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Didier Barra and the image of Naples in the early seventeenth century

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“Didier Barra and the Image of Naples in the Early Seventeenth Century,” curated by Pierluigi Leone de Castris, is an exhibition hosted at the Certosa and Museum of San Martino, organized by the Regional Directorate of National Museums of Campania with the support of the General Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition is set up within the Images and Memories section of the Museum of San Martino, dedicated to the narrative of the urban development and history of Naples through cartographic documents, images, and historical artifacts from the 15th to the 19th century. It delves into the theme of the image of the city of Naples at the beginning of the 17th century, known both through some extraordinary cartographies and engravings—most notably the very rare one by Alessandro Baratta (1627-29), preserved at the Museum of San Martino—and through a series of painted views on canvas, which became a standalone "genre," appreciated by aristocratic patrons and well documented within the palaces and collections of the time.

Most of these early 17th-century painted views are attributed to the workshop of two Lorraine painters from the same city of Metz, friends and collaborators, whom sources and studies have always struggled to distinguish from each other, François de Nomé and Didier Barra, united under a single label and a single critical issue, which Raffaello Causa significantly defined in 1956 as "the enigma of Monsù Desiderio."

Thanks to the better understanding we now have of these two artists through their signed works, the documents that have emerged in recent decades about each of them, and some new paintings previously unknown, preserved in museums, foundations, and private collections, the exhibition aims to resolve this "enigma" by restoring to Didier Barra, active in Naples between 1619 and 1656, the role of the leading specialist in this genre of views. It highlights the mutual knowledge and exchanges between him and the major engravers and cartographers, all foreigners active in the city during the early decades of the 17th century. At the same time, the exhibition seeks to offer a moment of understanding and reflection on the topography of the city of Naples in the 17th century, its urban development, and the neighborhoods, streets, churches, and castles that characterized it as a great Mediterranean port and the capital of the Spanish Viceroyalty.

The exhibition can be visited with the Campania>artecard pass.

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