entry Oct 2012
Michele Ragolia & the Sanctuary of Sant'Antonio in Polla
The
Sanctuary of Sant'Antonio
There has been
some recent rediscovery of the Sicilian painter, Michele
Ragolia (also Regolia); there were exhibits with published
catalogs in Bari (1983), Padula (1990) and Agerola (1990).
As far as I know, however, there have been no such exhibits
in Naples, though that is where a number of his works may be
seen separately at different sites. Regolia is considered a
"minor" painter of the Neapolitan Baroque. That period
lasted from the late 1500s to the mid-1700s and included
such artists of note as Battistello Caracciolo, Massimo
Stanzione, Andrea Vaccaro, Luca Giordano and Francesco
Solimena, to name but a few. (See Some Painters of the Neapolitan
Baroque.) If that is your competition, then maybe it's
not a disgrace to be "minor."Ragolia was born around 1625 in Palermo in Sicily; his presence in Naples by 1632 is documented. He died in Naples in 1686. He started out as an apprentice to Belisario Corenzio (c.1558-1643) in Naples and his early work displays the artificial refinements of the style known as "Mannerism," a style that valued elegance over realism. That changed, of course, with the explosive Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610) (called "Caravaggio" after the town of his birth), one who (according to his critics) abandoned beauty for mere likeness." Whatever the case, Caravaggio lived in Naples for the last few years of his life, and his intense depictions of not just the physical but the emotional in renderings of the human form changed the way artists painted. Generations of painters were influenced; virtually all the painters of the Neapolitan Baroque came under the influence of Caravaggio's realism. Ragolia's work, too, changed over time under that influence, and he had a solid career of 50 years in Naples and the surrounding area, even though we still call him "minor."
photo:
Rino di Leo
Ragolia's most impressive efforts are, however,
outside of Naples. This accounts for the attention given
to his work elsewhere in Campania, especially in the
Cilento area, in the province of Salerno. His best-known
work is in the Sanctuary of Sant' Antonio da Padova (top
photo) in the town of Polla(#9 on this map) The entire
ceiling (photo, right) is carved, gold-trimmed and inlaid
with 40 canvases, all of them by Ragolia. The ceiling is
dated 1666, presumably the year when the last of the
paintings was finished. The overhead display is
reminiscent of the ceiling of Santa Maria la Nova in
Naples. The paintings are of different sizes and depict
scenes from the Old and New Testaments as well as images
of various saints. It is a one-man art-gallery that shows
the artist at the height of his expressive powers. He had
already been active in Naples and the provinces by the
time he did these paintings and they show the effect of
the Caravaggist climate of the times. They had a great
influence on an entire generation of later painters from
the area of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano well into the
1700s. The paintings have been restored recently. The monastery/sanctuary was built in 1541, and the literature that the site publishes about itself notes some interesting historical sidelights. The reader may be aware that under the French rule of king Murat (Napoleon's brother-in-law) all monasteries in the kingdom were closed in 1808. This particular one claims to be the "only one" that remained open, thanks to the diplomatic prowess of the mayor at the time. That is an extraordinary claim that I shall have to return to at some point
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