Supporting The Costs Of Copyright And Publication Of The Art-Historical Monograph And Catalogue Raisonné

Project location: Italy, Naples
Project start date: December 2013 - Project end date: December 2014
Project number: 2013-062
Beneficiary: Società Napoletana di Storia Patria (SNSP)

The Società Napoletana di Storia Patria is one of the oldest National Historic Societies in Italy, having been funded in 1875, but rooting itself into the previous Società Storica Napoletana dating back to 1843. Its original goal, shared with the other early Italian Società or Deputazioni di Storia Patria, was to raise and strengthen the sense of a communal heritage among the recently unified Italian regions through the study of History and the Past.
Today it brings on this goal through a number of research and education activities, which all aim at increasing and enlarging our knowledge and understanding of a number of aspects of the History and Culture of Naples and Southern Italy. This goal is carried out particularly through the encouragement of documentary research in many fields, producing new and original material. The result of the research finds its way in a number of essays and books, but also in the "Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane", a periodical published by our Institution whose editor from 1899 to 1932 was Benedetto Croce. The Society is also active in the organization of congresses, lectures and exhibitions relating to the subjects of our interest.
SNSP prides itself with Italy's most prominent library on the History and Culture of Southern Italy of over 350.000 volumes, hosted in its historical premises at Castel Nuovo, Naples, and daily open to the public .

SNSP has received a grant from the Nando Peretti Foundation for the publication of the results of a research fostered by the SNSP and conducted within the last two years by Dr. Miriam Di Penta. The research has been focused on Neapolitan painter Andrea de Lione (1610-1685). Although a yet little known figure to the wider public, Lione played a crucial role as a link between the Roman and Neapolitan artworlds during the mid-XVII century. Understanding his artistic activity and the world in which he was moving, enhances our understanding of a yet unclear moment in the history of art and culture in Naples and Rome in the XVIIth century and sheds new light on many dynamics and aspects of the XVIIth C. art-world at large. Lione's relationship and cultural exchange with better-known contemporary artists such as Nicolas Poussin, Jean Lemaire, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Andrea Sacchi, Aniello Falcone and Pietro Testa has been at the core of our research interests. Andrea de Lione's early contribution to the diffusion of Nicolas Poussin's lesson in the Italian Baroque was such, that he was once believed to having French origins. On the contrary, our research has proved that he spent most of his life between Rome and Naples, contributing to the development in Naples of a pictorial style strongly intertwined to that of Poussin and connected to the cultural movement taking place in Rome during the papacy of Urban VIII. It is certainly true, though, that Andrea is still one of the most elusive figures in Neapolitan XVIIth century art and this is why he was identified as the focus of our project. As a matter of fact, de Lione's catalogue and artistic production are still widely unknown to the public and he has never been studied in such an ambitious scale, though his paintings and drawings appear in major international museums' collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Gemälde Galerie in Dresden, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museo del Prado in Madrid and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, to name but a few.
To reassess Andrea de Lione's artistic contribution to XVIIth century Italian art and culture; to shed light on his complex artistic personality and to show how he played a crucial role as a catalyst for cultural exchange between Rome and Naples in the mid-XVII C. have been among the research's main concerns. The SNSP identified Dr. Miriam Di Penta as the specialist who could better carry out the research involved in the project. Dr. Di Penta - of whom we attach a C.V.- has an excellent curriculum in XVIIth century studies, has proved herself to be able to conduct and manage a wide amount of research in a concentrated time span and has proved to have the deepest knowledge of the subject in her teaching activity both in Italy and the UK. Her contribution to the project and authorship of the outcoming monograph and catalogue raisonné of both paintings and drawings of the artist guarantees the best of results.
The book will be published in a prestigious guise thoroughly in colour, with a hard-back cover and a format of 24 x 28 cm ca. by a selected publisher such as L'Erma di Bretschneider, De Luca Editore, Ugo Bozzi Editore or Gangemi Editore, all based in Rome. This is also to facilitate the author, who is based in the same city. All these publishers guarantee the best quality and distribution of the outcoming book. The Peretti Foundation will be duly held responsible and thanked for patronising and supporting the publication and will receive a desired number of copies. A presentation of the book will take place in Naples and Rome to thank all the involved institutions.

The research has been carried out in archives, libraries, museums and photographic libraries in Italy and the world in order to reconstruct the career and corpus of the painter Andrea de Lione (1610-1685). This has required visits to all major international public and private collections and institutions holding works by Andrea, and the study of works by contemporaries whose model was relevant to de Lione's activity.
A thorough study of drawings has also been conducted in international public and private Prints and Drawing's collections, in order to reconstruct de Lione's activity as a draughtsman and distinguish it from Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's, with whom he is often confused.
See below at "Geographic Location of the Project" for a complete list of the Institutions involved.

Italy: Rome: Archivio di Stato di Roma, Archivio Capitolino, Archivio del Vicariato, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Biblioteca Hertziana, Biblioteca Casanatense, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Museo degli Uffizi - Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, Biblioteca Marucelliana;
Milan: Biblioteca di Braidense, Biblioteca Ambrosiana; Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Gallerie dell'Accademia - Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe; Naples: Museo di Capodimonte e Gabinetto dei disegni e delle Stampe, Museo della Certosa di San Martino, Archivio di Stato, Archivio del Banco di Napoli, Archivio del Vicariato; Private Collections.

Uk: Windsor Castle, Royal Collection; London, British Museum - Prints and Drawings Room; Victoria and Albert Museum-Prints and Drawings Room; Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Warburg Institute; The Courtauld Institute-Prints and Drawings Collection; The Witt Library; The National Gallery; Edimburgh, the National Gallery of Scotland; Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire; Stourhead, near Mere, Whiltshire, Chatsworth House, Bakenwell, Derbyshire; Birmingham, Museum and Art Gallery.

France: Paris, Musée du Louvre and Cabinet des Dessins; Fritz Lugt Collection at Fondation Custodia; Ecole des Beaux Arts, Cabinet des Arts Graphiques; Bibliotheque Nationale.
Lille, Musée des Beaux Arts.

Germany: Berlin, Gemäldegalerie and Kupferstichkabinett; Dresden, Gemäldegalerie; Braunschweig, Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum .

Austria: Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum; Albertina; Akademie der Bildende Kunste.

Spain: Madrid, Museo del Prado; Biblioteca Nacional; Real Academia de San Fernando.

Danmark, Copenhagen, Staten Museum von Kunst.

USA: New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Arts; The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; The Pierpoint-Morgan Library; The Frick Art Reference Library; Philadephia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Philadelphia Museum of Arts; Princeton (NJ), Princeton University Art Museum and Drawings collection; Hartford (CT), The Wadsworth Atheneum; Washington D.C., The National Gallery of Arts, C.A.S.V.A.

The project's main outcome will be to publish the results of the research fostered by SNSP in a monograph and catalogue raisonné of the paintings and drawings of Neapolitan artist Andrea de Lione (1610-1685), a book which will enlarge and enrich the art-historical knowledge of the Italian Baroque. This will serve as a reference book on the artist for years to come and it will become a milestone in Neapolitan Baroque Studies. By increasing the interest in Neapolitan Baroque Art it will also make it more valuable on the International Art-Market and widen all activities related to this subject in Neapolitan Museums, enhancing the International perception of Neapolitan Culture at large.