Neapolitan Religious Sculpture

Neapolitan religious sculpture begins at home.

In the hall leading to our rented apartment in Naples Bill and I found a Pieta and a Madonna on duty.

I will say that our electronics functioned flawlessly.

The domestic religious impulse also puts statues, like this exuberant Mary, Queen of Heaven, on the street.

In the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie on via Toledo we found two images of Mary in vitrines. Here is the ever popular Mary as the Madonna with child.

Nearby we find the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Each of the swords represents a painful scene in the life of her Son. The theatricality of her suffering feels Spanish to me.

We found another suffering figure in a vitrine in SS Filippo e Giacomo. We could classify this statue as Christ Mocked.

Spanish religious artists always emphasize the suffering of the figures. Spain ruled Naples throughout the 17th century.

Also behind glass, in San Nicola alla Carita', an enormous reliquary, resting place for two saints, both with skulls and bones on display to inspire pious reflection.

We found this window full of votive offerings in the church of Gesù Nuovo: each acknowledges an answered prayer. 

Bill and I found reliquaries in the Cloister Museum of Santa Chiara: Santa Thegla (above)  and Santa Fortunata (below).

Their eyes and hands invite us to venerate the relics that were once held in their hearts.

Bill and I love the use of a starburst behind a saint. Here's a nice one in the ambulatory of San Lorenzo Maggiore

Bill noticed that the starburst is not attached to the saint but is separate and has its own stand

This clunky freestanding starburst is in San Domenico Maggiore. And here is San Domenico below.

He has a dog at his feet. I looked him up in The Golden Legend, the 13th C. standard reference on the lives of the saints. Bill persuaded me to quote in full:

"Before he was born, his mother dreamed that she carried in her womb a little dog which held a lighted torch in his mouth, and when the dog came forth from her womb, he set fire to the whole fabric of the world." Welcome to Naples.