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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