Wednesday, November 21, 2018

St. CATHERINE OF SIENA


S. CATERINA DA SIENA
1526 maybe by Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481/1536) for Cardinal Giovanni Piccolomini and  the banker Agostino Chigi (1466/1520) on the Castrum Senense (Siena's camp), the area where since the Middle Ages the Sienese carried out their business activities
Rebuilt 1766/75 by Paolo Posi (1708/76) with the help, as foremen, of Luca Sardi and Giuseppe Sardi (1680/1753)
Oval panels in stucco on the FAÇADE “Seno and Aschio with the wolf and the writing S.P.Q.S.” 1770 by Wander Elsken

According to legend, Seno and Aschio were the twin sons of Remus who, having escaped from their uncle Romulus who wanted to kill them as well as he did with their father, took refuge in Tuscany, where Seno would found the city of Siena and Aschio the town of Asciano
Marble decorations on the façade (heraldic shield, flaming pots) and stoups inside the church by Francesco Antonio Franzoni (1734/1818)
It is the regional church of the Sienese people

“The church stands as one of the most interesting monuments produced by the Roman artistic culture of the late-eighteenth-century during the transition from the last stage of the Baroque to that of the nascent Neoclassicism. A formal unity of intent involves both the architectural structure and the pictorial, from the stuccos to the church vestments, that would complement a thematic decorative unity almost entirely devoted to the glorification of the Sienese saint” (Federica Papi)

“Angel Musicians” by Ermenegildo Costantini (1731/91)

“The collaboration of Costantini with Kuntz, which was renewed later also in the church of St. Stanislaus of the Polish people, shows an affinity of style between the two artists which is indicative of the formal scope in which Costantini operated. Kuntz is in fact the painter who 'definitively concluded the Roman rococo' (Schleier). So, while working in St. Catherine alongside artists such as Lapis, Monosilio, Corvi, La Piccola, transitional painters who were making their first neoclassical experiences, Costantini did not draw from this closeness any incentive for a formal updating of his style, remaining an isolated representative of a decorative language substantiated by the Rococo grace” (Marina Coccia - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

Monochrome figures giving the optical illusion to hold the frames by the Polish Tadeusz Kuntze aka Taddeo il Polacco (1732/93)

Stucco decorations 1770 by Wander Elsken

OVAL PANELS ON THE WALLS
The first on the right “St. Catherine receiving the Stigmata” is by Giovanni Sorbi (1695/about 1764), the one in front “Christ gives his heart to St. Catherine” is by Tommaso Maria Conca (1734/1822)
Above the confessionals on the right “Christ gives to St. Catherine a pectoral cross” and on the left “St. Catherine communicated by Christ” by Etienne Parrocel (1696/1774)
Above the doors by the presbytery, on the right “St. Catherine as a young girl in prayer” and on the left “St. Catherine's renunciation of the golden crown for that of thorns given to her by Christ” by the classicist painter from Bologna Pietro Angeletti (about 1737/98)
1st CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Altarpiece “Preaching of St. Bernardino” about 1770 by Salvatore Monosilio (active from 1744/d. 1776)
2nd CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Altarpiece “Apparition of Christ to the Blessed Bernardo Tolomei” 1774/76 by Niccolò La Piccola (1727/90)

“He reveals, in the search for an intense luministic weft, his openness towards the new chromatic experimentation by Domenico Corvi” (Federica Papi)

PRESBYTERY
On the high altar “Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine” 1768/69 by Gaetano Lapis (1706/76), a pupil of Sebastiano Conca
Oval panels on the doors of the presbytery on the right “Christ carrying the Cross appears to St. Catherine in penance” and on the left “Christ shows to St. Catherine the wound in his side” 1768/69 also by Gaetano Lapis

“These works are carried out in a language that, filtered through the work of Maratta, refers to the seventeenth-century Bolognese classicism, hence the nickname 'Carraccetto' given to the painter” (Federica Papi)

APSE

2nd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Altarpiece”Assumption” 1768/70 by Tommaso Maria Conca (1734/1822) who was a pupil of his uncle, the great Sebastiano Conca
1st CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Altarpiece “Gregory VII (1073/85) puts out the fire set by the troops of Henry IV in the Vatican” 1769/70 by Domenico Corvi (1721/1803) from Viterbo

“For this painting the customary reference is to the work with the same subject painted by Raphael in the Stanze. It appears built on the recurring scheme of the diagonals and on the strong chiaroscuro contrasts that accentuate the dynamism of composition” (Federica Papi)

On the left wall “Memorial plaque with bust of the architect Paolo Posi” 1778 by his pupil Giuseppe Palazzi

SACRISTY
Vault “Angels with liturgical objects” by the Polish Tadeusz Kuntze aka Taddeo il Polacco (1732/93)

ORATORIO
“Resurrection of Jesus” about 1530 by Girolamo Genga (about 1476/1551). It was formerly on the high altar of the previous church built by Peruzzi
“View of Rome” in the antechamber and decorations with “Fake windows with views” by G.B. Marchetti
“Plaster Statue of St. Catherine” 1662 by Ercole Ferrata (1610/86). It was the prototype for the statue to the Chapel of the Vow in the Duomo of Siena

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