The Renaissance in Naples refers to the development of Renaissance art and humanism in the capital and throughout the Kingdom of Naples. The period began in the early decades of the fifteenth century, with the arrival of works by Donatello and other Florentine sculptors and painters in the service of the Angevin court, and reached maturity after the conquest of the kingdom by the Crown of Aragon in the 1440s, which further strengthened ties with Florence and Milan.
The artistic production of this period was not always the work of local artists, but often of foreigners who arrived as authorised delegations within the framework of commercial and peace agreements established by the conditions of international geopolitics. The emergence of a distinct local artistic production had to await the end of the fifteenth century and coincided with the spread of the maniera moderna of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Jacopo Sansovino and Polidoro da Caravaggio, whose works became the principal influences on artists of the kingdom.
Moreover, Aragonese Naples was one of the principal trading ports of the southern Mediterranean Sea, together with those of Sicily, maintaining commercial and cultural relations with what remained of the Byzantine Empire in the east and with the Spanish kingdoms. The close relationship with the latter, also linked to the fact that they shared the same ruling dynasty, became an important channel for the dissemination of the Italian Renaissance in the Iberian Peninsula.
This historical and artistic phenomenon, which encompassed fields ranging from philology to political thought and, in the arts, included painting, sculpture and architecture, reached its height between the end of the fourteenth century and the final years of the fifteenth century. Like much of the Italian peninsula, the period came to an end around the close of the third decade of the sixteenth century as a consequence of the political events that affected the entire continent.
Historical background: Angevin proto-humanism
With the consolidation of Angevin rule, Naples gradually assumed greater political and economic importance within the Italian and European context. Following the Peace of Caltabellotta in 1302, the kingdom experienced a period of economic and cultural prosperity, aided by political stability and by its reciprocal protection agreement with the Papal States. These circumstances encouraged a tradition of patronage that would develop further during the following century.
Although the Angevin crown remained closely attached to medieval Franco-Provençal customs and traditions, it also promoted the development of a native artistic culture modelled on the cultural innovations introduced by Frederick II. At the same time, the kingdom's most important secular institution, the University of Naples, became one of the leading centres of European and Italian thought, particularly in the field of jurisprudence, through the presence of distinguished figures such as Thomas Aquinas. The central figure of the so-called Neapolitan Trecento was Robert of Anjou, known as "the Wise", who was remembered by renowned writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio as a cultured ruler and patron of the arts. After his second marriage to Sancia of Aragon, Robert promoted extensive conventual and religious building activity aimed at strengthening relations with the Holy See. This religious policy also created a demand for artistic renewal. Florentine, Sienese, and Lombard artists began arriving at court to work on major projects, including Tino di Camaino at the Certosa di San Martino and the basilicas of Santa Chiara and San Lorenzo; Giotto at Santa Chiara and in the general refurbishment of Castel Nuovo; Pietro Cavallini at San Domenico Maggiore; and Simone Martini, who arrived in the capital two decades before his aforementioned rival.
Thanks to this prolonged period of peace and to the arrival of writers, artists, and intellectuals, Naples acquired an important role in Italian and international culture and developed a cosmopolitan identity, as also described by Boccaccio."Our city, more abundant in joyous festivities than any other Italian city, not only delights its citizens with weddings, baths, and seashores, but, rich in many games, often gladdens its people with one amusement and then another. Yet among all the things in which it appears most splendid is the frequent display of arms..." The formation of a Franco-Italian culture also encouraged the blending of transalpine courtly and chivalric literature with the classical works of Latin authors preserved in the royal library. This cultural environment influenced Boccaccio's Neapolitan writings and parts of The Decameron.Charmaine Lee, Franco-Italian Literature in Angevin Naples, University of Padua, conference proceedings, 2015.
Meanwhile, the city expanded towards the harbour district and attracted new merchants from distant regions, who established the so-called loggias. The population consequently increased from inhabitants to approximately in the aftermath of the devastating Black Death of 1348. The resulting economic growth led to the establishment of the first foreign banking offices, mainly Florentine, thereby opening commercial relations with inland cities of the Italian peninsula.
With the death of Robert the Wise in 1343 and the outbreak of the Black Death five years later, the Angevin dynasty began its slow decline, despite the continuation of intense commercial exchanges throughout the western Mediterranean and with Northern Europe. From the second half of the fourteenth century onward, historians have identified what became known as the north-south conjuncture, which reached its peak between the end of the century and the first three decades of the 15th century. The reigns of Joanna I, her cousin Charles III of Durazzo, and Ladislaus I were marked by internal conflicts that undermined the long period of stability established during the early Angevin era. Wars were fought against the Kingdom of Hungary, as Joanna I herself was suspected of involvement in the death of her husband, Andrew of Hungary.
Political instability reached its height during the three decades spanning the turn of the fifteenth century, when Charles's son, Ladislaus I, sought to create a unified Italian state. This project provoked opposition from the Papal States, Florence, Pisa, and Louis II of Anjou. Ladislaus's campaigns and his mysterious death opened a new cultural phase throughout the kingdom, encouraged by the gradual easing of tensions with the other Italian states during the reigns of Joanna II and René I, the last Angevin ruler of southern Italy.
15th century
From Angevin to Aragonese rule
With the accession of Joanna II following the death of her husband, the kingdom regained the apparent stability of the previous century and witnessed a flourishing of the liberal arts comparable to that of the rest of the Italian peninsula. The process of reconciliation was hindered by Pope Martin V, who requested financial support from the queen to rebuild the papal army. Acting on the advice of Sergianni Caracciolo, the kingdom's most trusted counsellor, she refused. During the reign of Joanna II, the first tentative manifestations of fifteenth-century humanism began to emerge. The court, long receptive to artistic developments, undertook a programme of artistic renewal that initially focused on architecture, sculpture, and painting before extending to the other arts. Central to this transformation was the expansion of San Giovanni a Carbonara, originally commissioned by Ladislaus.
The continuous commercial exchanges between the Florentine community residing in the capital and the city on the banks of the Arno became a vehicle for the innovations taking shape in Florence. The names of Filippo Brunelleschi, Masaccio, and Donatello began to circulate widely. Donatello was the only major sculptor of the early Florentine humanist period to produce a work in Naples: the Tomb of Cardinal Rinaldo Brancaccio, executed between 1426 and 1428 with the assistance of Michelozzo and Pagno di Lapo Portigiani. The monument was carved in Florence and shipped by sea to Naples, where it was assembled. The tomb was also innovative from an iconographic standpoint, renewing the canopy-tomb type already seen in the funerary sculptures of Tino da Camaino at Santa Chiara and Santa Maria Donna Regina Vecchia. Donatello's work displays a strong sense of theatricality achieved through a sophisticated handling of perspective and marks the first introduction of the stiacciato technique in Naples. His influence proved significant in the capital, affecting even lesser local sculptors, as demonstrated by the Tomb of Ludovico Aldomorisco by Antonio Baboccio da Piperno. Although completed a few years before the Brancaccio monument, it already exhibits compositional solutions associated with Donatello, probably acquired through the sculptor's travels throughout the Italian peninsula before settling in Naples.
The expansion works at San Giovanni a Carbonara witnessed the gradual overcoming of Late Gothic forms through the construction of the Caracciolo del Sole Chapel. The architectural layout of the interior still reflects the influence of large rib-vaulted umbrella domes. The first tentative departure from medieval conventions can be seen in the fresco cycles executed by non-local painters, who remained indebted to Giottesque and Cavallinian traditions while incorporating influences from beyond the Alps, particularly the Flemish approach, which was then spreading widely among the city's workshops. Especially innovative were the cycles by Leonardo da Besozzo, which reveal a growing sensitivity to the representation of spatial depth, though without attaining the scientific perspective developed by Brunelleschi and employed by Masaccio. Other artists active in this context included Perinetto da Benevento and Antonio da Fabriano.
The tomb of Sergianni Caracciolo deserves separate consideration. Dating from the 1420s and 1430s, its composition still belongs to the medieval conception of the funerary monument and is attributed to an artist from the Tuscan milieu who had not yet fully embraced classical expressiveness. Scholars have attributed the work either to Andrea Ciccione or Andrea Guardi, both Florentine sculptors and collaborators of Donatello, whose influence is evident in the full-length figures at the base of the monument. Also attributed to Andrea da Firenze is the enormous funerary monument dedicated to Ladislaus. Commissioned by Joanna, sister of the deceased king, the structure rises to approximately twenty metres in height, making it one of the most complex sculptural works produced during the early fifteenth century. The composition is arranged in four tiers. In the central section of the second tier, beneath an arch of modern taste, stand the statues of the two rulers supported by the four cardinal virtues. Enclosing the monument in the third and fourth tiers is the traditional funerary canopy already employed in the Angevin tombs of Tino da Camaino.
The reign of René of Anjou was particularly significant for Neapolitan art in the early fifteenth century. During this brief but intense period, supported by the king's patronage of numerous court artists, the north-south conjuncture reached its peak. Many Flemish artists arrived in Naples, the most prominent being Barthélemy d'Eyck, who established a painting workshop in the city where the master of Antonello da Messina, Colantonio, received his training.