Author of the entry: Luigi Coiro
The first indirect mention of the work is owed to Carlo de Lellis, who transcribed the epitaph in full in 1654 (pp. 140–142). However, the pastoral visitation carried out by Ascanio Filomarino in 1649 describes the Chapel ‘cum quatuor ex marmore memoriis eiusdem familie [sic] defunctorum cum inscriptionibus’, and refers back to the one made in 1634 by Francesco Boncompagni (both traced to the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Napoli by Mariano Saggiomo: cf. Saggiomo 2021–2022, esp. p. 506), which, however, records the presence of only three ‘memorie’: to the right of the high altar those of Alessandro and Giovan Francesco, and to the left that of Paolo (cf. entries 4, 11, 19). Alongside the latter, precisely the monument to the fourth Prince of Sansevero must therefore have been added, bearing the date 1642 at the end of its long inscribed slab.
Contrary to recent claims (Ricco 2023, p. 77), there is clear evidence that the tomb was not commissioned for its current location, the first chapel on the left of the nave, to which it was moved only during Prince Raimondo’s eighteenth-century refurbishment (Attanasio 2011, pp. 46, 145–147). The sculpture originally completed the symmetry of the four funerary monuments flanking the altar and, ‘although formally dedicated by his son Giovan Francesco, it is in fact the result, as artistically valuable as it is politically symptomatic, of Giambattista and Placido’, the infant’s guardians ‘who intended to close once and for all the “European” orientation in order to keep open, and indeed to fling wide open, the Apulian regional one, within an intransigent perspective of “re-feudalisation”’ (Colapietra 1986, p. 67; on the historiographical concept of ‘rifeudalizzazione’, cf. Villari 1963).
Before his death at just twenty-seven years of age in 1636, Paolo, ‘so hostile to the comforts of the paternal palace that, as a youth, he devoted himself to the military profession, saying that no man could ever be called a good prince if he had not learned, in the school of arms, the art of command through conquest’ (Arminio Monforte 1674, p. 161), had already embodied ‘the de’ Sangri martial instinct’, taking part, in his short life, in the military enterprises of his ancestors during the Thirty Years’ War. These exploits are praised ‘in the twenty-third medallion’ of the structure for the solemn funeral rites celebrated at Torremaggiore in 1674 in honour of Giovanna di Sangro (ibid., pp. 161–168; cf. entries 6 and 18), and above all in Genio bellicoso di Napoli by Raffaele Filamondo (1694, pp. 117–130, 161 [recte 261]), which lists the fourth Prince of Sansevero among the commanders who, holding the rank of colonel, ‘served for faith, king and fatherland’ in the victorious battle of Nördlingen in 1634, distinguishing himself to such a degree as to be awarded the Order of the Golden Fleece, whose pendant, with its fleece, is visible beneath the sash in the statue dedicated to him in the Di Sangro Chapel.
In the ‘rich exemplification of seventeenth-century European costume’ represented by the Sansevero Chapel, Adelaide Cirillo Mastrocinque (1969, p. 142) focused especially on ‘this magnificent evocation of such swaggering elegance, at once mocking and melancholic’; and, while not wishing to ‘accuse Paolo di Sangro of being a “ceremonial windbag”’, she observed that ‘his dress and his very posture present him as a man “à la page”, on the one hand entirely devoted to Franco-Dutch fashion, and on the other a representative of a certain showy and military bravado of Spanish derivation’.
Nevertheless, the meticulous rendering of the individual elements (with the striking ‘broad collar, edged with deep needlework festoons, and the collet vidé or col rabat that replaced the oppressive gourgueras and the austere golillas of Spain’) has, beyond its purely decorative value, the essential function of defining and highlighting the official offices held by the effigy, and of ‘eternalising the “memory”’ of all its attributes (ibid.), making the monument, as the epitaph states, VITAE THALAMUM, MORTIS TUMULUM (Lattuada 1984, p. 213).
In what he considered ‘one of the most evocative examples among the marble sculptures that have made this little temple famous’, Vincenzo Pacelli (1986, p. 231) interpreted the ‘marvellous helmet’ in particular as ‘a fine example of still life’. In the details of the costume, according to Marina Picone (1959, pp. 73–74), ‘the interplay of light and shade is intensified […] in a vision that is more outwardly oriented and sensuous, and less naturalistic than one would expect in Fanzago’, to whom the sculpture is traditionally attributed ab antiquo, and in the last century, for example, by Fogaccia (1945, pp. 143–144), Bologna and Doria (in Mostra del ritratto, 1954, p. 27) and Mormone (1970, p. 183), in accordance with ‘the phenomenon of pan-Fanzaghism that appears to permeate much of the criticism of seventeenth-century Neapolitan sculpture’. To Picone’s brilliant insight we also owe the attribution of the work to the Carrarese sculptor Giulio Mencaglia (Picone 1959, p. 73), later confirmed almost irrefutably by a document published by Eduardo Nappi (1975, pp. 5, 29–30, doc. 74; idem 2010, p. 115, doc. 353): on 25 October 1642, Berardino Landini (at that time a close associate of Mencaglia’s) received sixty-nine ducats ‘as payment for a piece of marble […] from which the statue of the Prince of San Seviero [sic] was to be made’.
The overall magnificence is largely due to the rich chromatic combination of the marbles, in harmony with ‘the imaginative culture of Dionisio Lazzari’ (Causa Picone 1992, p. 588), the hypertrophic white marble mascheroni (the left one chipped and crudely repaired at the lower end) which decorate, and almost preside over, the inlaid pedestal with its two elegant trophies on a black ground, and the complex entablature, with the rear wall articulated by two panoplies and six further relief trophies, three on each side: a composition which, although belonging to a refined and well-established tradition (cf. Steinke 2022; Ricco 2023, pp. 77–81, 121–122), is genuinely singular, not least for its pronounced horizontal extension (Lattuada 1984, p. 213), helping to make this tomb the most pictorial and inventive of the seventeenth-century monuments in the Chapel (Causa Picone 1992, p. 588).
Given the quality of the decorations, Mencaglia’s role was probably less decisive for the inlaid architectural elements and mastery of marble combinations than for the sculptural components, on which he worked alongside Landini, who, according to Causa Picone (ibid.), had also sculpted the two small lions supporting the sarcophagus, whose less successful execution may be due to the difficulty of working with red marble (it cannot be ruled out, however, that they are reused, or spolia).
The close relationship with the almost contemporary Firrao Chapel in the Neapolitan basilica of San Paolo Maggiore (Iorio 2012, p. 348) is certainly due to the involvement of the same artists – Mencaglia, in addition to the Madonna col Bambino, created the kneeling portrait of Antonino Firrao (ibid., pp. 299–300) – and extends to another ‘magnificent’ commission promoted in those same years by the Prince of Sant’Agata Cesare Firrao, namely the modernisation of the façade of the family palace on Via Costantinopoli – besides the seven portrait busts, one should also consider the six white-marble pilasters laden with relief trophies (cf. Steinke 2022, pp. 22–23) – which once again saw the Landini–Mencaglia pairing at work.
Although, from a technical and stylistic point of view, the Paolo di Sangro has much in common with the Firrao portraits (including the lost busts formerly in the church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli in Cosenza; cf. Ricco 2023, pp. 124–125, no. 13, pp. 131–132, no. 21), its compositional scheme, which also recalls the Giovan Francesco di Sangro monument in the Chapel (cf. entry 11), bears some relation to the contemporary statue of Carlo Maria Caracciolo, finished in or before 1643 by Ercole Ferrata, which, however, ‘possesses a typically Berninian quality in its sense of movement’, an effect heightened by the ‘probably “fortuitous” relationship with its present setting’, the Caracciolo di Vico Chapel in San Giovanni a Carbonara, the statue having almost certainly been originally intended for a niche in a wall monument at Torrecuso. In contrast, the Paolo di Sangro is ‘enclosed within an architectural-decorative framework’, producing an ‘effect of sculptural absorption’ (Lattuada 1984, p. 213).
Contributing to this impression, among other details, is a slight shift in the position of the warrior, who, still in the nineteenth century, appears to have faced – albeit only slightly – more towards the left, as shown by a lithograph by Franz Wenzel, curiously entitled Il Decoro (a virtue normally associated with the Funerary Monument to Isabella della Tolfa and Laudomia Milano; cf. entry 14). This hypothesis is also supported by the ‘figure of one of the precious tombs of the same ancestors’, an engraving published by Pompeo Sarnelli (1685, between pp. 196–197; cf. Saggiomo 2021–2022, p. 516, note 23; Ricco 2023, p. 78), bearing a dedication by Antonio Bulifon to Paolo di Sangro, fourth Prince of Sansevero. Though schematic, it shows (like Wenzel’s image) the whole staff of command clasped in the prince’s right hand, whereas the rear portion of this iconographic attribute is now missing, and the fist rests against the half-pilaster of the aedicule. The print also clearly shows two pairs of columns still recorded in the meticulous description of the monument prepared for the Inventario of 1771 (fols. 107v–114r; cf. Attanasio 2011, pp. 145–147) (one of the lengthiest among those devoted to the monuments of the Chapel), which indeed notes ‘four columns, two in black marble, and two of brecciolina […]. Above the said section of pedestal is the base and a small moulding in bardiglio with the Corinthian base, and above it a column already described, made of brecciolina in a single block with a Corinthian capital. Beside these columns are another two black marble pillars, noted above, carved from a single block with a white marble base and an Ionic capital’.
The two pairs of columns (but, perhaps in error, the 1772 edition of Sarnelli’s guide, p. 126 counts only one pair) are no longer present, and it is not unlikely that they were damaged; the same fate may also have befallen the columns that adorned the monument to Giovan Francesco di Sangro (cf. catalogue entry 11) following the collapse of part of the church’s counter-façade in 1889 (cf. Colonna di Stigliano 1895, pp. 33–34). The statue’s slight turn to the left compared to its seventeenth- and eighteenth-century arrangement may therefore be due to the modifications necessitated by the removal of the columns: the imposing figure appears to fit only with difficulty into the niche, now reduced in depth more than in width. It cannot be ruled out, moreover, that the sculpture was recessed as far as possible in what must have been a far from straightforward operation to set back the monument’s most protruding elements.
According to the Inventario (1771, fol. 108r; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 145), a black slab with engraved and gilded letters once occupied the centre of the tomb; it too was destroyed in 1889 and replaced in the twentieth century with a new white marble slab reproducing the original inscription (de Sangro 1991, p. 208), dedicated to the subject of ‘one of the most fascinating sculptures of the seventeenth century’ (Nava Cellini 1982, p. 129).
Essential bibliography on the work
de Lellis Carlo, Parte seconda, overo supplimento a ‘Napoli sacra’ di don Cesare d’Engenio Caracciolo, Naples, per Roberto Mollo, 1654; edition cited: Luciana Mocciola and Elisabetta Scirocco (eds), Naples–Florence 2007, pp. 140–142, online only: www.memofonte.it.
Sarnelli Pompeo, Guida de’ forestieri…, Naples, Giuseppe Roselli, at the expense of Antonio Bulifon, 1685, p. 197, pl. 197.
Sarnelli Pompeo, Guida de’ forestieri…, Naples, Antonio Bulifon, 1688, pp. 239–240, pl. 239.
Sarnelli Pompeo, Guida de’ forestieri…, Naples, Giuseppe Roselli, 1697, pp. 195–196, pl. 196.
Inventario de’ beni rimasti nell’eredità del fu eccellentissimo don Raimondo di Sangro principe di Sansevero, Naples, notary Francesco de Maggio, 1771, copy of the document held at the Archivio Storico del Pio Monte della Misericordia di Napoli, d’Aquino di Caramanico collection, provisional shelfmark A.162, fols. 107v–114r.
Sarnelli Pompeo, Nuova guida de’ forestieri…, Naples, Saverio Rossi, 1772, p. 126.
Sigismondo Giuseppe, Descrizione della città di Napoli e suoi borghi, II, [Naples,] Terres, 1788, p. 35.
Wenzel Franz, pl. XVIII representing ‘Il Decoro’, belonging to a group of 32 lithographs of the sculptures of the Sansevero Chapel in Naples drawn by various authors and engraved by Wenzel c. 1839: the copy identified (lacking six lithographs) is held at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, shelfmark PALATINA Banc. 03.
Catalani Luigi, Le chiese di Napoli. Descrizione storica ed artistica, I, Naples 1845–1853, pp. 129–130.
Galante Gennaro Aspreno, Guida sacra della città di Napoli, Naples 1872, p. 160.
Fogaccia Piero, Cosimo Fanzago, Bergamo 1945, pp. 143–144.
Mostra del ritratto storico napoletano, exhibition catalogue Gino Doria and Ferdinando Bologna (eds) (Naples, Palazzo Reale, October – November 1954), Naples 1954, esp. p. 27.
Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, pp. 73–75.
Nava Cellini Antonia, ‘Un tracciato per l’attività ritrattistica di Giuliano Finelli’, in Paragone. Arte, XI, 1960, 131, pp. 9–30, esp. p. 25.
Cirillo Mastrocinque Adelaide, ‘Ritratto e costume nella scultura tombale del Seicento a Napoli’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, VIII, 1969, pp. 139–146, esp. pp. 140–141, figs. 25, 27, and p. 142.
Mormone Raffaele, ‘Sculture di Cosimo Fanzago’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, IX, 1970, pp. 174–185, esp. p. 183.
Nava Cellini Antonia, ‘Tracce per lo svolgimento di Cosimo Fanzago scultore’, in Paragone. Arte, XXII, 1971, 251, pp. 38–66, esp. p. 65.
Nava Cellini Antonia, ‘La scultura dal 1610 al 1656’, in Storia di Napoli, V.2, Il Viceregno, Naples 1972, pp. 783–825, esp. pp. 808–809.
Nappi Eduardo, ‘La famiglia, il palazzo e la cappella dei Principi di Sansevero. Dai documenti dell’Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli’, in Revue Internationale d’Histoire de la Banque, 1975, no. 11, pp. 1–61, esp. pp. 5, 29–30, doc. 74.
Santucci Paola, ‘La scultura e la decorazione plastica nell’età barocca’, in La voce della Campania, VII, 1979, 20, pp. 407–422, esp. p. 420.
Nava Cellini Antonia, La scultura del Seicento, Turin 1982, pp. 128–129.
Lattuada Riccardo, in Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, exhibition catalogue (Naples, various venues, 24 October 1984 – 14 April 1985), II, Naples 1984, pp. 212–213.
Colapietra Raffaele, ‘Raimondo di Sangro e il Templum sepulcrale della Cappella Sansevero (I)’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, XXV, 1986, pp. 62–79, esp. p. 67.
Pacelli Vincenzo, ‘L’ideologia del potere nella ritrattistica napoletana del Seicento’, in Bollettino del Centro di studi vichiani, XVI, 1986, pp. 197–241, esp. pp. 230–241, figs. 22–23.
de Sangro Oderisio, Raimondo de Sangro e la Cappella Sansevero, Rome 1991, pp. 204–208, no. 21.
Causa Picone Marina, ‘La cappella Sansevero dal 1590 al 1652: un ‘point de repère’ per la scultura barocca a Napoli’, in Barocco napoletano, Gaetana Cantone (ed.), II, Naples 1992, pp. 581–598, esp. pp. 588–589, fig. 3.
Cioffi Rosanna, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica, first edition: Salerno 1987; edition cited: Salerno 1994, p. 194.
Nappi Eduardo, Dai numeri la verità. Nuovi documenti sulla famiglia, i palazzi e la Cappella dei Sansevero, Naples 2010, pp. 96, 115, doc. 353.
Attanasio Sergio, In casa del Principe di Sansevero. Architettura, invenzioni, inventari, Naples 2011, pp. 46, 145–147.
Iorio Sabrina, ‘La cappella Firrao nella chiesa di San Paolo Maggiore di Napoli: la committenza, gli artisti e le opere’, in Sant’Andrea Avellino e i teatini nella Napoli del viceregno spagnolo. Arte religione società, Domenico Antonio D’Alessandro (ed.), II, Naples 2012, pp. 289–426, esp. pp. 348, 355, pl. 45.
Saggiomo Mariano, Le chiese gentilizie napoletane di Età Moderna: per la ricostruzione storica di un fenomeno dimenticato, PhD thesis in Historical, Archaeological and Art-Historical Sciences from the Federico II University of Naples, XXXIV cycle, under supervisors Francesco Caglioti and Bianca de Divitiis, academic year 2021–2022, pp. 535–552, esp. pp. 506, 516, note 23.
Ricco Antonello, Giulio Mencaglia, uno scultore del Seicento tra Firenze, Roma e Napoli, Pisa 2023, pp. 77–81, 121–122, no. 10.
Comparative bibliography
Arminio Monforte Fulgenzio, Il trionfo del dolore. Funerali per la illustrissima ed eccellentissima signora… donna Giovanna di Sangro dei Marchesi di San Lucido, prencipessa di San Severo, celebrati in Torremaggiore nella chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine… l’anno 1674, Naples, per Girolamo Fasulo, 1674, pp. 161–168.
Filamondo Raffaele, Il Genio bellicoso di Napoli…, I, Naples, in the new printing house of Domenico Antonio Parrino and Michele Luigi Mutii, 1694, pp. 117–130, 161 [misprinted for 261].
Colonna di Stigliano Fabio, ‘La cappella Sansevero e D. Raimondo di Sangro’, in Napoli nobilissima, IV, 1895, 3, pp. 33–36, esp. pp. 33–34.
Villari Rosario, ‘Note sulla rifeudalizzazione del Regno di Napoli alla vigilia della rivoluzione di Masaniello’, in Studi storici, IV, 1963, 4, pp. 638–668.
Coiro Luigi, ‘Ercole Ferrata da ‘marmoraro’ a ‘scultore’ nella Napoli di Cosimo Fanzago’, in Ercole Ferrata (1610–1686) da Pellio all’Europa, proceedings of the international study conference (Como, 3–4 February 2011), Andrea Spiriti and Laura Facchin (eds), Laino 2019, pp. 36–65, esp. p. 44.
Steinke Horst, ‘The Façade of Palazzo Firrao: Towards a New Interpretation’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. VII, VIII, 2022, 1, pp. 19–35.
Ricco Antonello, Giulio Mencaglia, uno scultore del Seicento tra Firenze, Roma e Napoli, Pisa 2023, pp. 124–125, no. 13, pp. 131–132, no. 21.
DOI: 10.82049/CATALOGO13