Seicento napoletano

Arte e architettura del XVII secolo nella Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro.
Featured: Jusepe de Ribera, “San Gennaro in the furnace”, 1646. Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro,Duomo di Napoli.

The leading artists and sculptors of the day were engaged to decorate the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro. All the frescoes in the vaulting, lunettes and pendetives were done by il Domenichino in the years 1631 to 1638, and from 1641 to 1643 Giovanni Lanfranco painted the “Gloria del Paradiso” in the dome. Here the Baroque ideal of infinite space and movement is embodied in the architectonic trompe l’oeil, heightened by the vivacious colouring and intense luminosity.Domenichino began work on altarpieces for the Cappella’s six altars while the frescoes were still dring, completing five featuring “Stories fom the life of San Gennaro” on copper supports, in the style of a solemn and accomplished classicism. The sixth piece, “San Gennaro in the furnace”, painted by Ribera, may also be partly based on Domenichino’s design.The sculpture in the Cappella is particularly striking. The first commissions, awarded to Michelangelo Naccherino, assisted by Tommaso Montani and Cristoforo and Gian Domenico Monterossi, dd not meet with the apporval of the Deputati, who engaged the collaborator of Bernini, Giuliano Finelli, to complete the décor. Also from the seventeenth century are 24 of the 51 silver busts of the compatron saints, by various authors.Finally we can indicate a masterpiece of Neapolitan Baroque dating from the end of the century (1692 -1695), the paliotto of the high altar, crafted in silver by Gian Domenico Vinaccia to illustrate the Translation of the Relics of San Gennaro from Montevergine to Naples by Cardinal Alessandro Carafa.