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Donnaregina Monumental Complex verified

Naples, Campania, Italy open Visit museumarrow_right_alt

closed Antonello da Messina in Naples

The show

A unique opportunity to admire one of the oldest paintings by Antonello da Messina preserved in the Cathedral of Syracuse, the San Zosimo. The particularly fascinating work of the most famous painter of the southern Renaissance, Antonello da Messina (circa 1430-1479), a large figure of San Zosimo on a gold background, already attributed to the Messina artist and considered a cornerstone of his youthful activity from Di Marzo (1903) and later from Adolfo and Lionello Venturi (1915, 1907), Roberto Longhi (1914) and up to Ferdinando Bologna (1955, 1977) and Fiorella Sricchia Santoro (1986).


The rare opportunity to have this important and prestigious painting on loan from the Archdiocese of Syracuse – never exhibited outside Sicily until now – and to be able to show it to the general international public for the first time in conditions of optimal visibility, makes possible a small but important focus on southern artistic culture in the transition from the years of Alfonso I (1442-1458) to those of Ferrante d'Aragona (1458-1494), adding to the work of the young Antonello da Messina, still characterized by his training in Naples in the workshop of Colantonio and from the study of Flemish and Valencian painting present at the court, some paintings on wood by southern contemporary artists: the great Deposition from the cross by his master Colantonio from the church of San Domenico Maggiore and today in the Capodimonte Museum, extraordinary derivation from the Flemish tapestries by Roger van der Weyden owned by Alfonso the Magnanimous and at that time exhibited in the Sa then called the Barons in Castel Nuovo; the polyptych with San Benedetto from the Diocesan Museum of Naples, dated 1475 and coming from the Neapolitan church of Santa Patrizia; the triptych with Saints Francis, Lucia and Catherine from the town church of Santa Maria la Nova, the work of an artist of Spanish-Flemish culture close to the Valencian court painter Jacomart Baço; and finally the hitherto unknown San Nicola dated 1471 and signed by the other court painter - this time from Campania - Antonello da Capua or del Perrino, stolen years ago from the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin di Portanova but recently recovered by the Carabinieri of the Nucleo Protection and now entrusted to the same Diocesan Museum of Naples.

In the same room, in a dialogue between ancient art and contemporary art, Ettore Spalletti's pink diptych will be exhibited, a tempera and gold leaf painting on a large panel.


As part of the collaborative relationship between the Archdiocese of Naples and the Diocesan Museum on the one hand, and the Campania Region, the MADRE Museum and the Donnaregina Foundation for contemporary art on the other, the opportunity to exhibit in Naples the large panel on a gold background with San Zosimo by the young Antonello da Messina gave birth to the idea of placing a contemporary work of art side by side for the first time in the rooms of the Diocesan Museum in comparison with a work of ancient art, thanks to the generous availability and loan from the Lia Rumma Gallery.

Ettore Spalletti (Cappelle sul Tavo 1940-Spoltore 2019) starting from the mid-70s created a language suspended between painting and sculpture, in an attention paid to light and space, recalling both modern abstraction and the geometries of Renaissance painting. An artist celebrated by numerous prestigious institutions, including Documenta, Kassel and the Venice Biennale. Spalletti's artistic research is based on a careful and primordial study of surface and color. The support becomes for the artist the cradle of an epidermis on which the presence of a meaning emerges.

Works on display

Timetable and tickets

Address

Largo Donnaregina
80138 Naples

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