A Neapolitan altarpiece by Alessandro Casolani: "Sant'Alfonso quando riceve l'habito sacerdotale dalla Madonna"

This contribution focuses on a painting by the Sienese Alessandro Casolani (1552-1607) mentioned in the sources but thus far never identified. Isidoro Ugurgieri Azzolini recorded in his detailed biography of the artist (1649) a pala depicting “Saint Alfonso receiving the priestly robe from the Madonna” that had been sent to some unknown Neapolitan destination. The author proposes that the work be identified as the grand pala of such iconography actually in an oratory of the Neapolitan convent of San Domenico Maggiore. The painting comes from the Trecento chapel of cardinal Rinaldo Brancaccio dedicated to Saint Andrew, and almost certainly commissioned by Alfonso Brancaccio at the beginning of the Seicento. Furthermore, the painting, previously attributed to a variety of authors, is in fact signed and dated 1603 by Casolani. The ties between Alfonso Brancaccio and the Sienese Alessandro Turamini, professor of law at the University of Naples, make it a highly plausible hypothesis that the commission came from a descendant of the aforementioned cardinal. On one hand the complex iconography of the canvas evokes the cardinal, particularly due to the presence of Saint Vito, the martyr to whom his diaconal titular church at Rome was consecrated, San Vito in Macello Martyrum. On the other hand, the imagery draws attention to the figures of Saints Ildefonso and Raimondo of Pennafort. Saint Ildefonso's presence recalls the office of the Novena of Christmas, which was introduced in Italy, specifically in San Domenico Maggiore by Father Alfonso da Maddaloni, who for a long time was considered in Neapolitan sources the patron of the painting. Furthermore, we show that the articulated depiction of the iconography is the fruit of complex research as testified by two drawings never before ascribed to Casolani in the Pinacoteca Nazionale and the Biblioteca degli Intronati at Siena.

Index

Roberto Bartalini Ambrogio Lorenzetti a Montesiepi. Sulla committenza e la cronologia degli affreschi della cappella di San Galgano
read abstract » pag. 2-18
Rosanna De Gennaro, Paolo Giannattasio Messina in the travel diary and drawings of Willem Schellinks
read abstract » pag. 19-49
Gail A. Solberg Taddeo di Bartolo e Rinaldo Brancaccio a Roma: Santa Maria in Trastevere e Santa Maria Maggiore
read abstract » pag. 50-73
Alessandro Angelini Una 'Sant'Agnese di Montepulciano' di Domenico Beccafumi. Per una revisione dell'attività giovanile del pittore
read abstract » pag. 74-93
Andrea Giorgi "Domenicho dipentore sta in chasa di Lorenso Bechafumi". Di alcuni documenti poliziani intorno al culto di Agnese Segni e ai suoi riflessi in ambito artistico (1506-1507)
read abstract » pag. 94-103
Claudio Gulli Girolamo del Pacchia's cataletto for the Confraternity of San Bernardino in Siena
read abstract » pag. 104-121
Giovanni Agosti A short note about Titian
read abstract » pag. 122-131
Patrizia Tosini Boncompagni and Guastavillani patronage in the Capuchin church at Frascati: an addition for Niccolò Trometta and a hypothesis about the 'Painter of Filippo Guastavillani'
read abstract » pag. 132-141
Fausto Nicolai Cesare Nebbia and the decoration of the Florenzi chapel in San Silvestro al Quirinale. The contract of 1579 and Nebbiaʼs working relationship with Girolamo Muziano
read abstract » pag. 142-151
A Neapolitan altarpiece by Alessandro Casolani: "Sant'Alfonso quando riceve l'habito sacerdotale dalla Madonna"
read abstract » pag. 152-161
Marco Tanzi Tanzio da Varallo: a Neapolitan portrait
read abstract » pag. 162-176
Tomaso Montanari “Chi perde vince” ("He who loses wins"): a 'Salvatore' by Gian Lorenzo and Pietro Bernini (circa 1617-19)
read abstract » pag. 176-191
Jacopo Stoppa Ferdinando Porta's curriculum in Marcello Oretti's papers
read abstract » pag. 192-204