Important find in a Naples neighborhood: painting by Massimo Stanzione resurfaces

Important find in Soccavo, a neighborhood of Naples: On the oratory of San Domenico, in the Campania town of the Diocese of Pozzuoli, an altarpiece depicting a Virgin and Child crowned by two angels, hitherto unknown to scholars, in a very poor state of preservation, and attributed to Massimo Stanzione (Frattamaggiore, 1585 - Naples, 1656), one of the greatest great artists of the Neapolitan seventeenth century, by Professor Giuseppe Porzio, professor of modern art history at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”

The canvas is “connoted by a very human and moving emotional dimension,” the Diocese of Pozzuoli explains, and the image takes up the type, widespread insouthern Italy, of the so-called Madonna of Constantinople, tracing precisely the’icon venerated in the church of the same name in Naples, the cult of which, according to sources, was established in the city beginning with the plague of 1526, reactivating in the subsequent tragic epidemics that afflicted the Kingdom of Naples.

According to Porzio, the work is an apex by Massimo Stanzione, who was also active in Pozzuoli for some time as he was involved, along with Artemisia Gentileschi and Giovanni Lanfranco, in the pictorial decoration of Pozzuoli Cathedral. The recovery of this precious testimony of art and faith will be the subject of a scientific publication edited by the Department of Human and Social Sciences of the Orientale by the Diocese’s Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage. The work, meanwhile, is being prepared for restoration work that should improve its state of preservation.

“The discovery of this extraordinary work by Massimo Stanzione surprised everyone,” comments the director of the Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage, Fr Roberto Della Rocca. “During the inspections that the diocesan office carries out in the churches of the Diocese, it was wonderful to stop with the parish priest Fr. Francesco Scherillo in front of this most tender effigy of the Virgin and admire its delicate beauty, which immediately strikes the viewer, despite the poor state of conservation of the canvas. In fact, it has been necessary to resort to sudden measures to secure the work while waiting for an impromptu restoration. When the art historian, Professor Giuseppe Porzio of the University of Naples L’Orientale, informed us that the authorship of the painting belongs to Massimo Stanzione, the emotion was irrepressible. Thanks are also due to the Carabinieri of the Nucleo TPCand to the Superintendence who followed the recovery phases of the canvas. Now we are all waiting (diocese, parish priest, faithful, scholars and enthusiasts) to soon be able to admire the work restored to its splendor. Once the restoration is finished, it will be the Regina Pacis Educational Center Foundation, which is entrusted with the management of the Diocesan Museum of Pozzuoli with the cultural project of social inclusion Puteoli Sacra, to organize an exhibition in which we will be able to admire, next to the works of Artemisia Gentileschi, a ’new’ painting by Massimo Stanzione.”

Important find in a Naples neighborhood: painting by Massimo Stanzione resurfaces

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