Filmed as part of the Spring 2021 Digital Research Seminars presented by scholars affiliated with the O’Donnell Institute’s Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities in Naples.
26 March 2021
Dr. James Anno
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Circa 1656: Partenope, Plague and Mattia Preti’s Martyrdom of Saint Paul
Mattia Preti came of age as an artist under the fading star of Caravaggio in Rome. Upon completion in 1651 of his monumental altarpieces for S. Andrea delle Valle, Preti established himself as the preeminent painter in the caput mundi. After a brief stint in Modena, “Il Cavaliere Calabrese” opted to try his fortune in Naples, arriving to the bustling city on the bay in 1653. As one of the seventeenth century’s wealthiest port cities, merchant-collectors from across Europe vied for patronage of Parthenope’s leading artists. Among them is Jan Van den Einden, a wealthy and discerning collector who commissioned Preti to execute a series of three martyrdoms in 1655-56, including The Martyrdom of St. Paul now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This lecture seeks to explore the social and mercantile conditions that gave rise to this great masterpiece as Parthenope teetered on the brink of plague.
BIO
James Anno earned his PhD in art history from Washington University in St. Louis, where he wrote a dissertation on Michelangelo. From 2017 to 2019, James was the inaugural American Friends of Capodimonte post-doctoral curatorial fellow. At Capodimonte, James contributed to numerous exhibitions including Carta Bianca: Capodimonte Imaginaire, Depositi: Storie ancora da scrivere and Caravaggio Napoli. With interest in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, James has published essays on Francesco Guarino, Artemisia Gentileschi, and he co-authored with Christopher Bakke the exhibition catalogue Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum, which enjoyed venues in Seattle and Forth Worth. Since 2019, James has served as Associate Curator of European Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where he recently curatedthe exhibition Glory of Spain: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library.