Art and Architecture in Naples, 1266 – 1713: New Approaches

Naples was a major hub of artistic activity from the late thirteenth to the early seventeenth century, yet it has been overshadowed by other Italian cities because it defies art–historical definitions of a cultural centre : it is viewed as having imported more art and artists than it exported. The essays in this volume seek, in different ways, to redress the neglect of Naples, particularly noticeable in English–language scholarship, by questioning traditional definitions of centre and periphery and by focusing on works of art and architecture which demonstrate the ways in which Naples can be defined as a cultural and artistic centre. The contributors reveal the breadth and wealth of artistic experience available in Naples through an exploration of fourteenth–century frescoes by Giotto and Cavallini, and fifteenth–century tombs and palace architecture; they examine the influence of Vasari s writings on Naples, the importation of prestigious marble inlays in the sixteenth century, the frontispieces of published saints lives in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the concept of Naples as a world city .

Notes on Contributors

1. Introduction: Reassessing Naples 1266 1713 (Cordelia Warr and Janis Elliott).

2. The North Looks South: Giorgio Vasari and Early Modern Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Naples (Aislinn Loconte).

3. The Rise of the Court Artist: Cavallini and Giotto in Fourteenth–Century Naples (Cathleen A. Fleck).

4. The Local Eye: Formal and Social Distinctions in Late Quattrocento Neapolitan Tombs (Tanja Michalsky).

5. Building in Local all antica Style: The Palace of Diomede Carafa in Naples (Bianca de Divitiis)

6. From Social Virtue to Revetted Interior: Giovanni Antonio Dosio and Marble Inlay in Rome, Florence, and Naples (John Nicholas Napoli).

7. The Face is a Mirror of the Soul : Frontispieces and the Production of Sanctity in Post–Tridentine Naples (Helen Hills).

8. Patronage, Standards and transfert culturel: Naples between Art History and Social Science Theory (Nicolas Bock).

Index

Cordelia Warr is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research focuses on Italian art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. She has published on patronage issues, particularly women as patrons, and aspects of the representation of dress. Her book Dressing for Heaven will be published by Manchester University Press in 2010. She is currently working on the representation of stigmata in medieval and renaissance Italy.

Janis Elliott is Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University, USA. Her primary research interest is Naples in the fourteenth century, specifically the issues of royal and lay patronage, the relation of chapel decoration to liturgical space, and apocalyptic themes. She has published on the decoration of chapels in Florence, Padua and Naples. Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth Century Naples (2004).