#x201C;55 fig. 4; p. 74 fig. 1; p. 76 fig. 2; pp. 99 and 101 cat. 6; p. 130 fig. 1; p. 132 fig. 2 Mauro Gottardo/Custody of the Holy Land: p 48 fig. 1; p. 51 fig. 2 Peter Keller, Foto & Media: p. 114 fig. 1; p. 125 fig. 8 Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e delle AttivitĂ Culturali: pp. 36-37 fig. 4 Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle AttivitĂ Culturali e del Turismo: p. 34 fig. 3 Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle AttivitĂ Culturali e del Turismo â&#x20AC;&#x201C; SBSAE di Milano: p. 42 fig. 8 Su concessione del Comune di Padova â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Assessorato alla Cultura: p. 43 fig. 9 The Moldovan Family Collection: p. 116 fig. 2 The National Library of Israel, Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, Shapell Family Digitization Project and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Historic Cities Research Project: p. 117 fig. 3; p. 118 fig. 4; p. 119 fig. 5; p. 120 fig. 6 UďŹ&#x192;cio dei Beni culturali, Bellinzona: p. 25 fig. 6; p. 26 fig. 7; p. 27 fig. 8 Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1943.222: p. 47 fig. 12 DzF (BMMFSJB $BOFTTP -VHBOP XFMDPNFT DPOUBDU GSPN DPQZSJHIU IPMEFST GPS BOZ VOJEFOUJmFE TPVSDF NBUFSJBM GPS JNBHFT The DVD attached to the present volume is free of charge

147

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