Author of the entry: Gianluca Forgione
The labyrinthine pavement was among the works inside the funerary temple to which Francesco Celebrano and Raimondo di Sangro devoted themselves until Sansevero’s death on 22 March 1771. Sansevero did not live to see the completion of his creation. For this reason, in his last wishes, drawn up on 7 August 1770 (fol. 47r; cf. Chartulae desangriane 2006, p. 108), he enjoins his ‘universal heir and first-born’ to ‘continue the work to its full completion, and this with the assistance and under the direction of Don Francesco Celebrano, who has directed its difficult and involved execution from the outset’. Not mentioned in the Breve nota di quel che si vede in casa del principe di Sansevero don Raimondo di Sangro nella città di Napoli (1769), the ‘large portion of pavement, composed of statuary white marble, bardiglio, black marble, and veined marble’ is, by contrast, recorded in the inventory of the goods remaining in the Prince’s estate, drawn up in June 1771 (fols. 130r–v; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 153). The document dwells in particular on the singular iconography of the ‘pavement’, which, ‘executed in chiaroscuro, appears entirely in relief in the manner of boxes and recesses, with a small white listel running around the said recesses, and also around the said boxes, which listel runs around the whole work and is composed in such a way that it never breaks off but always continues and always joins with the one that follows’ (ibid.).
The source of the design with hooked crosses and concentric squares reproduced in the pavement has only recently been clearly identified (Fabrizio Masucci, in I nostri omaggi 2010, pp. 37–40). On 10 March 1754, in the atrium of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, a painted plaster fragment with a meander frieze almost identical to the motif devised by Raimondo and Celebrano was discovered. The fragment, now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, is reproduced in an engraving by Carlo Orazi in the third volume of the Antichità di Ercolano esposte (1762, p. 37), published in Naples in eight volumes between 1757 and 1792 and, tellingly, recorded in the inventory of Sansevero’s library (Fabrizio Masucci and Leen Spruit, in Raimondo di Sangro 2020, p. 320). The Prince was, moreover, personally involved in the rediscovery of the Vesuvian city, since, in one of his unsuccessful experiments, he attempted to unroll the recovered papyri by treating them with mercury (Fabrizio Masucci, in I nostri omaggi 2010, p. 38).
Contrary to what is often claimed, the replacement of the original slabs with the present terracotta paving must have preceded the serious collapse that befell the Di Sangro family church in 1889. In a sepia drawing on paper by Achille Vianelli (1803–1894) and in a photograph of the Chapel by Sommer, both plausibly before 1889, the labyrinthine pavement already appears to have been replaced (Forgione 2022, pp. 42, 176–177, figs. 94–95). Some of the surviving fragments, in a number of places clumsily restored (de Sangro 1991, p. 150; Cioffi 1994, p. 157, note 107), have been reassembled in the passageway in front of Raimondo’s tomb, while others are displayed on the walls along the museum route. The quantity of fragments, the aforementioned inventory of 1771, and the nineteenth-century visual evidence suggest that the labyrinthine pavement must originally have covered much of the nave (Fabrizio Masucci, in I nostri omaggi 2010, pp. 37–40).
From classical antiquity onwards, labyrinths, to which the meander motif refers, have metaphorically represented the difficulties and dangers of worldly experience. The path undertaken within them typically has a palingenetic outcome, and their close association with death and rebirth has often led to emphasis on their initiatory and esoteric significance. The Christianisation of this classical symbol began even in the Early Middle Ages, and the labyrinth, while continuing to embody the snares of earthly life, came to signify the soul’s penitential journey towards salvation. It is likely that the Prince encountered this stratified tradition of meanings associated with labyrinths through the Jesuit culture he absorbed during his prolonged period of study at the Seminario Romano between 1720 and 1730 (Forgione 2022, pp. 49–51).
In one of his final publishing ventures, entitled Turris Babel, sive Archontologia, printed in Amsterdam in 1679, Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) reconstructed – using textual sources and by means of splendid engravings – some of the most important labyrinths in the ancient world (pp. 73–87). The learned German scholar observes that the symbol represents the perils of sensuality, and specifically the vices most deeply rooted in the human soul, such as lust and the desire for wealth. For Kircher too, it is only through moral rectitude that the believer once more finds the thread of Ariadne that leads out of the labyrinth. This condition had already been given figurative expression in the treatise on the Pia desideria by the Belgian Jesuit Herman Hugo (1588–1629), printed in Antwerp in 1624 to remarkable editorial success. The text, accompanied by forty-eight plates engraved by Boëtius Bolswert (c. 1580–1633), is divided into three parts, dedicated respectively to the Gemitus animae poenitentis, the Vota animae sanctae, and the Suspiria animae amantis. These sections illustrate the earthly pilgrimage and the three paths towards salvation: purification, illumination, and union. One of the best-known plates depicts a pilgrim about to reach the Heavenly Jerusalem, guided by the thread offered to him by an angel in the midst of the labyrinth of life (Hugo 1624, p. 134, pl. 17).
Sansevero’s temple layout enacts an allegory of the spiritual journey: the believer moves through a deliberately confusing path that embodies the trials of worldly existence. Only after completing the earthly journey, guided by the Christian virtues embodied in the surrounding allegorical tombs, and in the light of faith in Christ’s sacrifice represented in Celebrano’s Pietà on the high altar, will the penitent soul be admitted to the beatific vision, already contemplated by the saints of the Di Sangro family depicted in the painting on the ceiling (Forgione 2022, pp. 51–54).
Essential bibliography on the work
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, fol. 47r.
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. 130r–v.
de Sangro Oderisio, Raimondo de Sangro e la Cappella Sansevero, Rome 1991, pp. 150–151.
Cioffi Rosanna, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica, first edition: Salerno 1987; edition cited: Salerno 1994, pp. 115–116, 157, note 107.
Chartulae desangriane. Il Principe committente, exhibition catalogue, Bruno Crimaldi (ed.) (Naples, Museo Cappella Sansevero, 28 March 2006), Naples 2006, p. 108.
I nostri omaggi, Principe!, exhibition catalogue, Fabrizio Masucci (ed.), Museo Cappella Sansevero (23 April – 18 July 2010), Naples 2010, pp. 37–40.
Attanasio Sergio, In casa del Principe di Sansevero. Architettura, invenzioni, inventari, Naples 2011, pp. 153, 165.
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. 140–149.
Forgione Gianluca, I simulacri delle cose. La Cappella Sansevero e il barocco romano, Turin 2022, pp. 49–51.
Comparative bibliography
Hugo Herman, Pia desideria emblematis elegiis et affectibus Ss. Patrum illustrata…, Antwerp, Typis Henrici Aertssenii, 1624, p. 134, pl. 17.
Kircher Athanasius, Turris Babel sive Archontologia…, Amsterdam, Ex Officina Janssonio-Waesbergiana, 1679, pp. 73–87.
Le Antichità di Ercolano esposte, Naples, nella Regia Stamperia, III, 1762, p. 37.
Raimondo di Sangro. Cronaca di vita e opere, Fabrizio Masucci and Leen Spruit (eds), Naples 2020, p. 320.
Forgione Gianluca, I simulacri delle cose. La Cappella Sansevero e il barocco romano, Turin 2022, pp. 42, 51–54, 176–177, figs. 94–95.
DOI: 10.82049/CATALOGO23