Author of the entry: Mariano Saggiomo
Paolo Persico – involved in the works of the Sansevero Chapel from at least 1752, as Picone (1959, p. 51) infers from the records of the dispute between Francesco Queirolo (1704–1762) and Raimondo (on which see ibid., pp. 34–39; Cioffi 1994, pp. 42–48; and especially Bruno Crimaldi, in Chartulae desangriane 2006, pp. 65–97) – is the documented creator of the monument to Gaetana Mirelli, daughter-in-law of Prince Raimondo through her marriage to his son Vincenzo. The work, traditionally known as the Soavità del giogo coniugale, may be linked to the ‘putto and medallion representing the Amore della Virtù’ already outlined by Persico in ‘a stucco model’ dated 28 July 1766 (Forgione 2022, pp. 64–66, doc. 5), for which the sculptor received payment in cash and, in a singular circumstance, ‘an ancient marble statue, about seven palms high, representing a Woman resting her face on one hand in an attitude of sorrow, which formerly stood in the said church, and of which the Prince could make no use’ (ibid.).
This was probably once again the same ‘ancient’ piece referred to on 10 March 1767, at the time of the contract between Raimondo and Persico for the execution of the _Benevolenza matrimoniale _(again the Soavità), to be completed by the end of September of the same year. In return, the sculptor was to receive 160 ducats and ‘the statue that is presently placed on the same pedestal where the new one to be carved is to be installed, so that, unico actu, the already existing statue shall be lowered and the one to be made set in its place’ (ibid., pp. 66–69, doc. 7). That this marble dates from the seventeenth-century phase of the Chapel (ibid., p. 28) is now confirmed by its identification with the lost allegorical sculpture that Michelangelo Naccherino (1550–1622) had planned to set to the right of the statue of the second Prince of Sansevero, Paolo di Sangro, as part of an early arrangement of the tomb, as evidenced by a drawing preserved in the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York (cf. entry 19).
Less clear are the reasons that prevented the Prince from reusing the Donna mesta, namely whether it was only a matter of proportions, iconography, or also taste.
Returning briefly to the design phase of the work, it should be noted that in the documents cited at the beginning of this entry, and more specifically in the list of bozzetti that the Prince required to be returned from Queirolo, there appears ‘the wax model of the tomb of the Amore delle Virtù’. It is not clear whether this was an autograph bozzetto by Queirolo or a work by Antonio Corradini (1688–1752) that had come into the hands of the Genoese sculptor and subsequently reached Persico, who presumably referred to it when producing his own version (on the question of bozzetti see especially Picone 1959, p. 37; Cioffi 1994, pp. 11–12; Cogo 1996, pp. 325–330, no. 51). The connection suggested by Cioffi (1994, p. 44) between this Amore delle Virtù and the Amor divino in the Chapel is to be excluded, since the latter is now attributed to Michelangelo Naccherino (1550–1622), who executed it for the tomb of the second Prince of Sansevero between 1609 and 1615 (cf. entry 18).
Setting conjecture aside, it is known that work on the Soavità continued beyond September 1767 due to the failure to locate ‘a piece of white marble of the quality and perfection required and appropriate for the structure [and] sculpture of the said statue with its accompanying putto’ (Nappi 2010, p. 138, doc. 448). A new deadline was therefore set for March 1768 (ibid., p. 139, doc. 448), but by 9 January the work was already ‘constructed, worked, and fully completed, situated and placed in its intended location’ (ibid., p. 139, doc. 449). In reality, the portrait of the woman in the roundel at the apex of the pyramid and the inscription still remained to be completed (Inventario 1771, fol. 124v; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 151), the absence of which complicated identification: indeed, even a century later, Gennaro Aspreno Galante (1872, p. 160) lamented that ‘as the inscription at the base is missing, we do not know to which matron it refers’.
Apart from this, although the presence of the sculptor’s signature prevented guide-writers from advancing erroneous attributions, it should be noted that the careful compiler of the 1771 inventory (fol. 125r; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 151) incorrectly ascribed the statue to Celebrano. This may be a simple oversight, or, given that certain parts were still missing (the inscription was never completed, while the roundel remains unfinished), the signature may have been added shortly afterwards, but in any case by 1772, when the new edition of Pompeo Sarnelli’s Guida (p. 132) firmly attributed the work to Persico. By that point, however, the statue had already been rejected by Raimondo, who listed it in his will among the works considered suitable for replacement (Testamento 1770, fol. 46r; Chartulae desangriane 2006, p. 107). It is not improbable that this decision was due to the poor quality of the execution, later highlighted in Picone’s uncompromising judgement (1959, p. 82): ‘certainly the lowest point reached by eighteenth-century decorative sculpture in Naples. The derivation from Queirolo’s other works is evident […], but Persico also attempts typically Corradinian effects […] with a thin eclectic vein, in which the purity of the female figures of Queirolo becomes conventional and the overall composition academised, now free of any formal commitment’.
In this case too, the subject derives from Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, a work repeatedly reprinted from the late sixteenth century onwards, of which an eighteenth-century edition existed (the most ambitious to that date) financed by Raimondo and therefore dedicated to him. In Ripa (1764, pp. 228–233), Benevolenza ed unione matrimoniale is depicted as a woman whose head is crowned with vine and olive leaves, following symbolism that refers to the union between man and woman. In the hands of the small angel at the base of the statue, we recognise a halcyon (Panfili 2015) – also invoked by Ripa as an emblem of conjugal love (1764, pp. 229–231) – and not a pelican, as various nineteenth-century guidebooks instead claim (Pistolesi 1845, p. 223; Chiarini in Celano 1858, p. 450; Galante 1872, p. 160).
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. 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. 124r–125v.
Sarnelli Pompeo, Nuova guida de’ forestieri…, Naples, Saverio Rossi, 1772, p. 132.
Pistolesi Erasmo, Guida metodica di Napoli e suoi contorni…, Naples 1845, p. 223.
Celano Carlo, Notizie del bello, dell’antico e del curioso della città di Napoli… Con aggiunzioni de’ più notabili miglioramenti posteriori fino al presente, estratti dalla storia de’ monumenti e dalle memorie di eruditi scrittori napolitani, Giovanni Battista Chiarini (ed.), III, Naples 1858, p. 450.
Galante Gennaro Aspreno, Guida sacra della città di Napoli, Naples 1872, p. 160.
Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, p. 82.
de Sangro Oderisio, Raimondo de Sangro e la Cappella Sansevero, Rome 1991, pp. 173, 175, no. 10.
Nappi Eduardo, Dai numeri la verità. Nuovi documenti sulla famiglia, i palazzi e la Cappella dei Sansevero, Naples 2010, pp. 138–139, doc. 448, and pp. 139–140, doc. 449.
Attanasio Sergio, In casa del Principe di Sansevero. Architettura, invenzioni, inventari, Naples 2011, p. 151.
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.
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. 28, 54–55, 59–61, 86–89.
Forgione Gianluca, I simulacri delle cose. La Cappella Sansevero e il barocco romano, Turin 2022, pp. 28, 64–66, doc. 5, and pp. 66–69, doc. 7.
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, I, 1764, pp. 228–233.
Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, pp. 34–39, 51.
Cioffi Rosanna, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica, first edition: Salerno 1987; edition cited: Salerno 1994, pp. 11–12, 42–48.
DOI: 10.82049/CATALOGO08