CORRADINI, Antonio

Though Corradini’s desire to display his technical skill at times outstripped his inspiration, his virtuosity in marble was remarkable. This bust may be compared with his masterpiece, the statue of Modesty in the Sansevero chapel in Naples, one of the most bizarre works in the history of sculpture.

With great technical virtuosity the sculptor manages to make the marble seem transparent and to depict with extraordinary precision all the details of the beautiful face that emerges from beneath the veil. The work is undoubtedly a religious allegory (probably Purity), but the sculpture conveys the fresh, sensual image of a remarkably beautiful young woman, making it difficult to discern a non-profane meaning.

The Bucintoro was the splendid state barge on board of which the doges celebrated the ritual betrothal with the sea. Each year on the Feast of the Ascension, the state barge was sailed to the Lido for the traditional rite. Already in use in the 14th century, the Bucintoro seems to have even more ancient origins. The last of these barges was built in 1722-1728, carved and gilded by Antonio Corradini. All that remains of it is the splendid hatch cover, depicting St Mark, the city’s patron saint. Through this aperture the doge would cast the ring that wedded Venice to the sea.

Corradini executed the statue of Modesty as a tribute to Cecilia Gaetani, Raimondo’s mother, who had suggested to the artist that he should portray her in a new allegorical form, derived from the iconography of Spring. Taking up his favourite theme of women thinly veiled in transparent drapery, the artist concentrated almost exclusively on the surface finish, creating his last bravura piece.

No instance in Italian sculpture in this period is more extreme than the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, which was transformed into a a sculptural pantheon by Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, in the 1750s. By importing Antonio Corradini from Venice and Francesco Queirolo (1704-1762) from Genoa, the Prince of Sansevero evolved an elaborate programme of monuments and medallions to celebrate generations of his family, each in the light of a guiding virtue. The subjects of the tombs included Sincerity, Religious Zeal and Liberality, but the most remarkable works are Corradini’s Modesty and Queirolo’s Release from Deception. Paired in the chapel’s presbytery, they were conceived as monuments to the patron’s mother and father respectively.

The Modesty brilliantly exploits the contradiction between the properties of the marble and the transparency of the veil that both obscures and reveals the figure. The broken tablet at Modesty’s side refers to the premature death of the patron’s mother.

Contemporaries praised the sculptures of the Sansevero Chapel as surpassing Classical art in conception and accomplishment.

Due largely to the example of Versailles, copies of ancient or modern ‘classics’ for gardens became one of the great export industries for Italian sculptors during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Artists like Antonio Corradini and Domenico Guidi were in demand from Paris to St Petersburg, purveying works which drew heavily upon the examples of Giambologna and Bernini. They tended to follow set formulas which encompassed the seasons, abductions, and other mythological groups.

This marble group in the church of San Mois� shows the influence of Giuseppe Torretti.

The stance Corradini chooses for his Virginity in the church of Santa Maria del Carmelo (known I Carmini), with the figure bending slightly backward, the gesture of the right arm and the face lifted upward, can be traced back to Heinrich Meyring’s work.