The press conference for the presentation of the exhibition was held this morning “The Little Prince. Giuseppe Sanmartino at the Royal Palace of Caserta” which will be held in the Palatine Chapel from tomorrow, May 27, to next September 11.
The exhibition, created following the discovery in the Museum's storage rooms of a life-size marble portrait of a newborn baby by Giuseppe Sanmartino, identified as the Royal Infant Carlo Tito di Borbone, recounts the complex ceremonial of the births of royals during the Bourbon era.
The long-awaited birth of the Crown Prince is particularly significant for the political history of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, because it consolidates the continuity of the Bourbon dynasty on the throne of Naples. The firstborn son of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Austria, the little prince was born on January 4, 1775 in the Real Palazzo Vecchio in Caserta.
After the birth, in the presence of ministers, ambassadors and Elected of the People, it was necessary to announce to the people the happy event with cannon shots and the illumination of the places of power for three evenings. This was followed by the singing of the Te Deum in the Chapel; the official baptism; the royal procession for the presentation of the Prince to the people; the kissing of the hand at court; the first public appearance of the Royal Infante for the solemn mass in the Cathedral.
It was also necessary to organize balls, theatrical performances and cuccagnas, to celebrate the power of the reigning dynasty, to strengthen the consensus of the people and to impress the other European courts.
In the center of the Palatine Chapel, the sculpture of the plump newborn, captured during a deep and serene rest in his cozy bed, on the model of the iconography of classical tradition of the Sleep of Innocence. Immediately after the birth of Carlo Tito, Queen Maria Carolina had wanted to consecrate the effigy of the Crown Prince to San Francesco di Paola, to whom she was particularly devoted, entrusting the execution of the portrait to Giuseppe Sanmartino, the first sculptor of the Kingdom of Naples, the well-known author of the Veiled Christ in the Sansevero Chapel.
The life-size portrait was later translated into silver. The ex voto having been lost, studies on Sanmartino, while recording its existence, have also considered the original portrait lost. The sculpture has been present in the collections of the Royal Palace of Caserta since at least 1879, noted in the Inventories as a Sleeping Putto attributed to Giuseppe Sanmartino.
The absence, in the representation of the child, of the typical attributes of the putto/eros – the wings and the quiver with arrows – leads one to exclude this identification, just as it is impossible to assimilate the subject to a sleeping Baby Jesus, usually recognisable by the presence of attributes such as the cross-bed, the halo, the scroll “Ego dormio, et cor meum vigilat”, precognition of the Passion, or by the co-presence of the Virgin.
The identification of the infant is also strengthened by the comparison with the illustrated frontispiece of the printed libretto of the dramatic composition Natal d'Apollo. In the frontispiece, the newborn Apollo (Carlo Tito), lying on a cloth on a base at the foot of a circular temple, is presented by the goddess Latona (Maria Carolina) in front of the colossal statue of the divine Jupiter: “Regius hic puer est”, proclaims the heading in the margin of the engraved plate.
The way in which Fischetti represents the Real Infante, a naked newborn baby resting on a white cloth, is identical to the classical solution adopted by Sanmartino. At the end of the tour, in the multimedia room it will be possible to discover the diagnostic analysis techniques on the statue of Carlo Tito conducted by the Departments of Earth, Environmental and Resource Sciences, Chemical Sciences and Biology of the Federico II University of Naples and those of conservative restoration carried out in the laboratories of the Royal Palace of Caserta.
The exhibition is enriched with a tactile experience, dedicated to the visually impaired public and beyond, thanks to the 3D printed reproduction in 1:1 scale of the sculpture, created by CeSMA – “Centro Servizi Metrologici e Tecnologici Avanzati” of the Federico II University with the contribution of Facto 3D.
"After the long break we open the exhibition season, an opportunity for cultural study and development – declared Tiziana Maffei, director of the MiC Institute –. The Royal Palace of Caserta is no longer a “location” but an institution that produces content to reinterpret its own identity and the complex values of the heritage it preserves.
The exhibition is a precious cultural cameo that takes the opportunity to enhance a valuable museum asset through an accurate study of the inventories and research in the deposits, to arrive at the recognition of a system of relationships between the objects and an overall patrimonial vision. Opportunities to be seized for interesting discoveries and to bring into play the knowledge and skills of the Museum".
"The transversality with which the scientific project was built represents the added value of the exhibition, aimed at intercepting the most varied interests of the public, from art to science, from music to digital. – said Valeria Di Fratta, curator – The multidisciplinary approach involved the involvement of different scholars, who with great enthusiasm put their skills and experience at the service of the museum and its main mission, that of strengthening the cultural identity of the territory starting from its heritage.".
The exhibition project, curated by Valeria Di Fratta and Tiziana Maffei, was defined with the scientific contribution of Rosanna Cioffi, Riccardo Lattuada, Pierluigi Leone de Castris and Anna Maria Rao. The exhibition catalogue, published by Colonnese, hosts, among others, contributions by Giangiotto Borrelli, Rosanna Cioffi, Almerinda Di Benedetto, Carlo Knight, Riccardo Lattuada, Anna Maria Rao, Charles Beddington, Lucio Tufano. The exhibition is realized with the contribution of the Friends of the Reggia and with the collaboration of Compagnia Italiana Allarmi, CT Impianti, Hera Restauri, Percorsi di luce and Consorzio Stabile Daman. The video production is by Video Metrò News Network.
Article published on May 26, 2022 - 18:15 pm
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