Author of the entry: Mariano Saggiomo

This is the funerary monument and holy-water stoup dedicated to the fifth Prince of Sansevero, Giovan Francesco di Sangro, set immediately to the right of the main entrance of Santa Maria della Pietà, en pendant with the one dedicated to his namesake grandfather, fixed against the opposite side of the counter-façade (cf. entry 15). Even to a less attentive eye, it is evident that the two works are not mutually well co-ordinated, as the large angel considerably outsizes the so-called Mestizia. It would seem, moreover, that the former appears better proportioned when seen from a higher vantage point than the previous one, so it cannot be ruled out that both monuments were originally placed somewhat farther up.

As is the case with many of the other figures celebrated in the Chapel, the prestige Giovan Francesco acquired is owed principally to his military career, recalled in the inscription itself: he was loyal to the Spanish crown and financed ‘an army of many cavalrymen and two hundred foot soldiers’, fighting at Capua and at Salerno; on the death of his wife, ‘he joined the ecclesiastical militia’ (the translation of the inscription is in Cioffi 1994, p. 153, note 77).

Among the sculptural groups in the family church, the one under examination holds the unfortunate distinction of being the work most subject to losses and reworkings, and not only on account of the 1889 collapse, when ‘a piece of cornice, having become detached due to the impact, ruined the two holy-water stoups, destroying the winged statues above them’ (Colonna di Stigliano 1895, p. 34). The inventory of the goods remaining in the estate of Raimondo di Sangro, drawn up in 1771 (fol. 102r; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 143), records in fact that the slab on which the ‘winged putto in a sorrowful pose’ is placed ‘rests on a small white-marble pedestal upon which stands an urn adorned with an oval in the centre, in which the portrait [of the deceased] is depicted in bas-relief’. Unfortunately, both the urn and the relief have disappeared, evidently before 1889, since both elements are absent from Franz Wenzel’s lithograph (pl. XXVII), which was probably printed in 1839. A careful examination of the engraving reveals that the shell used for the holy water was positioned further towards the figure’s right foot. During the collapse in the late nineteenth century, however, the torch (now reconstructed) and the tree-trunk on the far right (replaced by a less slender branch) must have been broken.

As if this were not enough, by comparing the present-day inscription with the text transcribed in the cited inventory, it may be deduced that the layout of the older inscription was entirely different from the modern one and that, when it was recopied (presumably after the 1889 disaster), the stonemason made two fundamental errors, mistaking the Prince’s date of death (1618 rather than 1698) and the year in which Raimondo dictated the inscription, carving 1756 in place of 1766 (the errors, but not the different layout, were noticed by Colapietra 1986, p. 145, who first made the 1771 inventory known). Lastly, the tondo above the marble tablet, which, like its twin on the opposite side of the same wall, has no text and therefore no meaning, bears the likeness of a woman and not, as it should, that of a man. On the basis of an unspecified nineteenth-century lithograph, Oderisio de Sangro (1991, pp. 176, 221, 223) recognised in it the features of the wife of Prince Raimondo, considering it to be the same tondo once surmounting the Sincerità group: a credible but unverifiable hypothesis.

As for the autograph status, setting aside the attribution to Francesco Queirolo (1704–1762) advanced by Oderisio de Sangro himself (1991, pp. 220–223, no. 26), and notwithstanding the incised date of 1756, the critical literature has been substantially in agreement in attributing the work to Francesco Celebrano (Picone 1959, p. 108; Fittipaldi 1974, p. 204; Rotili 1979; Fittipaldi 1980, p. 214; Cioffi 1994, p. 19), considering it, on stylistic grounds, to be ‘directly dependent’ on the high-altar altarpiece (Rotili 1979), executed by Celebrano between 1766 and 1767 (cf. entry 1). The connection, undoubtedly pertinent, is also justified by the precise date of 1766, and is confirmed by the attribution to the Neapolitan sculptor proposed by the 1771 inventory (fol. 102r; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 143). In conclusion, it is at least curious to note that, despite the numerous and detailed descriptions of the Pietatella compiled throughout the early-modern age, the only two known mentions of the work are those of Stanislao D’Aloe, who in his Tesoro lapidario of 1838 (p. 21) simply gives an account of the inscription (already in its defective version), and of Gennaro Aspreno Galante, who in 1872 held that ‘the two whimsical holy water stoups are perhaps the work of Celebrano’ (p. 161).

Essential bibliography on the work

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, fol. 102r.

D’Aloe Stanislao, Tesoro lapidario napoletano, II, Naples 1838, p. 21.

Galante Gennaro Aspreno, Guida sacra della città di Napoli, Naples 1872, p. 161.

Colonna di Stigliano Fabio, ‘La cappella Sansevero e D. Raimondo di Sangro’, in Napoli nobilissima, IV, 1895, 3, pp. 33–36, esp. p. 34.

Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, p. 108.

Fittipaldi Teodoro, ‘Giuseppe Sanmartino (III)’, in Arte Cristiana, LXII, 1974, pp. 199–224, esp. p. 204.

Rotili Mario, ‘Celebrano, Francesco’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 23, Rome 1979, online: <www.treccani.it/biografico>.

Fittipaldi Teodoro, Scultura napoletana del Settecento, Naples 1980, p. 214.

Colapietra Raffaele, ‘Raimondo di Sangro e il Templum sepulcrale della Cappella Sansevero (II)’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, XXV, 1986, pp. 142–154, esp. p. 145.

de Sangro Oderisio, Raimondo de Sangro e la Cappella Sansevero, Rome 1991, pp. 176, 220–223, no. 26.

Cioffi Rosanna, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica, first edition: Salerno 1987; edition cited: Salerno 1994, pp. 19, 153, note 77.

Attanasio Sergio, In casa del principe di Sansevero. Architettura, invenzioni, inventari, Naples 2011, p. 143.

Napoli, la Cappella Sansevero e il Cristo velato. Naples, Sansevero Chapel and the Veiled Christ, texts by Marco Bussagli, photographs by Carlo Vannini, Bologna 2019, pp. 39, 46.

Comparative bibliography

DOI: 10.82049/CATALOGO17