Abstract
Blood operates as matter, miracle, and metaphor in the Treasury Chapel of Naples Cathedral. The city’s most prestigious artistic commission, the chapel houses the holy relics of San Gennaro, Naples’ protector saint: his bones and blood, which miraculously liquifies on feast days and special occasions. Gennaro is believed to have saved Naples, nicknamed “city of blood,” from such catastrophes as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Deeming that artistic talent was lacking in early modern Naples, the deputies of the Treasury Chapel turned north to Rome to contract an artist to fulfill the commission. Painting was artists’ lifeblood. The potential threat that outsiders posed to the livelihoods of local artists prompted various forms of protectionism that could lead to bloodshed, but which, nevertheless, did not amount to cruelty for its own sake. Enshrining Naples’ most revered relics, the Treasury Chapel heightens the tensions between urban solidarity and competition, inclusion and exclusion, piety and violence. Weaving together the themes of the body, the everyday, and the miraculous, this essay unravels the artistic, social, and religious complexities of blood in seventeenth-century Naples.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Passepartout |
| Volume | 44 |
| Pages (from-to) | 235–258 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| ISSN | 0908-5351 |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |