Author of the entry: Luigi Coiro

The monument commemorates Girolama Caracciolo and Clarice Carafa di Stigliano, represented respectively in profile and in three-quarter view in the medallion at the apex of the pyramid. The two noblewomen were the first and second wives of Paolo di Sangro, second Prince of Sansevero (cf. entry 19). By Girolama, whom he married in 1585, Paolo had two sons, named after his father Giovan Francesco and his brother, Alessandro; by Clarice he had Ferdinando, a promising but ill-fated son (Colapietra 1986a, p. 64; cf. entry 18).

The virtues of the two princesses (Girolama Caracciolo being the only direct ancestress of Raimondo, as the mother of the third Prince of Sansevero, Giovan Francesco) are concentrated in the sculptural group of the Educazione. In accordance with Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1765, pp. 287–288), this figure takes the form of ‘a woman of mature age’, seated, with her full breast uncovered ‘to show openly the candour of her soul’, engaged in teaching ‘a child to read’, while holding ‘in her right hand the rod, since rod and correction produce wisdom in us’. In the sculpture, however, the scourge (no longer extant) was held in the female figure’s left hand, as recorded in an engraving by Franz Wenzel datable to shortly before the mid-nineteenth century (pl. X; cf. de Sangro 1991, p. 202). It may well be that further elements, including the woman’s right index finger and the boy’s right index finger and thumb, were damaged in 1889, when the Chapel’s counter-façade collapsed (Colonna di Stigliano 1895b, pp. 33–34).

The work was certainly complete by 1754, when it is mentioned by Origlia (p. 365), and most likely by the preceding year, given that the inscription on the base bears the date 1753. The attribution to Francesco Queirolo, who probably relied, here too, on one of the ‘thirty-six original models in fired clay’ left by Antonio Corradini at his death in 1752, as reported by Origlia (cf. Picone 1959, p. 37; Cogo 1996, p. 129), is confirmed by Carlo Giuseppe Ratti (1769, p. 308) and promptly taken up by Neapolitan periegetic sources (‘opera del celebre scarpello del cavalier Francesco Queiroli genovese’: Sarnelli 1772, p. 127).

Modern criticism has been divided. Marina Picone (1959, pp. 105–106), while rescuing certain ‘inspired and vibrant details, such as the open book in the boy’s hand’, identified as a copy of Cicero’s De Officiis, cast as a letter to his son Marcus, from the general ‘sense of carelessness’ she detected above all in the handling of the drapery and in the woman’s face, resolved in a conventional manner – nonetheless considered ‘violent and unjustified’ the judgements of Leopoldo Cicognara (1818, p. 96), who elevated the work to the apex of the ‘barbarous taste of the arts in their most corrupt phase’. Cicognara’s verdict would later be compounded by Fabio Colonna di Stigliano (1895a, p. 119), who described the entire composition as ‘meagre and in the worst taste’; more recently, Oderisio de Sangro (1991, p. 204) has similarly characterised it as ‘the most amorphous’ of Queirolo’s works in the Sansevero Chapel.

Raimondo di Sangro himself was not fully satisfied with the outcome, so much so that in his will (1770, fols. 45r–46r; Chartulae desangriane 2006, p. 107) he expressly exempted the Educazione, together with the mausolea of the Decoro, the Soavità del giogo coniugale, and the Dominio di sé stessi, from the general prohibition on altering the works in the Chapel, whilst also recommending the repainting of the vault (cf. entries 14, 8, and 22). The Prince’s dissatisfaction may derive from the fact that for this work he perhaps ‘hoped for an outcome more in keeping with the excellence of the Pudicizia, which in its symbolism serves as its significant and indispensable partner’, the Educazione being ‘the other face of motherhood, the unveiled one’ (Colapietra 1986a, p. 74; idem 1986b, p. 152, no. 90). Nor can it be excluded that the somewhat awkward rendering of the young pupil (whose proportions are not entirely convincing) may also have contributed; as Colapietra suggests, the figure might represent either Raimondo himself or the unfortunate Ferrante, ‘his remote predecessor and inevitable interlocutor’ (1986a, p. 74).

However, Cicognara’s caustic condemnation (1818, p. 96), while disparaging the clothing and attitudes of the youth ‘dressed in the heroic manner (in the way actors appeared on stage fifty years ago)’, proves inadvertently revealing. The critical remark, although negative in tone, incidentally captures the theatrical dimension of the representation, entirely consonant with Raimondo’s sensibilities, since the Jesuit priests with whom he was educated in Rome gave him, among other things, a passion for the theatre. The Ratio Studiorum (1599), moreover, had assigned a central role to acting practice within Jesuit pedagogy, so much so that in theatrical workshops, every ‘student of the College was trained to become not only a virtuous orator capable of reciting the classics and religious tragedies, but also an exemplary Christian citizen who, through mastery of the body, voice, and memory, achieved full moral and intellectual balance’ (Forgione 2022, pp. 5–6).

Set upon a column base (Inventario 1771, fols. 94v–96r; Attanasio 2011, pp. 140–141) – probably a symbol of the classical culture upon which any modern advancement must rest – the maternal yet severe instructor is seated on a precisely squared marble block bearing the Latin motto ‘EDUCATIO ET DISCIPLINA MORES FACIUNT’ (Ripa 1765, pp. 287–288; Panfili 2015). This is a variation on the more concise ‘educatio mores facit’, attributed erroneously to Seneca (Ferrari 2021, p. 101, no. 42; idem 2000, pp. 199–200).

Essential bibliography on the work

Origlia Paolino Giangiuseppe, Istoria dello Studio di Napoli…, II, Naples, Giovanni di Simone, 1754, p. 365.

Ratti Carlo Giuseppe, Delle vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti genovesi. Tomo secondo… in continuazione dell’opera di Raffaello Soprani, Genoa, in the Casamara dalle cinque lampade printing house, 1769, p. 308.

Testamento di Raimondo di Sangro, Naples, notary Francesco de Maggio, 1770, copy of the document held at the Archivio Storico del Pio Monte della Misericordia di Napoli, d’Aquino di Caramanico collection, provisional shelfmark A.160, fols. 45r–46r.

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. 94v–96r.

Sarnelli Pompeo, Nuova guida de’ forestieri…, Naples, Saverio Rossi, 1772, p. 127.

Cicognara Leopoldo, Storia della scultura dal suo risorgimento in Italia sino al secolo XIX…, III, Venice 1818, p. 96.

Wenzel Franz, pl. X representing ‘L’Educazione’, 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.

Colonna di Stigliano Fabio, ‘La cappella Sansevero e D. Raimondo di Sangro’, in Napoli nobilissima, IV, 1895a, 8, pp. 116–121, esp. p. 119.

Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, pp. 105–106.

Colapietra Raffaele, ‘Raimondo di Sangro e il Templum sepulcrale della Cappella Sansevero (I)’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, XXV, 1986a, pp. 62–79, esp. pp. 64, 74, 75.

Colapietra Raffaele, ‘Raimondo di Sangro e il Templum sepulcrale della Cappella Sansevero (II)’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, XXV, 1986b, pp. 142–154, esp. pp. 142, 152.

Coletti Alessandro, Il principe di Sansevero, Novara 1988, p. 200.

de Sangro Oderisio, Raimondo de Sangro e la Cappella Sansevero, Rome 1991, pp. 202–204.

Cioffi Rosanna, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica, first edition: Salerno 1987; edition cited: Salerno 1994, p. 40, fig. 35.

Chartulae desangriane. Il Principe committente, exhibition catalogue, Bruno Crimaldi (ed.) (Naples, Museo Cappella Sansevero, 28 March 2006), Naples 2006, p. 107.

Nappi Eduardo, Dai numeri la verità. Nuovi documenti sulla famiglia, i palazzi e la Cappella dei Sansevero, Naples 2010, p. 102.

Attanasio Sergio, In casa del Principe di Sansevero. Architettura, invenzioni, inventari, Naples 2011, pp. 44, 46, 78, 140–141.

Panfili Veronica, ‘L’iconologia nelle statue della Cappella Sansevero a Napoli’, in BTA, Bollettino Telematico dell’Arte, 2015, no. 789, online only: www.bta.it.

Ferrari Monica, ‘La fortuna pedagogica del De liberis educandis tra Umanesimo ed Età moderna’, in Civitas educationis. Education, Politics, and Culture, X, 2021, 1, pp. 87–108, esp. p. 101, note 42.

Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, p. 37.

Comparative bibliography

Iconologia del cavaliere Cesare Ripa perugino, notabilmente accresciuta d’immagini, di annotazioni e di fatti dall’abate Cesare Orlandi, patrizio di Città della Pieve accademico augusto. A Sua Eccellenza don Raimondo di Sangro…, I–V, Perugia, Piergiovanni Costantini, 1764–1767, II, 1765, pp. 287–288.

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

Cogo Bruno, Antonio Corradini scultore veneziano. 1688–1752, Este 1996, p. 129.

Ferrari Monica, «Per non manchare in tuto del debito mio». L’educazione dei bambini Sforza nel Quattrocento, Milan 2000, esp. pp. 199–200.

Forgione Gianluca, I simulacri delle cose. La Cappella Sansevero e il barocco romano, Turin 2022, pp. 5–6.

DOI: 10.82049/CATALOGO20